DEBATES: AND THE

Syrian Refugees in Latin America: Communities as Interlocutors

by Lily Balloffet | North Carolina State University | [email protected]

Lesser, Jeffrey, and Ignacio Klich, eds. In the wake of the tragic mid-November Southeastern (fewer than ten bombings in Paris, there has been a thousand have come to Latin America, in 1998 Arab and Jewish Immigrants in Latin America: Images and Realities. New York: staggeringly rapid response from politicians contrast to the more than six million Routledge. in the regarding U.S. displaced people in the Middle East and immigration policy toward Syrian refugees. Southern Europe). Nevertheless, if we are Logroño Narbona, Maria del Mar, Paulo G. Within a matter of days, dozens of truly invested in understanding the Pinto, and John Tofik Karam, eds. governors made public statements intended mechanics of the growing transatlantic flow 2015 Crescent over Another Horizon: in to roll back months of progress toward of displaced people, we must assume a Latin America, the , and Latino legislation that would grant asylum to transregional analysis of how newly arrived USA. Austin: University of Texas Press. thousands of Syrian refugees. In contrast, refugees are becoming incorporated into Latin American leaders’ expressions of host societies in the Americas. Rousseff, Dilma sympathy and solidarity with have 2015 “Refugees and Hope.” World Post: not been accompanied by a reactionary Since September 2015 alone, multiple Latin Huffington Post. September 21. http://www. wave of anti-immigration discourse. As is American leaders have come forward to huffingtonpost.com/dilma-rousseff/brazil- typical of sensationalistic press coverage, propose, and in some cases enact, new refugees_b_8170932.html. the international media has largely ignored policy initiatives affecting refugees. The Silverstein, Paul a century of Syrian migration to the most dramatic gesture was, by far, Western Hemisphere. This article provides Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro’s 2015 “Anthropologies of Middle Eastern historical context, as well as a discussion of statement to his cabinet that he would like .” In A Companion to the Anthropology of the Middle East, edited by current policy initiatives targeting Syrian to invite 20 thousand Syrian refugees to Soraya Altorki, 282–315. Oxford: John Wiley refugees in Latin America. We must make their home in his country. This and Sons. understand how the global follows ’s expulsion of thousands has shaped current immigration policies of Colombians living on Venezuelan soil, Stites Mor, Jessica and nongovernmental support networks for and since September Maduro’s gesture 2014 “The Question of Palestine in the refugees. I will also discuss future directions toward Syrian-oriented refugee policy Argentine Political Imaginary: Anti-Imperialist for research that will improve our ability to remains just that—a gesture, not formalized Thought from Cold War to Neoliberal Order.” speak in an informed manner about policy. In other cases, Latin American Journal of Iberian and Latin American diasporic Middle Eastern communities in leaders have more nebulously professed Research 20 (2): 183–197. the Americas. “open arms” to Syrian refugees, as was the Tofik Karam, John case with Chilean president Michelle Bachelet and former Argentine president 2013 “The at the Tri-Border Contemporary Migrant Flows Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. In marked and the Redrawing of South American contrast, has issued more Geopolitics, 1950–1992.” Mashriq and Mahjar: Journal of Middle East Migration Press coverage and social media bombard humanitarian visas than the rest of Latin Studies 1 (1): 55–84. us with conflicting messages about Latin America and the United States combined America’s role in receiving Syrian refugees (over two thousand as of September), and Winn, Peter during the current “migration crisis.” the government estimates that some four 1991 Weavers of Revolution: The Yarur Grandiose statements from national leaders thousand more have entered Brazil Workers and ’s Road to Socialism. are dramatized, yet Latin American asylum outside officially documented paths. As Oxford: Oxford University Press. data almost unilaterally fails to appear in increasing numbers of U.S. politicians reports on where displaced peoples end up pressure their government to tighten landing. It is indeed true that, so far, the restrictions on Syrian resettlement within total number of officially documented cases U.S. borders, we must consider the of asylum and special visas granted by potential diversion of some of this Latin American host countries is minuscule transatlantic flow of refugees to Latin in comparison to displacement figures America, and a subsequent spike in visa within the Middle East and arrivals to requests or asylum petitions.

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However, what happens to Syrian and part of much larger immigration booms Voluntary associations such as São Paulo’s other Middle Eastern refugees upon their of the mid to late nineteenth century, and Homs Club, the Club Sirio Libanés of arrival to the Americas depends heavily on they generally entered through major , or Club Libanés Sirio what sort of federally funded support clearinghouse ports such as Buenos Aires Palestino of Santiago, performed a variety systems are in place, and what kind of and Santos. In the case of landlocked areas of services for their Arab Latin American nongovernmental networks and actors have such as the Gran Chaco, smaller groups of members. These were sites of medical care, tried to fill the gaps when these systems are Levantine speakers made their way informal banking, and conscious lacking. Attention to these questions has overland to remote outposts, and many set preservation of the Arabic language, among been, so far, oblique and much less up shop as purveyors of dry goods and other things. These types of associations publicized than sweeping proclamations other materials that would sustain the appeared, predictably, in ethnically diverse made by heads of state, some of whom find inhabitants of rural frontier spaces. This urban centers with large immigrant themselves treading water amid public first wave of arrivals did not often leave populations but also in rural towns and outcry, or the tenuous party politics of behind abundant documentation as to how villages throughout Latin America. campaign seasons. Or both. This discourse they made their way from their port of must be situated within the much longer arrival to their final destination. Despite an increasing number of studies of history of Syrians who have been coming to Nevertheless, we can track this ethnic Arab diaspora communities focusing on settle in Latin America for well over one community’s steady expansion across Latin core urban migration areas such as New hundred years now. American terrain by other means, such as York, Cairo, São Paulo, or Buenos Aires, mapping the societies and institutions that we still know relatively little about how this first generation established. these central migratory hubs related to vast Syrian Migration in Historical Perspective networks of rural, provincial diasporic Throughout North and , nodes. In , the Latin American Beginning in the late nineteenth century, hometown clubs, mutual aid societies, nation that received the most Levantine more than a quarter of a million people intellectual circles, business bureaus, and immigrants prior to 1940, we can clearly from the current geographic territory of religious institutions pertaining to these see the proliferation of Syrian and Lebanese , , , and Palestine Middle Eastern immigrant communities heritage societies along the burgeoning began to emigrate from the crumbling began to appear in the first decades of the Argentine railway system of the early 1900s to Latin America. Driven twentieth century. These voluntary that carried Middle Eastern immigrants primarily by the lure of opportunity, and associations acted as essential conduits in deep into Argentina’s interior (see figure 1). even prosperity, that American horizons linking together members of the larger offered, these waves of immigrants were Arab diaspora, or mahjar, who looked to The steady “transnational turn” in not refugees as is the case today. Exact effect political, intellectual, or economic methodological approaches to numbers are difficult to pinpoint, but by change back in the Middle East. Events understanding history has illuminated the 1940 some three hundred thousand Arabic such as the 1925 Syrian Revolt, or World importance of recognizing the transnational speakers from the Eastern Mediterranean Wars I and II, were met with a flurry of exchanges of people, politics, money, and had arrived in Latin America, from philanthropic campaigns, political activism, cultural production that exist between Northern to the Patagonian and debates in vibrant diasporic print diaspora communities and their territory. The communities and networks media. This culture of long-distance homelands—in this case Latin America and that these individuals proceeded to build involvement, characterized by a circulation the . New historiography in the more than a century ago persist today. They of resources and ideas, is indicative of the field of migration studies has consistently have also placed this heritage community in existence of a “transnational public sphere” pushed us to conceive of transnational the spotlight as potential interlocutors at that connected Arab to networks as our base unit of analysis, another moment of mass migration from both their Middle Eastern homelands and rather than neatly defined geopolitical (and within) the Middle East. diaspora communities across the globe packages. However, as a result, few studies (Fahrenthold 2014; Bailony 2013; Amar of the Arab diaspora, especially of its Latin In nations such as Brazil and Argentina, 2014). American region, have considered the Middle Eastern immigrants represented a actual mechanics by which these immigrant

10 Figure 1: Middle Eastern heritage societies in Argentina

of cultural production, this network also fostered Arab Argentine artistic, literary, and cinematic innovation that benefited from a network of funding generated by a web of Levantine immigrants across South America. Through periods of economic depression and state violence and other difficult times, these associations helped to sustain Arab diaspora communities economically, culturally, and socially.

The case of Argentina’s Syrian-Lebanese Hospital is an illustrative example of how the Arab Argentine diasporic network collectively executed major institutional projects. In 1917, a group of elite Arab Argentine women came together to form a secular association by the name of Sociedad de Obras de Misericordia, later renaming themselves the Asociación de Beneficencia Pro Hospital Sirio Libanés in 1923, when they turned their focus entirely to the task of building a clinic that would cater to their ethnic community (for example, it would have a bilingual Arabic-Spanish medical team). Only a decade later, they had raised enough money to purchase the property for the Syrian-Lebanese Hospital and immediately began the construction of additional medical facilities. It was a momentous feat of fund-raising, and even then president of Argentina, General Agustín P. Justo, was in attendance at the hospital’s groundbreaking ceremony. communities formed the local networks concluded that it was this network of The funds that they raised for this project that enabled large-scale transnational flows diasporic nodes that ranged from tiny rural came from all over the country—from of culture and capital. What has been communities to the federal capitals provincial capitals to tiny villages on the missed, in pursuing analyses of these global throughout the which Bolivian border and down into the networks, in regard to the local networks enabled the execution of large-scale Patagonian territory. The women who that underpinned them? projects that took place in Buenos Aires. managed the execution of this project These projects included construction of the actually referred to the provinces as their In my own research in national archives Syrian-Lebanese Hospital and Syrian- “Pillars of Gold.” They created a structure and local heritage associations in six Lebanese Bank, and international of “Official and Honorary Delegates,” Argentine provinces, I discovered evidence philanthropic campaigns that aided natural whom they charged with spreading the of a vibrant network of Arab Argentine disaster victims, for example, in , word about their project and who would institutions that spanned the nation. I Russia, or Jerusalem. From the perspective organize fund-raising campaigns across the

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country, and even across the Southern Cone Heritage Associations and Local Networks In the case of the Argentine Programa Siria more widely. Regional heritage visa policy, the importance of kinship ties organizations in the provinces acted as Media coverage of Latin American between and is built into conduits for these fund-raising efforts, and responses to the Syrian refugee situation the legislation. Applicants for emergency individuals associated with these groups provides evidence that some of these visas through this program must served as guides for fund-raisers from the organizations actively entered debates on demonstrate a bond of kinship with an capital, who ventured far out into rural visa and asylum policy. In Argentina, for Argentine who will then act as their areas to drum up donations. The successful example, the Islamic Cultural Center of sponsor. One young Syrian refugee recently efforts of this campaign to build the Argentina, the Federation of Argentine described to the Argentine press how her hospital resulted in the Syrian-Lebanese Arab Entities, and the Orthodox Church uncle in Buenos Aires, whom she had never Hospital becoming a powerful and have sent representatives to work with met before, was nevertheless able to act as well-endowed institution within the wider Argentine policy makers on that her sponsor under Programa Siria. In this Arab Argentine community. It also government’s emergency humanitarian visa case, her great-uncle’s local Arab Argentine provided an institutional platform from program known as “Programa Siria.” In heritage organization, Asociación Kalaat which its board of directors could make Brazil, organizations such as the Liga da Yandal, was able to help facilitate the decisions about engaging in transnational Juventude Islâmica Beneficente do Brasil process. Founded in the 1930s by the first philanthropy in the form of remitting funds and the Do Pari mosque of São Paulo offer group of Syrian immigrants hailing from to the Middle East in times of crisis and Portuguese language classes to newly the village of Qal’at Jandal, the association natural disaster. arrived immigrants and provide services to was founded with the aim of creating a aid new arrivals in the navigation of space where Syrian immigrants could Looking at organizations like the Syrian- Brazilian bureaucratic systems. In Mexico gather, speak their language, eat typical Lebanese Hospital allows us to decenter City, some five hundred Mexicans of Arab Syrian food, and keep in contact with our vision of the Arab diaspora in heritage participated in a September 2015 others who immigrated to Argentina from Argentina by looking beyond urban hubs protest outside the Secretariat of Foreign the Middle East. More than seventy years and major immigration ports and Affairs, in which they called upon their later, heritage associations such as examining the role of “peripheral” government to expedite policy initiatives Asociación Kalaat Yandal are looking to diasporic nodes in the formation of local that would provide asylum for Syrian once again assert this mission. networks, institution building, and refugees. philanthropy. As we see with the hospital, Groups that advocate increased Syrian and indeed many other organizations, the Beyond federal capitals and major cities migration to Latin American host countries periphery was in fact instrumental in the such as São Paulo, provincial associations have also employed rhetoric that harkens construction of international networks of such as Argentina’s Centro Sirio Libanés of back to nineteenth-century discourses on diasporic Arabs across Latin America, and Gualeguaychú, in the northeastern province immigration and colonization. A November also in terms of the transnational of Entre Ríos, have also come forward to 13 letter from eight Arab Argentine connections that these diasporic announce their intention to house Syrian associations directed to former president communities cultivated with the Middle refugees. The Centro recently publicized to Fernández de Kirchner went so far as to East/ region. For many of the national press that it had organized the suggest the positive benefits of resettling these Arab Argentine organizations, these necessary resources to take eight to ten Syrian refugees in Argentina’s sparsely transnational charitable campaigns persist Syrian families into its community. The populated regions such as . In today. This raises the question: is it possible Syrian-Lebanese community of the rural this case, we witness an eerie echo of for Arab Latin American heritage town of Oberá, in the Argentine province nineteenth-century gobernar es poblar organizations to play the role of of Misiones, has also been meeting with ideology. Simultaneously, it is also an interlocutor between Latin American provincial administrators to push through interesting subversion of an era of positivist governments and Levantine refugees who paperwork that would allow the relatives logic, which insisted that to populate a wish to attempt a new life on Latin of misioneros of Arab descent to bring nation with immigrant stock was indeed American soil today? family members from Syria to Oberá. the best course of action, but with the strict

12 caveat that said immigrant stock must be to Argentine society at large. It is clear that available to us, such as national census and European and white. at mid-century, as in 2015, anxiety over immigration records, on a country by preserving a certain image of Arab diaspora country basis. From there, we can start to Lest the above examples risk painting an communities in Latin America—be that an build a sharper picture of where Syrian, overly rosy picture of Arab Latin image based on socioeconomic status, Lebanese, and Palestinian immigrants to Americans as interlocutors during this time politics, or religion—plays into diasporic the Americas settled, and in what numbers, of mass migration, it is also important to responses to “open arms” policies for over the course of the past hundred years. acknowledge that contemporary migration Syrian migrants. Ideally, these demographic maps of the flows from the Middle East have not been Arab diaspora in Latin America will even met with uniform solidarity. A recent report hold the potential for us to track whether emanating from the Paris Institute of Achieving Accurate Demographics or not refugees from the Middle East today Political Studies characterized the gravitate toward historically populous Arab involvement of Arab diaspora communities Beyond the need to historically Latin American diasporic nodes when they in the reception of refugees as “well below contextualize current polemics regarding make their transatlantic journeys. Here at its potential.” The authors of this report refugee policy in Latin America, media North Carolina State University’s Moise A. also point out that some individuals of coverage of these events also serves as a Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Syrian heritage in Latin America fear that blatant reminder that we are currently Studies, a team of historians has already the arrival of Muslim refugees would operating from a place of acute uncertainty begun this work and is making great strides change the image of the diaspora, which when it comes to reliable demographic data in the task of digitally mapping North was historically mainly Christian. Adolfo regarding Latin Americans of Middle American Arab communities. In an effort to Numi, director of the Syrian Charitable Eastern heritage. A century after the initial extend these maps into the Southern Society in Chile, is quoted as recently waves of Levantine immigrants brought Hemisphere, scholars in the field of Middle saying in a public interview: “We want to some three hundred thousand people from East migration studies have already bring Syrian refugees to Chile, and we don’t the greater Syrian region of the Ottoman compiled the archival material necessary to want to discriminate by religion, but we Empire, estimates of how many “Arab” expand this digital mapping project to want the Syrian community in Chile to Latin Americans live today in nations such encompass Central and South American remain Christian in its majority” (Baeza as Brazil, Mexico, Chile, and Argentina Arab diaspora communities, and it is only a 2015). have exploded. Unsubstantiated claims that matter of time before the numbers start to there are currently upwards of 10 million, become clearer. The gulf between the anxieties expressed by or even 25 million Latin Americans of Numi and the response of organizations Syrian, Lebanese, and Palestinian heritage In addition to crunching numbers and such as Gualeguaychú’s Centro Sirio appear repeatedly and anecdotally in dispelling overblown (yet rarely questioned) Libanés also recalls controversies and journalistic renderings of Latin America– estimates of the population of Arab Latin fractures present among the first and Middle East relations. How did we arrive Americans, this type of data mining can second generation of Arab Latin Americans. at these numbers? Who are we imagining also lead us to revise long-standing cultural In one dramatic case in Argentina, a these numbers to represent? At the root of myths. For example, a recent demographic scandal broke out in the early 1940s when this problem (perhaps one of many roots), analysis of first-generation Syrians and an Arab Argentine newspaper attempted to is the lack of any formal consensus in terms Lebanese in the United States has effectively uncover the abuses of a powerful Syrian- of what it means to identify as, or be dispelled the myth that the first wave of Lebanese heritage association. The exposé identified as, Arab Latin American. immigrants was almost entirely comprised accused one of Buenos Aires’ most historic of single men. In fact, records show that mutual aid societies of forcibly Scholars need to do the demographic grunt more than 40 percent of early twentieth “repatriating” destitute Syrians living in work that will finally allow us to achieve a century Levantine arrivals were women Argentina. The accusing newspaper decried more accurate portrait of Middle Eastern (Vartanian and Khater 2015). This raises what they saw as elite ’ immigration to Latin America, from the the question: What other populations, desire to sanitize and police the image of first generation on. We should begin by besides women, have been edited out of Middle Easterners that would be presented mining the data sets that we do have many generations of mahjar

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historiography? How sturdy is the Bailony, Reem foundation upon which we have 2013 “Transnationalism and the Syrian constructed our understanding of the Migrant Community: The Case of the 1925 migratory flows that have long connected Syrian Revolt.” Mashriq and Mahjar: Journal these two world regions? of Middle East Diaspora Studies 1 (1). http:// lebanesestudies.ojs.chass.ncsu.edu/index.php/ There of course remains much work to be mashriq/article/view/3. done before we achieve a more complete Diario Sirio Libanés demographic picture of the distribution and mechanics of the Latin American region of 2015 “Proponen nuevo proyecto para the global Arab diaspora. In the meantime, recepción de sirios.” Diario Sirio Libanés, November 11. http://www.diariosiriolibanes. there remains the urgency of finding com.ar/Actualidad/Argentina/Proponen- solutions to the burgeoning population of nuevo-proyecto-para-recepci%C3%B3n-de- stateless people passing through the sirios. Mediterranean border region. As these individuals fan out across the globe, we will Fahrenthold, Stacy doubtless continue to periodically turn our 2014 “The Global Levant: Making a Nation in attention to the role that Latin American the Syrian and Lebanese Diaspora, 1913– nations propose to play in the migration 1939.” PhD diss., Northeastern University, crisis. When doing this, scholars should Boston. keep in mind the force that historic Vartanian, Haley, and Akram Khater diasporic networks can potentially bring to bear on the experience that awaits those 2015 “The Myth of the Peddler: A Re- refugees who do navigate their way to examining of Early Lebanese-American Roles Latin American shores. in the U.S.” Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies, North Carolina State University, Raleigh.

References

Amar, Paul, ed. 2014 The Middle East and Brazil: Perspectives on the New Global South. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Baeza, Cecilia 2015 “Note d’analyse n. 1: Refugees from Syria in Latin America: Beyond the Rhetoric.” SciencesPo, Observatoire politique de l’Amérique latine et des Caraïbes, October. http://www.sciencespo.fr/opalc/sites/ sciencespo.fr.opalc/files/OPALC_RI_NA%20 1_%20Baeza_Syrian%20refugees%20in%20 Latin%20America_oct%2015%20-%20V2. pdf.

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