Arab roots grow deep in Brazil's rich melting pot

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SAO PAULO, Brazil - Crowds line up every day at Habib's for quibes, esfihas and other Middle Eastern snacks. At home, Brazilians tune in for Arnaldo Jabor's ironic opinion pieces on the nightly TV news, and read about the latest corruption charges against former Mayor Paulo Maluf.

Arab food, Arab culture, Arab roots. The Arab influence is so deeply ingrained in this South American country that many don't realize how pervasive it is. It just seems, well, Brazilian.

"Assimilation and integration have been so strong that sometimes it is difficult, if not impossible, to know who in this country is of Arab descent and who is not," Sao Paulo State Gov. Geraldo Alckmin said at a recent meeting of Brazilian and Arab businessmen.

Arab communities are spread across this continent of about 365 million people.

About 10 million Arabs live in Brazil, giving it the largest Arab population outside the Middle East, said Antonio Sarkis, president of the Arab-Brazilian Chamber of Commerce.

About 7 million Arab descendants live elsewhere. Among them are four former presidents: Carlos Saul Menem of Argentina, Abdala Bucaram and Jamil Mahuad in Ecuador and Julio Cesar Turbay of Colombia.

Chile's Palestinian community of about 350,000 supports a first-division soccer team called Palestino. Colombia's 200,000-strong Arab community produced one of that country's hottest cultural exports -- the pop star Shakira.

The original Arab settlers were mostly Christian Lebanese and Syrian immigrants who began arriving in the late 19th century, fleeing the Ottoman Empire.

"Many of these immigrants came to Brazil without really wanting to," said Helmi Nasr, head of the Arabic Studies Center at the University of Sao Paulo. "They had purchased steamship tickets to America, thinking they were heading for North America. After quickly recovering from the initial shock of discovering they had arrived in South America, they started to make the best of it."

Many of the accomplished merchants settled in Sao Paulo, Brazil's biggest city, and earned a living as traveling salesmen, roaming the vast country to sell textiles and clothes and open new markets.