Central – The Faculty of Law and Political Science, in cooperation with the Center for Latin American Studies and Cultures and the Office of International Relations at the University of the Holy Spirit – Kaslik, organized a lecture on the Arab expansion in Chile entitled: “The Emergence of National Identities: Half a Century of the Arab Press in Chile,” delivered by the Spanish writer Alberto López Oliva.
The Chilean Ambassador to Lebanon, Carlos Moran, participated in the lecture, who spoke about the history of the Lebanese presence in Chile, in the presence of the Cuban Ambassador to Lebanon, Jorge León Cruz, the Charge d’Affaires of the Mexican Embassy in Lebanon, Minister Francisco Romero Boque, the Charge d’Affairs of the Uruguayan Embassy, Jorge Duta, the Colombian Ambassador. Dr. Jorge Mallat, former head of the Latin American Chair in Lebanon and Chair of the Latin American Chair at the Jesuit University, Director of the Center for Latin American Studies and Cultures at the University, Roberto Khatlab, Head of the Department of Political and Administrative Sciences at the Holy Spirit University – Kaslik, Dr. Dominique Hamm, lawyer and professor Hiam Mallat, director of the Cervantes Institute in Beirut, Yolanda Soler Onís, archivist at the Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies at Notre Dame University Lillian Haddad, and president of the Hispanohablantes Spanish Speakers Association, Talal Zahr.
lecture: Then the Spanish writer Alberto López Oliva gave his lecture. He touched on the Arab press in Chile, where at the beginning of the first half of the twentieth century, approximately thirty newspapers were distributed to the Arab immigrant community in Chile. The importance of these publications lies in helping to identify the basic ideological currents adopted by immigrants at that time during their integration with the host society and the emergence of new national identities in their home country, such as Syrian, Lebanese, and Palestinian. This allows to contextualize the current process of reasserting the identity of Arab origin in Chilean society and the activist movement led by the Palestinian community in the country, known to be the largest outside the Arab borders. The most important chapters in the history of this migration were also discussed, starting from the moment these peoples left the Arab Levant and their first dispute with the Chileans.