From Mesopotamia to the Motor City

Early Chaldean settlers successfully navigated the change from agrarian villages to an industrial city lifestyle

By Cal Abbo

Part I

Few members of the Chaldean community in Detroit still survive and remember what the village was like in the early 1900s, when our pioneers made the brave and challenging journey to America. What drove them to accomplish such a feat?

To understand the enormity of such a journey, it’s necessary to recall the reality of village life and its simplicity. The vast majority of Chaldeans in the Middle East lived in small villages or towns with populations of a few thousand people. A small number of venturing families in the Nineveh Plain region moved to large, urban areas like Mosul, Basra, and Baghdad for economic opportunity, education, or a professional career.

Chaldeans in the village tended to be farmers out of necessity and tradition. They grew crops like wheat, lentils, chickpeas, melons, fruits, and barley. Modern misconceptions characterize Iraq as a barren and dry desert, but the area where Chaldeans lived was green and fertile.

As villagers who farmed for a living, there was not much wealth or opportunity to create it in the Chaldean community. In addition, villages were mostly unprotected, and had gone through hundreds of years of invasions, persecution, and repression. Despite these obstacles, the village provided the one thing that money couldn’t buy: closeness of family and community.

In the late 1800s, word of economic opportunities in America began to reach the ears of young and enterprising Chaldean villagers. These pioneering men grew tired of the constant persecution they and their families had to deal with as well as a lack of opportunity to exceed. While Iraqi cities offered higher education and professional careers, it was nothing compared to the stories coming from recent immigrants to the United States. Chaldeans heard tales of great wealth and a different life from Lebanese and Syrian immigrants who made the journey before them.

During the period between the turn of the century and 1920, drastic changes took the world by storm. Industrialization finally reached its tipping point and began to create vast wealth for the masses. In addition, war and genocide plagued the Middle East – namely the Seyfo, in which hundreds of thousands of Assyrian, Syriac, and Chaldean people were slaughtered, impacting the hearts and minds of many Chaldean people in the Nineveh Plains.

In the Seyfo, Telkaif often served as a safe haven for Christians who fled Kurdish and Ottoman violence. Villagers who were already there heard stories of ungodly torture and killings. Importantly, this was not the first time, nor the last, that a genocide like this would plague Middle Eastern Christians, and Chaldeans had the foresight to predict such occurrences. This further motivated them to move to new lands and start new lives. First, they had to overcome the pressures of family and community, which certainly weighed on their hearts when they first made the journey.

In addition, the industrial age had finally reached America, and even the most menial labor was offered fairly high wages. Famously, Henry Ford advertised a $5-per-day wage to build cars in Detroit, which intrigued many Chaldeans. A few made their final preparations, said their goodbyes, and went on their way.

The first Chaldean who immigrated to America from Iraq was likely Zia Attala. After arriving at Ellis Island, Attala went to Philadelphia to work in a hotel with dreams of opening one himself. Eventually, he saved enough money, and went back to his home country to start his own hotel.

In the early 1900s, travel was much more difficult than it is today. The earliest Chaldeans would have to trek through the Middle East, through Marseille, France, and take a ship through the Strait of Gibraltar. Eventually, some made it to Ellis Island and traveled to Detroit for opportunity. Others would continue the journey by boat to Mexico to meet up with Lebanese and Syrian immigrants.

Because of the language barrier, when Chaldeans originally moved to the United States, it was difficult to secure the jobs they wanted as store clerks, traders, or a worker on Ford’s factory line. As a result, most of the early Chaldeans were subjected to substandard and menial labor as well as living conditions that were both worse than what they experienced in their homeland. If anything, however, Chaldeans are adaptive and resilient people who stuck out the hardship to witness the light at the end of the tunnel.

Over time, Chaldeans began to learn the language and see the potential of life in America. They also frequently sent money and written messages back to their families in Iraq telling of the life they encountered after crossing half the world.

The first Chaldean from Telkaif entered Detroit through Windsor, Canada. Yousif Shamam would quickly learn English and begin his career as a salesman. When he had saved enough money, Shamam called for his brothers to join him and he helped establish a business and work for each of them. This foundational act of selflessness and support would serve as the driving force of the community’s constant renewal-by-immigration. By 1913, several Chaldeans made their way to Detroit and established a small community there.

In 1915, according to research by Paul Manni, The Sunday Chronicle published an article about John Joseph with the headline “Chaldean in Ford Employ: Man Who Was Born in Region of ‘Garden of Eden’ Now a Mechanic.” The article went on to tell the story of Joseph, who lived back in the old country in a “one-room hut. The walls were made of clay, mixed with straw, and the roof consisted of a network of branches and marsh-cane, together with clay. The single room, although small, was still large enough to house himself, wife and two children, on one side, while the other served as a stall for the family goat.”

Stories like this are much more common than they were reported. Soon, Chaldeans would adjust to the new life and begin to prosper. They would leave their menial labor jobs and venture into the store business, for which they would become known across the Detroit area.