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Florida Salaam Club to Celebrate 100 Years of Promoting Arab-American Culture
When Sylvia Yazgi’s son started kindergarten in Jacksonville many years ago, he met other children with similar-sounding names and similar appearances. So he proclaimed them his cousins.
The fact that his heritage was Syrian and theirs was Palestinian or Lebanese and there was no chance of them being cousins was beside the point.
“He was convinced they were blood related because they had Arabic names,” Yazgi said. “They have a kinship … It opens up their minds to accept other people.”
That kinship was nourished at the Salaam Club, the Arab American cultural hub founded in 1912 in Jacksonville as the Syrian-American Club of Florida. Among the 69 charter members was Yazgi’s great-grandfather’s uncle.
Subsequent generations of their family and other Arab Americans made the club their second home. Sylvia Yazgi, 63, has fond memories from her childhood of Christmas and Easter events, pageants, picnics at an area dairy farm, games and all sorts of other club-related activities — and her children have carried on the tradition.
“As long as I’ve been around, we’ve been members of the Salaam Club,” she said. “It was really exciting to be around all those people. We have grown up and passed it on. … A lot of really great memories.”
On Saturday, the 119 families who are current members of the club will celebrate its 100th anniversary at the Omni Hotel. The event will feature a “hafli” — an Arabic-themed party, with music and dancing — as well as dinner and a slide presentation showcasing the club’s history. About 425 people, including political and community leaders, are expected; tickets are no longer available.
The club was begun as a support group of sorts for the small but growing number of Arab immigrants who came to Jacksonville in the early 1900s seeking religious and political freedom.
In 1905, an estimated 69 Syrians had settled here; by 1920, their number had risen to 333, according to U.S. Census figures.
They were surrounded by an unfamiliar language and culture. The club helped them adjust to the new and preserve the old. And it is playing the same role in the 2000s, as new generations of Arabs seek modern-day religious and political freedom.
An estimated 7,606 people in Duval County claimed Arab ancestry in the Census Bureau’s 2006-10 American Community Survey.
Now and in 1912, Arab-American children learn English in school and learn the Arabic language from their immigrant parents and grandparents, who are in turn learning English from the children.
“A lot of the parents are still learning English, the kids are learning both. It’s assimilation starting all over again,” Yazgi said.
That ongoing assimilation includes expanding opportunities for women.
For most of its 100-year history, the club was male-dominated but began to admit women as full members in their own right — as opposed to being someone’s wife — in 1981.
And in 2007, the club elected its first woman president.
Beth Reese Cravey
Jacksonville.com