A MUSEUM OF CHALDEAN CULTURE is being built in Detroit:

FROM MESOPOTAMIA TO METRO DETROIT: Transplanted Iraqi Christians move forward with a museum celebrating Chaldean culture

May 14, 2006

BY KIM NORRIS

[DETROIT] FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

They sprang from the cradle of civilization in a concentrated area of what is now warn-torn Iraq.

They spoke Aramaic, the language of Jesus, were converted to Catholicism by St. Thomas and represented a tiny island of Christianity in a sea of Islam.

They arrived in Detroit in the early 1900s, drawn by Henry Ford's promise of $5 a day for workers in his auto factory. Today, about 100,000 Chaldeans -- Iraqi Catholics -- live in southeast Michigan in what is considered to be one of the largest concentrations outside the Middle East.

Now, the first museum dedicated to Chaldeans is being built in metro Detroit.

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