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Introduction: “Turco” Immigrants in Latin America

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Ignacio Klich
Affiliation:
University of Westminster, London, England
Jeffrey Lesser
Affiliation:
Connecticut College, New London, Connecticut

Abstract

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Type
Introduction
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1996

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References

1 Chuaqui, Benedicto, “Arabs in Chile,” Las Americas, 4:12, 1952 Google Scholar; Klich, Ignacio, “Argentine-Ottoman Relations and Their Impact on Immigrants from the Middle East: A History of Unfulfilled Expectations, 1910–1915,” The Americas, 50:3, 1993.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 See Fernández’s, Alberto review of Judaica Latinoamericana 11 in Estudios Interdisciplinarios de América Latina y el Caribe (Tel Aviv), 6:2, 1995, 164.Google Scholar

3 Graham, Richard, ed., The Idea of Race in Latin America, 1870–1940 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990)Google Scholar; Fernandes, Florestan, “Immigration and Race Relations in São Paulo,” in Mörner, Magnus, ed., Race and Class in Latin America (New York: Columbia University Press, 1970), pp. 122–42.Google Scholar

4 Catterberg, Edgardo and Vanoli, Nora, “Attitudes Toward Jews in Argentina: A Public-Opinion Survey,” American Jewish Committee, New York, 1993.Google Scholar

5 In this respect, some of the actors” reluctance to be interviewed is not an experience affecting non-ethnic researchers only. Indeed, several Arab descended scholars have reported disappointing experiences not only with potential interviewees but also with access to the papers of Arab institutions. See, for example, Cuevas Seba, Teresa and Plasencio, Miguel Mañana, Los libaneses de Yucatán (Mérida, 1990), p. 38 Google Scholar; Zeraoui, Zidane, “Los arabes en México: entre la integración y el arabismo,” (mimeo), 1992?Google Scholar

6 Asuntos Arabes (Buenos Aires), 1:1, 1973, p. 34; Binayán, Narciso, La colectividad armenia en la Argentina (Buenos Aires: Alzamor Editores, 1974), p. 7.Google Scholar

7 La Siria nueva: Obra histórica, estadística, y comercial de la colectividad sirio-otomana en las Repúblicas Argentina y Uruguay (Buenos Aires, 1917); Zeraoui, “Los árabes.”

8 Seluja Cecín, Antonio D., Seluja Cecín, Los libaneses en el Uruguay (Montevideo: Author’s edition, 1989), pp. 5556 Google Scholar; Cazorla, Liliana, La inmigración siria y libanesa en la Provincia de Buenos Aires a través de sus instituciones étnicas (Buenos Aires: Fundación Los Cedros, 1995), p. 65.Google Scholar

9 Boulgourdjian-Toufeksian, Nélida, “Armenian Immigration to Buenos Aires, 1900–1925,” Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies, 6, 1992–93.Google Scholar

10 Binayán, , La colectividad, pp. 2223.Google Scholar

11 See, for example, the Armenian church’s monthly bulletin, Hai Guetron (Buenos Aires), Special issue, 1936; “La colectividad armenia de Buenos Aires a su distinguido miembro y benefactor don Hrana Nikotian, Buenos Aires, 30 de julio de 1936.”

12 Elie, Habalián D., “La comunidad venezolana-levantina y la sociedad venezolana: Primera aproximación” (mimeo), Universidad Central de Venezuela, Caracas, May 1991 Google Scholar; Jozami, Gladys, “La identidad nacional de los llamados turcos en la Argentina,” Temas de AfricayAsia (Buenos Aires), 2, 1993.Google Scholar Presumably because of this, the suggestive title of a recent article described Buenos Aires early Arabs as if they had come from Turkey, rather than the Arab world. See Bertoni, Lilia Ana, “De Turquía a Buenos Aires: Una colectividad nueva a fines del siglo XIX,” Estudios Migratorios Latinoamericanos, 9:26, 1994.Google Scholar

13 Born in Crete, the Jew in question, Isaac Isjaqui, lived many years in Izmir before moving to Buenos Aires, where his fonda/pensión was situated in the downtown area where many Syrians and Lebanese also first settled. At the time, Isjaqui’s Café del griego (a name consistent with the fact that Argentina’s immigration authorities classed the earliest Arab and Armenian arrivals, regardless of creed, as Greeks and Turks) not only provided a meeting point for Armenians but also board and lodging for many a recently arrived Middle Easterner, especially from Turkey. Boulgourdijian, Nélida Elena, “Los armenios en Buenos Aires: Primera oleada migratoria (1909–1930),” Todo es Historia, August 1992, p.79.Google Scholar See also the letter of Cohen Isjaqui, Héctor I., Todo es Historia, November 1992; Bertoni.Google Scholar

14 Cazorla, , La inmigración siria, pp. 113, 124.Google Scholar

15 Schwarz, Roberto, “Brazilian Culture: Nationalism by Elimination,” New Left Review (London), 167, (January-February 1988), pp. 7790.Google Scholar

16 Hall, Michael M., “New Approaches to Immigration History,” in Graham, Richard and Smith, Peter H., eds., New Approaches to Latin American History (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1974).Google Scholar

17 Skidmore, Thomas E., “Fact and Myth: Discovering a Racial Problem in Brazil,” Working Paper 173,Google Scholar Helen Kellog Institute for International Studies, Notre Dame, 1992; Fiola, Jan, “Race Relations in Brazil: A Reassessment of the ‘Racial Democracy’ Thesis,” Occasional Papers, Program in Latin American Studies, University of Massachussets, Amherst, 1990 Google Scholar; Fontaine, Pierre-Michel, ed., Race, Class and Power in Brazil (Los Angeles: Center for Afro-American Studies, 1985).Google Scholar

18 See, for example, Arslan, Emir, Los árabes (Buenos Aires: Espasa Calpe, 1943), third edition, pp. 2224 Google Scholar; Hallar, Ibrahim, Descubrimiento de América por los árabes (Buenos Aires: author’s edition, 1959).Google Scholar

19 Schnapper, Dominique, “La citoyenneté à l’épreuve: les musulmans pendant la guerre du Golfe,” Revue Française de Science Politique (Paris), 43:2, 1993, p. 191.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

20 Clarín (Buenos Aires), 1991.

21 Clarín, 27 March 1996.

22 Interestingly, the Englishman repeatedly quoted by Cardinal Quarracino was Hillaire Belloc, a Catholic author avidly read by Argentina’s extreme nationalists of the 1930s and 1940s, as well as others, On the reading materials of Argentina’s nationalists, see Nascimbene, Mario C. and Neuman, Mauricio Isaac, “El nacionalismo católico, el fascismo y la inmigración en la Argentina (1927–1943): Una aproximación teórica,” Estudios Interdisciplinarios de América Latina y el Caribe, 4:1, 1993, p. 124.Google Scholar Inevitably, the choice of Belloc and Cardinal Quarracino’s earlier complimentary references to the late Leonardo Castellani, a long deceased Jesuit intellectual and failed Alianza Libertadora Nacionalista (ALN) parliamentary candidate in 1946, who, like the original ALN, was Judeophobic, may also give rise to legitimate questions about the sincerity of his Judeophilia. Quarracino’s enthusiatic pro-Israeli bent after a trip to the Holy Land in the 1960s, as well as his role in the Christian-Jewish dialogue, need neither be seen a priori as automatic proof of Judeophilia nor necessarily be taken as inconsistent with a possible animus against all Semites, whether Arab or Jewish, especially when recalling Castellani’s own qualified advocacy of a Jewish state in 1945.

23 Clarín, 12 and 23 April, and 2 May 1996.

24 Antonio Cardenal Quarracino to Hiyyatulislam Mohsen Rabbani, 9 April 1996; Clarín, 17 April 1996. Unlike his apologies in private, a later article by the Buenos Aires archbishop only suggests a belated endorsement of the Holy See’s dialogue with other Christian and non-Christian creeds, Islam included, with his sole self-admitted error in respect of the Muslims being his reference to them as Muhammedans. See Clarín, 22 May 1996.

25 Morris, Benny, “The New Historiography: Israel Confronts its Past,” Tikkun (Oakland), 3:6, 1988, pp. 19, 23, 99, 102Google Scholar; Pappe, Ilan, “The New History and Sociology of Israel: A Challenge to the Old Version,” Palestine-Israel Journal (Jerusalem), 2:3, 1995, pp. 7076.Google Scholar

26 Organized by this issue’s guest editors on behalf of the Latin American Jewish Studies Association (LAJSA), the session also included useful papers by Jorge Bestene, Diana Epstein and Darío Euraque, which have since seen the light of day elsewhere. See Euraque, Darío A., “Formación nacional, mestizaje y la inmigración árabe palestina a Honduras, 1880–1930,’” Estudios Migratorios Latinoamericanos (Buenos Aires), 9:26, 1994 Google Scholar; Bestene, Jorge Ornar, “La política migratoria Argentina y la inmigración de sirios y libaneses,” Studi Emigrazioni (Rome), 32:118, 1995 Google Scholar; Epstein, Diana Lía, “Los judeo-marroquíes en Buenos Aires: pautas matrimoniales 1875–1910,” Estudios Interdisciplinarios de América Latina y el Caribe, 6:1, 1995.Google Scholar

27 This will be published as a special issue of Immigrants and Minorities.