in our VIEW What Is a
in our VIEW What Is a Chaldean? Through this publication, at people’s homes, and in restaurants, cafes and stores around town, people are taking stock in the Chaldean community’s immersion into the cultural, economic and social fabric of Southeast Michigan. With burgeoning population numbers, a disproportionate economic impact and a general disposition towards neighborliness, Chaldeans are now a known quantity in the region. As people get to know people in our community better as friends and in business, there is an increasing interest in Chaldean history, cultural and identity. Thus the question that many of us have fielded, “What is a Chaldean?” There are nearly as many answers to this query as there are Chaldeans, but as our community grows and assimilates, the answer is becoming more clouded. Are you Chaldean only if your parents are Chaldean and you are born and baptized in the Chaldean Rite of the Catholic Church? What if one parent is half-Chaldean and the other is a non- Chaldean? What if both parents are Chaldean but they raise their children in a protestant church? What about the large populations of Mexicans, Australians and Asian Indians that practice in the Chaldean faith in their own countries? If they are considered Chaldean, this would make Chaldean primarily a religion. How about a child who is adopted by Chaldean parents, is raised in the Roman Rite, learns to speak Chaldean but is not active in the community? Today, these situations are more than academic questions — they are reality. While they do not transcend the fact that we are all human beings and should be conscientious, law-abiding, civic-minded citizens, they are questions that are increasingly on the minds of our people and others. Certainly, there is no easy answer. The answer must involve various combinations based on birth, culture, socialization and religion. This column does not attempt to answer this question but to simply shed light on its existence. Some would say the answer is irrelevant, as is the question. Still others would say that this issue is central to Chaldean identity and to the preservation of our history, religion and culture. Maybe the answer is outside the communal and belongs to the individual. Maybe the answer rests in one’s libaa (heart). 12 CHALDEAN NEWS FEBRUARY 2006
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