MARCH 2023

FEATURE
From above:
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.
The French document of Israel Guiberguis,
from Khosrowa, prior to his
arrival to Argentina.
Verdi Isasha with her son, Simón
Safarov, Alejandro’s grandfather.
The Lost Tribe
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 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.
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.”
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.
24 CHALDEAN NEWS MARCH 2023