The Lebanese diaspora is an integral part and socio-economic reality, not only of Lebanon’s social formation, but of transnational capitalism. I explore hegemonic capitalist values between Mexico and Lebanon through a narrative that gives politically and religiously informed value to being Lebanese: An important distinction and emic category I quickly deciphered in the field was the reference of being Phoenecian rather than being Lebanese or Arab, making Phoenecianism a central strategy for belonging among the Mexican Lebanese, and drawing a discursive and imagined line that reproduces the substantial socio-political division of our times. Phoenecianism alludes to a white, pre-Arab existence of the Christian Maronites, it delivers a narrative of being descendants of the first and most successful traders of the world. This narrative of a Phoenecian inheritance in Lebanon has been a strategy of the right-wing nationalists in Lebanon and represents a pro-European identity that is shared with the local elites, and usually not recognized among the Lebanese community in Mexico. How is the quality of being Lebanese understood and represented among the Lebanese Mexicans? How to reflect upon the process of designing a research project that is fashioned by an ethnographer who is one of the (lost) children of the Lebanese diaspora? This paper aims to explore Phoenecianism as something that delivers affect and connection between values and ideas. How does Phoenecianism relate to and reproduce histories of empire and colonialism in Mexico, and how is this shaping the complex and unequal social fabric of the country? Methodologically, I will also reflect on my own position as a German-Lebanese researcher from the global north, to bring to light how the friendship ties are essential in the development of a research project, closely related to the privileging and positioning of my own body as implicated in the ethnographic praxis.