The Chaldean people, once dispersed, fled to the corners of the world; the numbers tell the story. Intertwined with their story is the Assyrian story.
Read MoreThere have been many waves of refugees and emigrants from Iraq since the late 1970s through to the present. Major events in Iraq led to these flights for millions of Iraqis. Relative to more than three decades of repression, occasional violent attacks and massacres from 1980–1988, the 1991 Gulf War and the resulting economic sanctions that lasted from 1991 until the toppling of Saddam Hussein, and the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq.
Read MoreSome 12,000 Chaldeans/Assyrians/Syriacs from Iraq, Syria, Turkey, and Iran immigrated to Sweden in the latter part of the 1970s. They considered themselves persecuted for religious reasons, yet they were never acknowledged as refugees.
Read More
Examining Europe, we find Chaldean communities in the United Kingdom, France, Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Greece.
Read More
Chaldean immigration out of Iraq to European countries at the end of the twentieth century and beginning of the twenty first century Europe is considered recent compared to the early immigration wave of the last century to the Americas. The reasons remain the same, mainly religious persecution, famine and instability.
Read MoreWhen we hear the term “Chaldean pioneers,” we tend to think of history and the individuals one or two generations back who left Iraq and came to the U.S. and other places to start anew. But the original pioneers were foot soldiers, going out ahead of the rest of the troops to prepare the way.
Read MoreThe immigration of Chaldeans from northern Iraq to the U.S., Canada, and Mexico started at the beginning of the last century. Chaldeans, Assyrians, Syriacs, and Armenians all came to the New World looking for job opportunities and a better life. Driven out by the harsh treatment of the conquering Turks, most followed family members, joining them in established businesses. Opening new frontiers and reaching for the dream in a new land was not easy. They were farmers with little skills, limited language, poor knowledge of geography and no financial resources.
Read MoreThe steady immigration of Chaldeans from northern Iraq to the United States and Canada started at the beginning of the last century. The early pioneers left their villages and took unchartered voyages to distant countries, ports and seas armed with little more than courage and faith. Few official documents are available to support their stories and much of what we know comes from family members and elders.
Read MoreThere are more than 500,000 Chaldeans in America today, with large communities in Detroit, Michigan and San Diego, California. They may have been in the United States as early as 1889, but as far as the record books from the nineteenth century go, there were virtually none - the Oussani family from Baghdad were the first and only documented Chaldeans to settle in the U.S. before 1900. By the mid-20th century there were Chaldeans around the country, with a significant population in Detroit from 1910 onward, attracted by the dynamic and lucrative auto industry.
Read MoreAlthough Chaldean Americans constitute the bulk of Iraqi immigrants living in the United States, they represent less than 10 percent of the population of Iraq. While most Iraqis, like other Arabic nations, are Muslim, Chaldeans are Roman Catholic, and practice one of the 18 to 20 separate rites of the Catholic Church.
Read MoreLike many ethnic groups, Chaldeans began immigrating to the Metropolitan Detroit area in the last century in search of better economic, religious and political freedom and opportunities. While Chaldeans are believed to have immigrated to the United States as early as 1889, the first significant migration wave did not occur until around 1910, when Chaldeans began settling in metropolitan Detroit.
Read More