Migrant Monuments, Monumental Migrants: São Paulo’s Sculptural Homage to Syrian-Lebanese Friendship and the Crafting of Transnational Identity in Centennial Brazil

Abstract

The Centennial celebrations across Latin America were a fertile moment in which immigrant communities represented themselves within the urban fabric of major cities via monumental patronage. This paper examines the public patronage of the Arab-speaking diaspora (also known as mahjar) in the southern cone by conducting a case study of the Monumento Amizade Sírio Libanesa ( e Monument of Syrian-Lebanese Friendship) in São Paulo, Brazil. Designed in honor of the 1922 Brazilian Centennial, this public statue exhibits imaginative new iconography that merged key emblems associated with the Levant, São Paulo, and Brazil. The statue can be seen as playing a major role in the crafting of a modern, collective immigrant identity while also asserting the visibility of the mahjar community at the turn of the twentieth century.