The history of the Lebanese diaspora and their influence on the world's economies and cultures is discussed with George Attalah's father.
The Attala family immigrated to the United States after the Civil War broke out in 1975. They settled in Queens, New York and have a classic bootstrap immigrant tale.
George Sr. used phonebooks to build up his client base as a banker by looking for Lebanese names and calling them up. He recognized where the last names correlated with what parts of Lebanon they were from.