A Chilean Man of Palestinian ancestry partakes in a pro-Palestinian protest
Outside of the Levant and the Arabian Gulf nations, Chile is home to the largest Palestinian diaspora in the world with up to 500 thousand Chileans having Palestinian ancestry.
Palestinian immigration to the country began in the middle of the 19th century during the Ottoman rule. Like other immigrants from the Ottoman Empire, whether Arab, Slavic, Assyrian, or Greek; Palestinians were often called Turcos (Turks) since they usually entered the country with Turkish documentation. This denominate remains common in Chile and neighbouring Latin American countries to this day; which has erroneously lead many Latin Americans with non-Turkish ancestry and little information about family history, to be under the impression that they are of Turkish ancestry.
Historically, the majority of Palestinians that arrived in Chile were Eastern Orthodox Christians, as most countries in Latin America barred the immigration of Muslims; for this reason there are more Christian Palestinian descendants in Chile than in Palestine itself. However, in recent times Chile has also taken in Palestinian refugees, the majority being Sunni Muslims.
Many of the first waves of Palestinian immigrants lived in abject poverty and were illiterate. In addition to this like many other immigrant groups to Latin America, particularly those coming from the Ottoman Empire, Eastern Europe, and East Asia they were faced with xenophobia; a product of Chilean nationalism and rising post-independence ethnic/racial tensions. This xenophobia spread as far as the Chilean media, with one of country’s oldest national newspapers "El Mercurio,” writing:
“Whether they are Mohammedans or Buddhists, what one can see and smell from far, is that they are more dirty than the dogs of Constantinople...“
Despite the fact that the majority of people coming from the Ottoman Empire and Eastern Europe were Christian, the stigma of living in an empire ruled by Muslims or around Muslims was enough for them and other Christians such as Slavs, Greeks, and Armenians to be targets of Islamophobic sentiments that were prominent in Iberian American societies.
Similar to other immigrants from the Ottoman Empire, many Palestinians began to work in commerce as merchants. This factor alongside their gradual assimilation into the white Chilean population, began their upward social mobilization. By the 1950′s Palestinian Chileans garnered a significant economic and political position in Chilean society, a good example of this is the recent presidential candidacy of Daniel Jadue.
The majority of Chilean Palestinians are inhabit the nations capital, and also the city of La Calera in Valparaiso Region, which attracted not only Palestinian immigrants but also other Levantine, Balkan, Italian, French, and German migrants.
