An estimated 187,000 Chaldeans live in metro Detroit – more than anywhere else in the U.S., according to the Chaldean Community Foundation.
Chaldeans are Christians from Iraq who have had a presence in the region for more than a century. In this segment, One Detroit shares stories of Chaldeans who made the area home.
Some lived and worked in the Detroit neighborhood called Chaldean Town located on and around Seven Mile Road just east of Woodward Avenue. A historic plaque commemorates the neighborhood.
“Chaldean Town was the center of Detroit’s Chaldean Community,” the plaque says. “In the early twentieth century, Chaldeans began to settle on the city’s east side.”
It also says Chaldeans primarily came from the village of Telkaif in northern Iraq and followed Eastern Rite Roman Catholicism. That’s the area Jane Shallal’s father came from.
One Detroit’s Bill Kubota talked to Shallal, whose family was in the grocery business. She said her father came to the area in the 1950s, and her family owned several grocery stores in Detroit.
Chaldean immigrants got work in that business with the help of other Chaldeans already here, Shallal explained.
“A lot of Chaldeans went on to buy their own businesses,” she said. “So it was like a pathway to success.”
Shallal chose another career path. After college, she became a police officer – the first Chaldean to join the Detroit Police Department, male or female, she said.
Soon after, she became an attorney and prosecutor. Later, she led the Associated Food Dealers of Michigan.
Shallal has also led United Community Family Services based in Troy. It started more than 60 years ago as Chaldean Ladies of Charity. The nonprofit is still helping immigrants today.
This story is part of our Destination Detroit series, telling stories of people who came to Southeast Michigan and helped shape the region’s rich and diverse history.