Our Distant Cousins in Colombia: Palestinian Perceptions of Emigration to Latin America.

Abstract

Arabic migrants from Palestine began to arrive in Colombia in the 1940s; their linguistic, social and cultural categorizations allow insight into the critical aspects of their developing identity, which became consolidated in Colombia. There is a paradoxical reciprocity between contemporary Palestine and these migrants, and in the two-way relationship between the crossed gazes of the Palestinians in Colombia as “distant cousins” of those who have embarked on a return journey. The plo’s interest in supporting these migrant populations in Latin America is one of the keystones in the debate on the flow of cultural and symbolic exchange between these two groups as they renew contact.