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Syrian Refugees in Latin America: Diaspora Communities As Interlocutors

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Syrian Refugees in Latin America: Diaspora Communities As Interlocutors DEBATES: LATIN AMERICA AND THE MIDDLE EAST Syrian Refugees in Latin America: Diaspora 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 Europe (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 United States 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: Islam in to roll back months of progress toward of displaced people, we must assume a Latin America, the Caribbean, 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 France 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 Diasporas.” 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 Arab diaspora follows Venezuela’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 Lebanese Diaspora at the Tri-Border Contemporary Migrant Flows Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. In marked and the Redrawing of South American contrast, Brazil 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 Syrians have entered Brazil Workers and Chile’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. 9 lasaforum winter 2016 : volume xlvii : issue 1 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 Buenos Aires, 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 Arabic 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 South America, nodes. In Argentina, 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 Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, 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 Ottoman Empire 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 Mexico 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 Arab world. 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
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