Coming of Age as Syrian Jewish Mexicans: The Pragmatics of Diaspora By Evelyn MaríaDean‐Olmsted, Leiden: Brill. 2026. 257 pages

Amidst a contemporary global political climate in which "Arab" and "Jew" are so often assumed to be antonyms, how do some people identify as both simultaneously?And when their identification practices encompass yet more socially perceived contradictions, like being both "Jewish" and "Mexican," how do they assert the validity of claiming all of these identities together and at once?How do these identification practices occur through and become apparent in their language use?These are the questions that Evelyn María Dean-Olmsted sets out to answer in her linguistic ethnography Coming of Age as Syrian Jewish Mexicans: The Pragmatics of Diaspora.With its focus on the multi-chronotopic discourse of Arab Jewish Mexicans, the book is poised to contribute to linguistic anthropological scholarship that examines how transnational social identification takes shape in and through everyday interaction.Specifically, it situates individuals' linguistic choices within the sociohistorical and political contexts that render them indexically meaningful, showing readers how speakers draw on those contexts to position themselves within and in relation to them.Through this focus on language use, the author demonstrates the creative agency involved not only in communicative practices but also in modern religiosity.Contrary to popular notions of "religious" individuals blindly following directives, those profiled in the book are engaged in a constant process of conscious negotiation in relation to their religiosity.Attending to the linguistic resources they draw on illuminates that process and helps to reorient popular ideas about contemporary religiosity.Because the book sits at the intersection between linguistic anthropology and the anthropology of religion, it is relevant to scholars in each area.It is particularly relevant to students, as the author intentionally presents the theoretical concepts she uses-and makes the case for the usefulness of linguistic anthropology-with a nonspecialist audience in mind.Though some familiarity with disciplinary concepts is probably necessary for full comprehension of the text, the book is appropriate for readers who want to learn how identities rooted in multiple places and social collectivities at once emerge through ordinary interactions.Dean-Olmsted's interlocutors are young adults in Mexico City who belong to the locally predominant Halebi (Aleppan descendant) or Shami (Damascene/Beiruti descendant) Jewish communities.For those involved in the study, all three of the identification categories the author highlights-Jewish, Arab, Mexican-seem to be central both to their self-definition