[LINK] "Salaam aleikoum, Latinoamérica"

[rfmcdonald]

Courrier International's Patricia R. Blanco has an article describing the rather large and influential immigrant diaspora from the Arab world in Latin America.

They are political leaders, intellectuals, soldiers, bankers, artists and entrepreneurs. Just mention some people, like the Argentine president Carlos Menem (of Syrian origin), or Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim (of Lebanese origin), and you'll illustrate the extent of Arab emigration to Latin America. during the first third of the twentieth century. Subsequent generations have kept some of their Arab roots, but "in their own interest, the first emigrants committed a kind of cultural suicide to ease their integration," explains Abdeluahed Akmir, a Moroccan university professor who oversaw the drafting a book on the subject. The first Arabs, derogatorily called "Turks" because they came from the Ottoman Empire, wanted to ensure that their children would not face with the rejection they had themselves suffered. "They gave them Spanish names, they did not teach then their mother tongue, and they converted to Catholicism, registering in religious schools," explains Professor Akmir. The conversion has not been so difficult, because the first waves of emigrants were composed mainly of Maronite Christians and Orthodox.

[. . .]

Many Latin Americans have "discovered" the Arabs, especially in the region of the Triple Border, an area between Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay, which hosts a large number of new Muslim migrants. Those who were marginalized on ethnic grounds in the early twentieth century are now excluded for religious reasons. The result is a confusion between race and religion among Arabs and Muslim world. And this new form of discrimination has prompted new generation Arab-Latin American, who reject the association between Islam and terrorism, and who again assert their identity, engage with their culture and feel proud to belong to the civilization of their ancestors.