Argentine-Ottoman Relations and Their Impact on Immigrants from the Middle East: A History of Unfulfilled Expectations, 1910-1915

Abstract

During the last quarter of the nineteenth century and first three decades of this one, a small though increasing number of Middle Easterners–principally Lebanese, Syrians, and Palestinians–made their way to the Americas. Hitherto a little studied influx, the Arabic speakers were part of the largely southern European immigration that reached Latin America in general, and Argentina in particular. Included among the arrivals were the forebears of such future heads of state as Argentina's Carlos Saúl Menem, Bolivia's Juan Pereda Asbún, Colombia's Julio César Turbay Ayala, the Dominican Republic's Elías Wessín y Wessín, or Uruguay's Alberto Abdala, and of such presidential hopefuls as Paulo Salim Maluf (Brazil), Abdala Bucaram (Ecuador), and Jorge Dager (Venezuela). Their spectacular rise, in many cases achieved by the first generation of the immigrants' local offspring, must not obscure the fact that the Arabic speakers were generally undesired. That much was clearly spelled out in the legislation of various countries. Unlike some of her sister states, Argentina, the region's principal absorber, did not seek to block the Middle Easterners' entry before 1928. This was so irrespective of the Argentine constitution's bias in favor of European immigration, the preference for north Europeans shown by the country's elites and their illdisguised disdain for the Arabic speakers, among other ethnic and religious groups. Hence, as the numbers of Syro-Lebanese taking advantage of the absence of Argentine barriers rose, they became the victims of xenophobic attacks, especially since the 1880s.