The translation is not perfect, but you get the point. Arab food is totally mainstream in South America.
Of course, we in America know it as pita bread; but how often do you see Pita Bread commercials on American TV apart from some local bakeries or franchise restaurants. What is interesting is that they call it Arab bread; and that is advertised as such by a transnational conglomerate like Bimbo.
The commercial was from Colombia. Bimbo is a Latin American food giant.
Misiones Province – Source:
(Andres Rojas)
Channel 12, in Posadas, Misiones, Argentina – the almost tropical Northeast of Argentina – inaugarated a new studio. What better thing to do than have some Arabic dancers on?
Misiones Province (in green on the map above) has a lot of ethnic groups. Italians, Swedes, Ukranians, Poles, French, Germans, Danes, Japanese, and yes, Arabs, as well as the core Spanish. Apprently, this day, they played to the Arab community. Some of the dancers seem fair complected, and I wonder if some of that Swedish or German blood has intermingled.
The observant listener will note the intro music on the video is Arabic.
At the tip of the province is Iqauzu falls, which is a world famouse jungle cataract which is the border between Brazil and Argentina, and is right next to Paraguay, forming a smuggler’s paradise called the Triple Frontier.
But what is important is that no matter where one goes in Argentina, the Arabs are a significant part of the population, and Arab culture is very mainstream.
In fact, the intro music to the video of Iguazi Falls on the left is Arabic; and if one goes to the comment section on the YouTube Page for that video, one will notice some comments in Arabic. There is a lot of cross-cultural polination between the two worlds.
The Arabs seem to view South America as a friendly part of the West.
Edited: June 16, 2022 – Cleaned up the page from older styling.
Honduras has about 250,000 Palestinians, which is roughly 3% of the population – though in fact, they are quite successful in business. In fact, Honduras has had a president, Carlos Roberto Flores, who was of Palestinian descent.
There are an estimated 5-6,000 Muslims in Honduras, which is less than about 0.1% of the population. Running the numbers this means that the Arabs in Honduras are 97% or more Christian, if we assume that all these Muslims are found only in the Arab community.
Again we see this amazing phenomena. It as if there were a demographic sieve which made sure that only Christian Arabs got to the New World.
Concepción del Uruguay is a town in Argentine province of Entre Rios, NOT Uruguay. Actually, the river between Uruguay and Argentina is the Uruguay River, so the town’s name refers to the river.
In the public parks. Quite mainstream.
What should also be clear is that this is primarily Christian. Wahhabis keep women in veils.
So what you are seen in an expression of Arab identity NOT seen in the Arab world that much any more, since most Christians have been ethnically cleansed out of the area.
