Official record shows one of the earliest Lebanese immigrants, born in Bsharri, arrived in Port of Veracruz in 1882

Carlos Martinez Assad and Patricia Jacobs Barquet
Special to The Daily Star

Quite a lot has been written about who might have been the first Lebanese emigrant to reach Mexico.
But the oldest official record, as stated in Mexico’s General National Archive, belongs to Pedro (Butros) Deeb, born in the village of Hasroun in Bsharri in 1867, who arrived in the Port of Veracruz on Jan. 1, 1882. (Other non-official records give credit to Joseph Abad, also from Hasroun, as the first Lebanese emigrant to Mexico).
The date is important since it coincides with the strong emigration wave that from Mount Lebanon, when residents were forced to leave their land because of social conflicts mainly afflicting the Christian population.
At that time, Lebanese, Syrian and Palestinians were referred to as “Turks,” as their countries were under the rule of the Turkish Ottoman Empire.
No doubt in those days many immigrants could have landed and established themselves in Mexico without going through any legal procedures.
Then in 1920, when Emilio Portes Gil was president, the Mexican government decided to regulate immigration by creating a Foreigners’ Registry.
Of the 160,000 registries first recorded, 5,527 were to Lebanese nationals. Many arrived in Mexico during the last decades of the 19th century, notwithstanding quotas established by the authorities.
Aside from the National General Archive, there is no other document to give us approximate data regarding the original Lebanese population in Mexico.
Even today it is easy to identify cases, inside any given family, where a particular relative never registered himself or when families did not mention, let alone register, dead members.
It is interesting to note that 4,469 of the Arabic speakers that did register came from Lebanon, but only 49 immigrants were from Syria.
Five hundred and sixty-three immigrants came from Mount Lebanon, 535 were originally from Beirut, 505 from Hasroun, 211 from Zahle, 113 from Zghorta and 63 from Jezzine.
The vast majority of Lebanese immigrants arrived by ship; 3,590 entered the country through the port of Veracruz in the Gulf of Mexico, 225 in Progreso in the Yucatan Peninsula and 214 disembarked in the northeastern port of Tampico.
Upon arrival they traveled to a large number of different cities and towns, leaving almost no Mexican region free of Lebanese, although at that time they were still called “Turks” and it was only years later that they were referred to as “Syrian-Lebanese.”
Many families remained in their ports of arrival, mainly in the states of Veracruz and Yucatan. Little by little though, newcomers were attracted to Mexico City, the country’s capital. By the 1930s, 1,829 immigrants of Arab origin had made it their home.
The success of Lebanese immigrants in Mexico was due mainly to their activities and skills as tradespeople, activities which took them all over the country.
Another cultural factor that encouraged Mexicans to accept the Lebanese was their religion. Soon after their arrival, Lebanon’s immigrants were practicing Middle Eastern Christian rites in some Mexican churches.
As early as 1906, Father Hanna Khouri was in charge of “La Candelaria” Church, in the center of Mexico City, where the first Maronite marriage took place on Feb. 13 of that year.
The bride and groom were Salvador and Maria Abraham. Salvador was 20 years old and came from Mount Lebanon, “in the Turkish Asia” as was written in the official parochial book, and had been in this “new continent” for only six months.
Mexicans were happy with the newcomers with whom they could share a cultural trait as central as religion. Therefore they did not oppose the mixed marriages that soon became common.
In order to be able to deal with the problems of immigration immigrants formed Lebanese communities in their various places of residence.
This gave birth to the concept of the Lebanese-Mexicans, a link and an identity that unites those of us who were born and raised in Mexico with Lebanese traditions, taught by our parents and grandparents, along with a very special love for the old country or the balad, as we still call Lebanon.

Carlos Martinez Assad and Patricia Jacobs Barquet, both with Lebanese grandparents, are two of the founders of Al-Fannan, the Mexican association of artists and intellectuals of Lebanese origin. Assad is a historian who has published 40 books, among which is his latest work, Memory of Lebanon, an account of his last two trips to Lebanon. Barquet is the author of the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Mexicans of Lebanese Origin