São Paulo – Brazilians with Lebanese last names know some of their second degree cousins, great uncles, sons of nephews and other not-so-near relatives. But those last named Duailibi may meet or at least know the names of many second-degree cousins, nearly all great uncles, several sons of nephews, and a huge number of not-so-near relatives. This is because a famous Brazilian advertising executive wanted to learn more about his Arab origins. Roberto Duailibi, one of the owners of advertising agency DPZ, gave birth in the 1970s to the embryo of what now is a large hub for research on the history of the Duailibi family in Brazil.
The project has a well-structured head office, in the neighbourhood of Morumbi, in São Paulo, and is now e called Centre for Studies on Lebanese Immigration. Although its main focus is research on the Duailibis, the centre also tackles the matter of Lebanese immigration to Brazil as a whole. The main purpose of the project, however, is to record stories about the Duailibi immigrants and their descendents, which is done under the name "Family D." They are collected orally, in interviews, or submitted in writing by those who tell them, and are all stored at the centre’s headquarters, under the management of the project’s coordinator, journalist Denise Crispim. The stories are also available on the project’s website, www.familyd.net, which acts as a channel for communicating with the community.
The project’s material is a source of research for the Duailibis and also for students, from secondary school to masters students, according to Denise. These people usually go to the Centre of Studies on Lebanese Immigration seeking information about their families. Denise tells one of their stories. “Here we have the record of Mrs. Vitória’s story. She has already passed away and her story has been here for some time now, in a cassette tape. Her daughter came from the city of Maranhão the other day and visited us. I played her the story and she was very moved upon hearing her mother’s voice. She did not know that we had the recording. She asked for a copy and brought the entire family together, back in Maranhão, to hear her mother’s voice,” says the coordinator.
In addition to the family stories, the centre also has books on Lebanese immigration. According to Denise, there are roughly 5,000 works, which may be read at the headquarters themselves, and copies may be obtained of 15% of them. The centre’s team is also responsible for uploading contents on the site of the Lebanese embassy in Brazil, and other eventual projects. Presently, says the coordinator, a book of chronicles about women of Lebanese origin who live in Brazil.
The path for tracing the family tree featured on the project’s website was a long one. It started with Roberto Duailibi’s research, in the 1970s, about his family’s origins. “Aside from being and advertising executive, Roberto is also a social scientist, and applied his knowledge of network formation, by which one person leads to another, in order to conduct the research,” says Denise. At first, only one journalist was hired to send out questionnaires and find out where the Duailibis were. By the 1980s, a large volume of material had arrived, and headquarters were established for the project, at Roberto’s apartment, in the Santo Amaro neighbourhood of São Paulo.
Further on, a Lebanese researcher was hired to bridge the gap with Lebanon and check people’s records in the Arab country. “Much of our research had to be done in cemetery tombstones or churches, by means of baptism certificates,” says Denise. Throughout the years, Roberto also brought sculptures, maps and pictures about immigration from his trips, and the thus centre’s collection was formed. People also started submitting photographs, passport copies, and other historical records. For that reason, new headquarters for the centre were established in the Morumbi neighbourhood, and the website was created.
Presently, in addition to the coordinator, the centre’s employees include a librarian, a webmaster and an art director. The facilities and the project are funded by Roberto Duailibi. By the way, the research concluded that the Duailibis, Douailibis, Duailibs, Dualibes, Dualibs, among others, all come from the same family. This is so because each name was written down depending on how the clerk understood the sound, as immigrants arrived at the ports. The name closest to Arabic, however, the coordinator explains, is Dawalibi.
And who are they? According to Denise, they are spread across Brazil. But they came from Zahle, Lebanon, mostly between 1880 and 1910, and between 1945 and 1960. The majority of them sold their land in Lebanon, and different from the Europeans, they arrived in Brazil with some money to enter trade. They went to cities in which the sector was not strongly developed, in the states of Maranhão and Mato Grosso, for instance, and there they settled their families and accumulated wealth. They then sent their children back to Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, where they themselves had first arrived, so that they could study. By their second generation, there already were plenty of self-employed workers, such as doctors, engineers, advertising executives, among others. They still migrate to Brazil whenever conflict breaks out in the region.
Contact:
Centre for Studies on Lebanese Immigration
Site: www.familyd.net
Telephone: (+55 11) 3654 0432
E-mail: denisecrispim@familyd.net
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum