{"id":420001,"date":"2026-11-13T17:10:09","date_gmt":"2026-11-13T20:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/?p=420001"},"modified":"2026-11-13T17:17:32","modified_gmt":"2026-11-13T20:17:32","slug":"arab-immigration-archives-and-stories-discussed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/arab-immigration-archives-and-stories-discussed\/","title":{"rendered":"Arab immigration archives and stories discussed"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

S\u00e3o Paulo \u2013 The seminar \u201cStories from the Archives: Unlocking the Memory of Arab Presence in Brazil\u201d brought together discussions on the importance of preserving Arab immigrants\u2019 documents through the Digitalization Project for the Memory of Arab Immigration in Brazil. The event was held at the Arab-Brazilian Chamber of Commerce<\/strong> (ABCC<\/a>) in S\u00e3o Paulo on Friday (13). The project is a partnership launched in 2016 between the Arab Chamber and Saint-Esprit de Kaslik University (USEK<\/a>) in Lebanon and now also includes the Edward Said Chair<\/a> at the Federal University of S\u00e3o Paulo (Unifesp).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the opening of the event, ABCC International Relations Vice President & Secretary-General Mohamad Orra Mourad recalled his own family history as a tribute to the achievements of Arab immigrants in Brazil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese stories always inspire us with their courage and determination,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ABCC Vice President of Marketing Silvia Antibas spoke about the project\u2019s early steps, which began as a partnership between USEK and the ABCC initially to recover documents on Lebanese immigration and was later expanded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe project aims to map, digitize and publicize the archives of Arab immigration in Brazil.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Edward Said Chair Coordinator Javier Amadeo said the partnership between the ABCC, USEK and the Chair is taking the project into a new phase and that the team is working to launch a multimedia platform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI believe we are working on a project of extraordinary importance from a social and academic perspective. It is an ambitious project that continues to grow as it progresses,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through the initiative, families, individuals, institutions and companies lend their documents related to Arab immigration to be digitized at the ABCC by a Chair team using equipment provided by USEK. After being digitized and catalogued, each document is returned to its owner along with a digital copy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Antibas said one of the project\u2019s goals is to reach all of Brazil and, to that end, is working to establish new partnerships with institutions in Cear\u00e1, Amazonas and Rio Grande do Sul. She told ANBA that it is an endless task as more documents continue to arrive for digitization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Building the collection<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In the seminar\u2019s first panel, titled \u201cMapping Arab Collections in Brazil,\u201d National Library Foundation President Marco Lucchesi said the collection related to Arab countries began to take shape as early as the 19th<\/sup> century, during Emperor Pedro II\u2019s trips to the region in 1871 and 1876. He noted that the collection offers an opportunity to bring Global South countries together, in what he called the establishment of a \u201cculture of peace.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The panel also featured researcher Geraldo Adriano Godoy de Campos of the Federal University of Sergipe and Amina Hamshari, Head of Social and Human Sciences at UNESCO\u2019s Doha office. They presented ArabLatinos!, a UNESCO project aimed at strengthening ties between Arabs and Latin America. At the event, Icarabe President Nat\u00e1lia Calfat said the institute is restoring 120 documents and noted that it is one of the institutions lending documents for digitization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sheikh Mohamad Al Bukai, religious leader of the Brazil Mosque in S\u00e3o Paulo, also took part in the panel. Founded in 1929, the mosque is a repository of the memory of the Arab and Muslim community. He said digitizing documents is essential to preserving history, as his own institution has already lost physical records in floods that hit its premises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

University of Arkansas Professor Joel Gordon shared his experience as a researcher and discussed the challenges researchers generally face in accessing public archives. Columbia University Professor Joseph Massad gave a lecture titled \u201cThe Price of Recognition: Islam in the West.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ABCC was also represented at the event by Treasurer Mohamad Abdouni Neto and board member Arthur Jafet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read more<\/em>:
Genesis of an immigration memory project<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Translated by Guilherme Miranda<\/strong><\/p>\n

Evandro Macedo\/Arab-Brazilian Chamber<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Seminar held at the Arab-Brazilian Chamber in S\u00e3o Paulo brought together ideas on the importance of preserving, digitizing and publicizing documents that tell the story of Arab immigration to Brazil.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2317,"featured_media":419998,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[46537],"tags":[48478,58657,16907,2267,13291,29834],"class_list":{"0":"post-420001","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arab-brazilian-chamber","8":"tag-arab-brazilian-chamber-of-commerce-2","9":"tag-columbia","10":"tag-edward-said-en","11":"tag-immigration","12":"tag-unifesp-en","13":"tag-usek-en-2"},"wps_subtitle":"Seminar held at the Arab-Brazilian Chamber in S\u00e3o Paulo brought together ideas on the importance of preserving, digitizing and publicizing documents that tell the story of Arab immigration to Brazil.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2317"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=420001"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420001\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":420006,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420001\/revisions\/420006"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/419998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=420001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=420001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=420001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}