To Belong in Buenos Aires

Abstract

This book analyzes the activities and fantasies of the people who sought to create a lasting German community in Buenos Aires and the behavior of others who challenged that project. It argues that ideas about the future drove thousands of German-speaking immigrants to carve out a place for ethnicity and pluralism in the cultural and linguistic landscape of Buenos Aires. In a moment when there was increasing pressure from the Argentine state and new nationalist forces to create a culturally homogeneous citizenry, the leaders of German-language institutions promoted a pluralistic vision of Argentine belonging by insisting that it was possible to be both ethnic and Argentine. Such efforts to create a lasting ethnic community that involved itself in issues of citizenship--particularly when repeated across groups in the Argentine capital--expanded the very meaning of that citizenship. At the same time, actors in the German Foreign Office, Lutheran and Catholic organizations in Germany, and nationalist associations interacted with German speakers in the Americas, and migrants and their children came to occupy an important space in the German national consciousness. In taking such an interest in Latin America, people in Germany promoted the idea that the German nation transcended not only political but also generational boundaries. Against the backdrop of ideologies of weltpolitik and imperialism, they espoused a belief in a territorially unbounded nation that would supposedly help Germany increase its global influence.