‘Os Turcos’: The Syrian-Lebanese community of São Paulo, Brazil

Abstract

This article aims to portray aspects of the contemporary cultural ethos of the Arab diaspora community of São Paulo, Brazil. Because the initial waves of immigration from the Middle East to Brazil began before the dissolution of the Ottoman empire, immigrants arrived in Brazil with Ottoman identity documents, earning them the appellation ‘Turk’. The broader Brazilian society continues to apply the title ‘turco’ to these individuals of immigrant origin, irrespective of whether they are Muslims, Jews or Christians, and despite the virtual absence of immigrants from Turkey in this region. People of Syrian and Lebanese descent comprise the bulk of the Arab population of São Paulo. However there are also small numbers of people from other parts of the Middle East and North Africa among their ranks. Nevertheless, members generally refer to the collectivity with which they identify themselves as the Syrian–Lebanese community. This article describes selected aspects of the daily lives of the members of this group, and in the process focuses on several specific settings. Scenes described in this paper include Al-Malik restaurant (a Lebanese variety and dry goods store), an Arabic music and dance performance, and a plebiscite for Bashar Al-Assad at a downtown social centre, Club Homs. In the process of collecting data for this interpretive collage, four research methods were employed: informal interview, micro-ethnography, participant observation, and analysis of locally produced texts.