The Lost Tribe
Professor Paulo Botta, at the head of the table, with descendants of Chaldean immigrants who arrived in Argentina at the beginning of the 20th Century. Alejandro Safarov is third from the right.
Connecting with Chaldean Expats in Argentina
By Weam Namou
In October 2022, Dr. Paulo Botta visited San Salvador de Jujuy and El Carmen, two towns of the Jujuy province in the north of Argentina. There he met with descendants of Chaldean Iranians who immigrated to Argentina between 1900 and 1930.
Botta, a professor of Social Sciences affiliated with the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina, explained, “Nobody even knows about that group of Chaldean families who arrived here almost a century ago.”
In Pursuit of Knowledge
The trip was funded by the Chaldean Cultural Center (CCC) in West Bloomfield. Its objective was to talk with the members of these Iranian immigrant families who identify as Chaldean and gather copies of the documents and photos they’ve kept as part of their family lore.
This information will be combined with the archives in Europe so that Dr. Botta and his university can reconstruct the situation of those families at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century and their migration to Argentina.
The French document of Israel Guiberguis, from Khosrowa, prior to his arrival to Argentina.
The two dozen families in the towns of Jujuy province were mainly from Patamur and Khosrow, villages near Lake Urmia in the northwest part of Iran. “There is some evidence they also came from Tchara, Mar Serges, and Heydarlui, but we need more information to confirm that,” said Botta.
Verdi Isasha with her son, Simón Safarov, Alejandro’s grandfather.
Botta and others at the university found documents about this community in Madrid, Rome, and Paris. The documents were produced by Catholic authorities that had encountered the community during their trip to Argentina. In 2019, Botta approached the CCC to discuss funding the exploratory field research in Jujuy.
As executive director of the CCC, I was happy to support this project, along with the board. We are attempting to capture information about the Chaldean diaspora and, like Dr. Botta and the Pontifical Catholic University, we are interested in creating a digital archive of the Chaldean Iranians living in Argentina.
Identifying as Chaldean
These emigrants and their descendants spoke Syriac at home until the eighties. They also spoke Persian and Russian, but their linguistic identity was tied to the Syriac heritage; it is clear to see on the gravestones in the section of the cemetery in El Carmen where they were buried.
“My family was quite aware of their origins and called themselves ‘Kaldani,’” said Alejandro Safarov, professor at the Catholic University of Santiago del Estero.
Safarov spoke to the last surviving member of the first immigrants, Tato Kamandaro, now deceased. He learned that in the beginning, the Chaldean families in Argentina honored their culture, identity, and traditions, keeping them alive through family meetings and celebrations. That all stopped when the elders wanted to keep the community as close as possible by choosing whom the young people would marry.
“Argentina is a very multicultural society, and it was very hard to convince the young, who assimilated very fast, to stay within their own community,” said Safarov. “They married with the locals and other immigrants.”
Chaldean families in Jujuy, Argentina in the mid 20th century.
The Long Journey
Some of the families emigrated from Iran through the Ottoman Empire and France towards South America. Others arrived through the territories of the Russian empire in the Caucasus, what is today the Republic of Georgia, and they settled temporarily in Tiblisi and Batumi.
“My paternal great-grandfather Martin is from Batumi,” said Safarov. “They left because of the consequences of the First World War, the Russian Revolution, and religious persecution.”
While Safarov says that his ancestors didn’t like to talk about the atrocities of that time, he remembers his grandfather, Simon, telling him how he, at age 13, walked over dead bodies to reach the ship that would take him and his mother to America.
“America was their destination,” said Safarov.
The Vatican and Spanish government representative in Iran, a priest, organized the trip for many of these families. This was mostly during the First World War, some of the families told Botta.
The family memories agree on the help they received from the Catholic orders working in the region, Lazarists and Daughters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul, who gave them money and the documents needed for the trip.
Those families had a strong Catholic identity and since they were only about 60-80 people, they fully integrated into the Roman Latin parishes, losing their liturgical tradition. However, they still remember the Sign of the Cross and Our Father in Syriac.
Further Research
Correspondence and photographic evidence show contact with other Chaldean families who remained in Iran. “We can reconstruct the relationships based on some photos and testimonies of the families,” said Botta.
Some members of the community have visited Iran, remaining there for months with their families. In 1965, when the Shah of Iran visited Argentina, they met with him in Buenos Aires.
Contact between the two groups remained constant until the Islamic Revolution in 1979; the war between Iraq and Iran (1980-1988) made it even more difficult to remain in touch. By the beginning of the nineties, there was no more contact.
Those in the family know that in some cases their surnames where changed (mainly Russified) or misspelled when they arrived to Argentina, but they still can identity the members of that community as the following families: Abraham, Acop, Begzadeth, Chalabe, David, Dávida, D’Jallad, Guibarguis, Isayo, Kamandaro, Khallov, Kuryakus, Malik, Mastaram, Nathanielof, Pabloff, Sarquiza, and Slivon.
“These families were very happy to know that there is interest in their history, and they would love to contact other members of the Chaldean community abroad,” said Botta. “Unfortunately, they live in a very small town and the new generations don´t speak foreign languages.”
This research has encouraged Safarov to study and to understand more about the history of his family and where they came from. “It would be great to connect with Chaldeans around the world to make people aware of this part of the diaspora in Argentina, which welcomed these immigrants,” said Safarov.