Jane Shallal checking in on a Troy nonprofit helping people in need.

I've been like with this organization for like 35 years.

Another food distribution day.

Most of the people here that work at the United Community Family Services are Chaldean or Iraqi or refugees themselves.

Shalom recently retired as CEO of United Community Family Services, called the Chaldean Ladies of Charity when it started more than 60 years ago.

This is a nonprofit agency established by 20 women.

They started it in 1961.

Back then, we were helping new immigrants come to the United States and get them resettled.

But as a refugee started coming in, we started responding to their needs.

There's been a big influx of Ukrainian refugees, Afghan refugees, and of course, still Iraqi refugees, and it's not limited to refugees.

The post nine over 11 conflict in Iraq brought a more recent wave of Chaldeans.

Shallals Chaldean American stor goes back a half century before that.

So my dad was from Texas.

It's a small village in Iraq.

There's like 4 or 5 villages north of Baghdad that most of the Chaldeans come from.

My dad was 13 years old and he told his mom that he was going to America.

As he shall all spent time in other countries before making his way to the U.S.. Arriving in Detroit in the 1950s, he worked in the grocery business.

He definitely had that business sense and that entrepreneurship skill.

Chaldeans owned a lot of stores in Detroit.

They still do.

That's how Chaldeans came to the United States.

They came here because they knew there were other Chaldeans here, number one, that could speak their language, and number two, that could help them get their businesses started.

So a lot of Chaldeans went on to buy their own businesses.

So it was like a pathway to success.

Jane Shallal, born in Iraq, she, along with her mother and siblings, joined her father in Detroit in 1960.

Her citizenship ceremony made the newspaper.

Around that time, her father bought his own grocery store.

It was four star supermarket on Jefferson in Detroit.

Our entire family worked there.

Even I worked there as a little kid.

The family would own more stores around town.

Although some of the bigger supermarkets and chain stores left to like Farmer Jacks, Chatham, Wrigley's, the Chaldean State and the supermarkets were basically the only food centers for the residents of Detroit.

In the late 70s, shell finished college.

I was going to go to law school and then I don't know.

I was surrounded by police officers at the time because I was getting my degree in criminal justice.

And they go, you should be a cop, Jane.

And so I said, no, I don't know.

I'm going to law school.

They said no.

So they dared me, okay, to apply to the Detroit Police Department.

I was the first Chaldean police officer.

The first, she says, man or woman?

I think that because there were more women coming into the police department.

It was more acceptable.

But yeah, for the Chaldean community, that was a shock.

Shallal would go to law school, worked as a prosecutor, an assistant U.S.

attorney, and as an administrator with the Attorney Grievance Commission.

She'd lead the Associated Food Dealers of Michigan, looking out for local grocers, many owned by Chaldeans.

Of course.

A lot of Chaldeans move to where their churches are, you know, because they're very religious and they're very faith oriented.

So the Mother of God Church was the original church.

And so people started moving to Southfield.

Chaldean churches are Catholic of the eastern right, similar to Roman Catholic, but with different rituals and traditions.

Chaldean population grew, and then there was other churches in Oak Park, West Bloomfield, other areas.

Then you saw a large population going to the east side like Sterling Heights, Warren, Shelby Township, because the population keeps growing and it's a very strong faith based population.

There's concern some Chaldean culture could be lost.

Scholz heard it from Iraqi refugees.

When they come over here, I was surprised to see about how many Chaldeans didn't speak Chaldean.

The Chaldean language goes back before the time of Christ.

More often, Chaldeans now speak Arabic, as so many have spent years in Arab speaking countries before getting here.

The Arabic people do not understand Chaldean.

It was mostly a language spoken in the home, and it's been preserved that way.

And it's actually on the National Geographic's endangered language list.

What has been lost?

Detroit's called the in town on the northeast side.

For quite a few years.

It was flourishing all along Seven Mile Road.

There were a lot of Chaldean businesses, markets and coffee shops, things like that.

In recent decades, residents and businesses slipped away off to the suburbs.

These days, 187,000 Chaldeans live in the region, according to the Chaldean Community Foundation, more than anywhere else in the U.S.. Nationwide, there's about a half million now.

There's a big population in San Diego, California, and they've also expanded with the same businesses.

They have a bunch of retail stores out there, too, and then also they expand it to Phoenix, Arizona.

There's a big hellion population in Arizona as well.

And they also have the same type of businesses.