Assyrian Americans

Migration History

In the ancestral homelands of these people(s), in what is now southeastern Turkey, northeastern Syria, northern Iraq, and northwestern Iran, many pockets of [Page 108]Christians speaking an astonishing array of widely diverse dialects of Neo-Aramaic lived for centuries. They belonged to two ancient churches with liturgies in Syriac, a variant of Aramaic: (a) the Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch and (b) the Church of the East or “Nestorian.” These churches are often known in the West under the theologically pejorative labels “Jacobite” and “Nestorian,” respectively. Many adherents of these churches left to join Uniate churches, which recognized the Vatican-led Roman Catholic Church while maintaining their own patriarchates and Syriac liturgies. The Syrian Catholic Church split off the Syrian Orthodox Church, and the Chaldeans split off the Church of the East. Under the influence of American Presbyterians and other Protestants, some Assyrians formed Protestant congregations, especially in Iran.

Migration to the United States has proceeded in waves. During the late 19th century, a number of those Assyrians who had come under the sway of American Presbyterians in Iran sojourned in the United States as students of theology and medicine. After the turn of the 20th century, migration from Iran accelerated, with the bulk of the migrants coming to work in jobs such as painting and waitering and ending up staying permanently. Assyrians settled in distinct qulunlye (“colonies”) in New Britain, Yonkers, Elisabeth, Philadelphia, Gary, San Francisco, and (above all) Chicago; Chaldeans settled near Mosul in Detroit; and Syriacs, mostly Turkish speaking, settled in Worcester, Cranston, and Patterson. Churches tended to be the social centers in these “colonies.” Secondary migration also took place, including that to Flint (Michigan) for its fledgling automobile industry and to an Assyrian agricultural colony in Turlock (California).

During World War I, Assyrians/Chaldeans/Syriacs experienced genocide. Following myriad routes, survivors made their way to “colonies” in the United States. Secularist organizations emerged to aid the many refugees of the war and to lobby for political autonomy in their old homelands. From the 1920s until the 1960s, immigration of Assyrians slowed mainly to a trickle. Nevertheless, during this period, the Chaldean community of Detroit burgeoned as Chaldeans came to work in automobile plants and to open small grocery stores, which to this day remain a mainstay of the community.

The ascent of the Ba'ath party during the 1960s in Iraq led to a new wave of immigration among Assyrians and Chaldeans. Many Iraqi Christians had worked for the British military or foreign contractors, but the Ba'thist nationalization of enterprises made their position precarious. Assyrians of all stripes fled the Middle East as a result of the Lebanese Civil War of 1975–1976, the Iran-Iraq War of 1980–1988, the Persian Gulf War of 1991, and the war in Iraq following the 2003 U.S. invasion.

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