Emilio Bichara Kabande

The Kabande Family in Mexico - Revised 11/13/21

The Khawandes of Bethlehem arrived in Mexico before 1907. Upon arriving in Mexico, they changed their name to Kabande. The father, Bishara Demetrio Kabande (b. 1862, Bethlehem d. 1907 Mexico) was married to Elena Hanania, also of Bethlehem. They had five children, Demetrio, Jamil (Emilio), Jose, Afif and Victoria.

There are differing accounts of how and when the Kabandes arrived in Mexico, but it is said that the oldest son, Demetrio, arrived first, landing in Tampico on Mexico’s east coast, perhaps coming from El Salvador. He later returned to Bethlehem for his parents and his brothers and sister, arriving first in Cuba and then in Tampico. According to Afif Kabande, son of Emilio’s brother Afif, the family moved to San Pedro de las Colonias through contacts with other Bethlehemites in Tampico. San Pedro de las Colonias is an agricultural and cotton growing area in the state of Coahuila. Originally peddlers (abonderos), they became prosperous merchants, dealing in cotton and dry goods. They even imported cotton to as far away as New York. At some point, the Kabande family moved to the nearby town of Monclova, but it was likely to have been after 1919 or so, when Katherine moved to Long Beach as a young widow with a toddler daughter, Julia. It is also known that Bethlehem no longer has any families with the last name of Khawande, but that some other descendents of the family settled in Chile and other Central and South American countries.

Katherine Sa’ade’s marriage to Emilio Kabande took place in 1914 in Mexico. Emilio’s older brother Demetrio and his wife Isabel went to Bethlehem after they were married. At that time, because of friendships between the two families, they arranged for Katherine (who was 13 or 14 at the time) to return to Mexico with them and marry Emilio.

San Pedro was already settled by many families from the Middle East when the Kabandes arrived. According to “San Pedro de las Colonias, Su Historia” by Jose Reyes Mireles Lopez, San Pedro’s cloth and shoe merchants came “from the Middle East: Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, and Arabia...” Visiting San Pedro in 2003, I observed many stores with Arabic sounding names, and a number of buildings, including the house that the Kabandes were said to have owned, that were built with a Moorish or Arabic style. In fact, the mayor of San Pedro (Presidente Municipal), is Emilio Marcos, a Bethlehem name and the same the last name as the husband of Emilio’s sister Victoria.

Demetrio Kabande and Afif Kabande married two Bethlehem-born sisters, Isabel Dabdoub and Sara Dabdoub, respectively. Isabel and Demetrio had one child, Jose Demetrio Kabande, whose name was later changed to Jose Encarnacion, nicknamed Chon. Afif Kabande’s second wife, Eva Escalante, had seven children, Leticia, Eva Elena, Jose (Pepe), Maruca (?), Alberto, and Roberto. The family lives primarily in Guadalajara. Their only sister, Victoria (b. 1901), married Salvador Marcos and had seven children, Leticia (b. approx. 1917. m. Arturo Zarur), Guillermo, Maria Elena (m. Elias Marcos), Carlos (m. Maria Zarur), Salvador m. Teresa Canavati), Guadalupe Victoria (M. Jacobo Daboub). Victoria died in the late 1980’s, but most of her children, grandchildren and descendants live near and around Monterrey, Mexico.

Chon Kabande settled in Mexicali, Baja California, where he started the area’s first ice factory and the area’s first deluxe hotel, the Hotel Lucerna. He also served as Treasurer of the state of Baja California Norte, and remained politically active throughout his life. When he opened the second hotel Lucerna in Tijuana in 1980, then-President Luis Echevarria was at the inauguration. Chon married Teresa Camacho of Ensenada, Baja California, and had five children, Jose Encarnacion (Chon), Hector, Fernando, Maria Isabel and Maria Teresa. Most of the family still lives in Mexicali, Tijuana and La Jolla. The hotel chain has now grown to six hotels. Chon Kabande died in 2003.

It’s important to point out that when Katherine immigrated to Mexico, the country was in the midst of a bloody Revolution, which began in 1910 and continued until about 1918. San Pedro and its surrounding area were a key center of revolutionary activity. In April, 1914, Pancho Villa and his troops fought the Federal army’s 6,000 soldiers for control of San Pedro, one of the principal battles that helped determine the outcome of the Mexican Revolution. It is hard to imagine how Katherine must have felt during these years, arriving in a new country during a violent revolution, speaking no Spanish, marrying a stranger, having a child at the age of 15, losing an infant child, and, a few years later, being widowed at the age of 16 by a tragic train accident.

• Reference: Ancestry Genealogy - SmartCopy: Nov 20 2021, 18:56:46 UTC