PALESTINE Memories of 1948 - Photographs of Jerusalem | Page 187

Chilestinian: A Palestinian from Chile or
a Chilean of Palestinian origin?
Nakhle Shahwan, 84 years old
The largest Palestinian community outside the Arab world
lives in Chile. Known as “Turkos” by the Chileans 1 because
of the Ottoman passports they held when they arrived in
South America at the end of the nineteenth century, 2 they
came essentially from three villages: Beit Jala, Beit Sahur
and Bethlehem, and were mostly Christians. Fleeing from
poverty, conscription under the Ottomans and the pros-
pect of being used as cannon fodder during the First World
War, they were searching, as were many Europeans, for El
Dorado, which in their eyes was represented by America. 3
It is true that Chile unequivocally welcomed immigra-
tion, which was seen as bringing economic progress to the
country. Today, there are between 300,000 4 and 400,000
people 5 of Palestinian descent.
In the early twentieth century, they established some Ara-
bo-Palestinian organizations that allowed them to find one
another and not to forget their origins. This gave birth to the
Palestino football team, 6 to Arabic publications and radio
stations, dabkeh dance groups and Palestino social clubs. 7
Nakhle Shahwan is known to all the Palestinians of
Chile. He helped bring to life the Palestinian district of
Patronato, clinging to the banks of the grey Mapocho river
as it flows through Santiago. Patronato, where he was a
wholesale cloth merchant before going into the garment
trade. He chose to go to Chile in 1961 because he knew
he would find family and relatives there from his village.
When he put down his bags in this distant land, this land
of asylum for so many Arabs before him, 8 he knew he
had come to a safe haven. A haven which, over the years
and given the impossibility of returning to Palestine, has
become his permanent home.
 I come from Beit Jala, like most Palestinians
who emigrated to Chile. Beit Jala – that is my home,
my family, my ancestors, it is where I was born and
where I grew up, it is where I would like to be. My
father, Nicolas Shahwan, was a stonemason there,
working with beautiful pink tinged white stone that
was used for large buildings in Jerusalem and its envi-
rons, as far as Bethlehem. The work paid well, and
with time my parents were able to buy a nice house in
Jerusalem, in the new Qatamun neighbourhood. My
father was Christian, like more than three-quarters
of the inhabitants of Beit Jala. He was a simple, but
hard-working man. One day, in 1941, when I was six,
he went hunting with his rifle slung across his shoulder;
the villagers found his body and his rifle a few days
later. My poor mother was left alone with five children.
The oldest of the three girls was already married, so it
was the youngest, my sister Neme who, at the age of 11,
helped our mother look after the rest of us.
At the end of the Second World War, I was ten
years old. I clearly remember the feelings of injustice
and revolt growing among the Palestinians towards
Nakhle
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