DECEMBER 2023

FEATURE
From Mesopotamia
to the Motor City
Early Chaldean settlers successfully navigated the change
from agrarian villages to an industrial city lifestyle
BY CAL ABBO
Few members of the Chaldean
community in Detroit still survive
and remember what the village
was like in the early 1900s, when
our pioneers made the brave and challenging
journey to America. What
drove them to accomplish such a feat?
To understand the enormity of
such a journey, it’s necessary to recall
the reality of village life and its simplicity.
The vast majority of Chaldeans
in the Middle East lived in small villages
or towns with populations of a
few thousand people. A small number
of venturing families in the Nineveh
Plain region moved to large, urban
areas like Mosul, Basra, and Baghdad
for economic opportunity, education,
or a professional career.
Chaldeans in the village tended to
be farmers out of necessity and tradition.
They grew crops like wheat,
lentils, chickpeas, melons, fruits,
and barley. Modern misconceptions
characterize Iraq as a barren and dry
desert, but the area where Chaldeans
lived was green and fertile.
As villagers who farmed for a living,
there was not much wealth or opportunity
to create it in the Chaldean community.
In addition, villages were mostly
unprotected, and had gone through
hundreds of years of invasions, persecution,
and repression. Despite these
obstacles, the village provided the one
thing that money couldn’t buy: closeness
of family and community.
In the late 1800s, word of economic
opportunities in America began to
reach the ears of young and enterprising
Chaldean villagers. These pioneering
men grew tired of the constant persecution
they and their families had to
deal with as well as a lack of opportunity
to exceed. While Iraqi cities offered
CHALDEAN
STORY
higher education and professional careers,
it was nothing compared to the
stories coming from recent immigrants
to the United States. Chaldeans heard
tales of great wealth and a different life
from Lebanese and Syrian immigrants
who made the journey before them.
During the period between the turn
of the century and 1920, drastic changes
took the world by storm. Industrialization
finally reached its tipping
point and began to create vast wealth
for the masses. In addition, war and
genocide plagued the Middle East –
namely the Seyfo, in which hundreds
of thousands of Assyrian, Syriac, and
Chaldean people were slaughtered,
impacting the hearts and minds of many
This report is made possible with generous support from
Michigan Stories, a Michigan Humanities Grants initiative.
Chaldean people in the Nineveh Plains.
In the Seyfo, Telkaif often served
as a safe haven for Christians who fled
Kurdish and Ottoman violence. Villagers
who were already there heard
stories of ungodly torture and killings.
Importantly, this was not the first time,
nor the last, that a genocide like this
would plague Middle Eastern Christians,
and Chaldeans had the foresight
to predict such occurrences. This further
motivated them to move to new
lands and start new lives. First, they
had to overcome the pressures of family
and community, which certainly
weighed on their hearts when they
first made the journey.
In addition, the industrial age had
finally reached America, and even the
most menial labor was offered fairly
high wages. Famously, Henry Ford
advertised a $5-per-day wage to build
cars in Detroit, which intrigued many
Chaldeans. A few made their final
preparations, said their goodbyes, and
went on their way.
The first Chaldean who immigrated
42 CHALDEAN NEWS DECEMBER 2023