Avaliação: La participación política de los/las migrantes en América Latina – Turcos and chilestinos: Latin American Palestinian diaspora nationalism in a comparative context

Among Latin America's Arab diaspora communities, Latin Americans of Palestinian descent are largely overshadowed by the larger Lebanese-Syrian descended populations concentrated in larger countries. Of Latin America’s estimated half million people of Palestinian ancestry, the vast majority reside in three countries: El Salvador, Honduras, and Chile – the country with the largest Palestinian-descended population, and the only one which can be described as having an active and politically salient Palestinian nationalist movement. How political attitudes and expressions can vary within the same broader diaspora – indeed, sharing not only the same religious profile (largely Christian), the same period of migration (1880s to 1920s), and even the same geographic origin (principally Bethlehem) – is worth examining. A comparative historical analysis suggests that in Chile, the greater degree of pluralism, with a more diverse political and occupational profile, has allowed for greater success in constructing a Palestinian nationalist movement among the Chilean Palestinian diaspora compared to their counterparts in Central America.

• diaspora
• Palestina
• transnacionalismo