Immigrants In Argentina Research Articles

Writing and Adapting Disability: Galdós’ Marianela and Pablo Messiez’s Los ojos

Drawing on David Mitchell and Sharon Snyder’s concept of narrative prosthesis to refer to both the pervasive presence of disability in mainstream discourse and the conventions used to represent it, this article compares how disability is handled in Benito Pérez Galdós’ novel, Marianela and in its theatrical adaptation, Los ojos, by the Argentinian playwright Pablo Messiez. In his novel Galdós seemingly follows the typical pattern of representing disability through his curing of Pablo’s blindness, but then he subverts that pattern by using Marianela’s death and burial to draw attention to the artificiality of the conventions aimed at eliminating disability from narratives. In his adaptation, Messiez shifts the focus from disability to nationality, transforming Nela and her mother into Argentine immigrants living in Spain. Through them he exposes the Otherness experienced by immigrants which marginalizes them, and he undermines the stigma of foreignness by redefining the concept of national identity. In so doing, however, Messiez eliminates Galdós’ challenge to mainstream representations of disability, allowing his play to follow the standard pattern identified by Mitchell and Snyder.

La inmigración subsidiada en la Argentina y la crisis económica de 1890

La gran mayoria de la inmigracion que recibio la Republica Argentina a lo largo de su historia arribo a traves de mecanismos espontaneos basados en relaciones de parentesco y de amistad. Sin embargo, entre 1887 y 1890, durante la presidencia de Miguel Juarez Celman, se intento un costoso programa de subvencion de pasajes transatlanticos y creacion de agencias de informacion en ciudades europeas, encargadas de publicitar las condiciones de la Argentina como pais de inmigracion. Utilizando fuentes editas e ineditas del Departamento General de Inmigracion y del Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores, en el articulo se analizan las razones por las cuales se produjo ese cambio en la politica inmigratoria argentina y los problemas que condujeron a su fracaso en 1890. Palabras clave: inmigracion, agencias de emigracion, pasajes subsidiados, crisis economica de 1890, Juarez Celman.

La colonización rural con inmigrantes en Argentina a mediados del siglo XX: Un efímero impulso desarrollista alentado por el CIME

La colonización rural con inmigrantes en Argentina suele considerarse un fenómeno circunscrito entre finales del siglo XIX y comienzos del XX. Las décadas posteriores de los cincuenta y los sesenta, por el contrario, son celebradas como la época de la industrialización. El objetivo de este artículo es determinar hasta qué punto aquella inmigración colonizadora estuvo presente en los planes del gobierno argentino a mediados de siglo, situar esos proyectos en un contexto internacional dominado por el fervor desarrollista, y analizar los resultados prácticos que, en tal sentido, produjo la cooperación con el Comité Intergubernamental para las Migraciones Europeas (CIME). Para ello, utilizaré sobre todo documentación primaria —tal como correspondencia oficial, informes y actas— procedente de la administración argentina y del mencionado Comité, además de recortes de prensa e información cuantitativa.

An evolutionary approach to mania studying Sardinian immigrants to Argentina.

Objective:To ascertain lifetime prevalence of positivity to a screening questionnaire for bipolar disorders (BD) in Sardinian immigrants to Argentina and residents of Sardinia and assess whether such positivity affects quality of life (QoL) in either group. Our hypothesis is that screen positivity for BD may be more frequent in immigrants.Methods:Observational study. Subjects were randomly selected from the membership lists of associations of Sardinian immigrants in Argentina. A study carried out in Sardinia using the same methodology was used for comparison. The Mood Disorder Questionnaire was used to screen for mania/hypomania and the Short-Form Health Survey-12 to measure QoL.Results:A higher prevalence of manic/hypomanic episodes was found in Sardinian immigrants to Argentina (p < 0.0001; odds ratio = 3.0, 95% confidence interval 1.87-4.77). Positivity at screening was associated with a lower QoL both in Sardinian immigrants to Argentina and in residents of Sardinia.Conclusions:To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to show a higher lifetime prevalence of manic/hypomanic episodes in a general-population sample of individuals who migrated to a foreign country. Our results are in agreement with the hypothesis that hyperactive/novelty-seeking features may represent an adaptive substrate in certain conditions of social change.

Depression in Sardinian immigrants in Argentina and residents in Sardinia at the time of the Argentinian default (2001) and the Great Recession in Italy (2015)

BackgroundThe aim of this study is to measure in two samples of Sardinian immigrants in Buenos Aires and representatives of the population in Sardinia the prevalence of depressive symptoms at the time of an economic crisis in Sardinia and to compare these results with those collected at the time of a similar crisis in Argentina more than 10 years before.MethodsObservational study. The associations of Sardinian immigrants in Buenos Aires provided the lists of families of Sardinian origin. A random sample of one fifth of registered families was selected. The sample of a study carried out in Sardinia was used as the control. The results were compared with those of the previous study performed in 2001–2002. The Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ9) was used for the screening of depression.ResultsThe Sardinian immigrants show a lower rate of scoring positively on PHQ9 (i.e. less risk of being depressed) and reach statistical significance after standardization (8.7% vs. 13.1%, P = 0.046). Young women (≤40) are at higher risk. On the contrary, the risk of depression was higher in Sardinian immigrants in Argentina during the 2001–2002 crises.ConclusionThe study indicates a risk for depressive episodes linked to the fallout of the economic crisis (in Argentina in 2001–2002, in Sardinia in 2015) and specifically more in females than in males. Due to the associated socio-demographic risk factors, these results could be interpreted as due to an increase in non-bipolar depression.

Some courtesy formulas used by Syrian-Lebanese immigrants in Argentina

AbstractThe use of formulaic phrases has attracted considerable interest in cultural studies, but little attention has been paid to sociolinguistic issues. This paper is a study of the linguistic courtesy expressions of Syrian-Lebanese, second-generation immigrants in Argentina. Based on secret recordings, and using an interpretive approach to transfer, this research explores the relationship between courtesy formulas in Arabic and their equivalent in Spanish. Formulas containing mainly somatic elements (hands and eyes) are selected to narrow the range of meanings of the targeted expressions. The approach to transfer is interpretive; the findings show how the formulas’ structures are tailored to the requirements of different languages, and how different formulas are creatively employed to display and negotiate identities that are related to the status of immigrants in Argentina and their discursive spaces.

Labour Market Limbo: The Uneven Integration of Co-Ethnic Argentine Immigrants in Spain

Immigration and citizenship laws that discriminate by race, ethnicity, and national origins are increasingly illegitimate in contemporary democracies, yet laws that grant privileged access and membership to immigrants who share natives' ethnicity persist. This enduring positive selection rests upon the assumption that co-ethnicity fosters integration. Countering this logic, this article centers on co-ethnics' insertion into local labour markets. It draws from a case study of Aguaviva, Spain, a depopulating village in which both co-ethnic Argentines and Romanian immigrants reside. The analysis qualifies the trend of deracialization in immigration and citizenship policy and shows that positive preferences do not uniformly foster integration. In dual labour market systems, co-ethnics struggle because they are not different enough for secondary sector jobs reserved for immigrant “others,” yet in the primary sector they enter into direct competition with natives.

Transnational Mercenaries as Agents of Argentine National Construction in Moritz Alemann’s Immigration Propaganda (1874–1908)

This article analyzes a series of propaganda speeches by Moritz Alemann, a Swiss journalist and entrepreneur based in Buenos Aires, who aimed to attract Germanic investors for large-scale projects in Patagonia at the beginning of the twentieth century. Moving beyond traditional discussions of Germanic farmers and artisans as agents of Argentine national construction, I argue that the author’s refashioning of the Swiss mercenary for a modern business context reveals the practices of an elite group of transnational émigrés working for the advancement of their home and host countries and provides a more dynamic view of immigration in Argentina.

Old Buddies and Same Old Stories: Argentina and US relations in the Trump Era

Old Buddies and Same Old Stories:Argentina and US relations in the Trump Era Mónica Farías On January 25th 2017 the President of the United States of America, Donald Trump, issued Executive Orders 13767 and 13768. The former commands Customs and Border Patrol to "secure the southern border of the United States through the immediate construction of a physical wall on the southern border." The latter enhances immigration officers' power to initiate deportation proceedings. Two days later, on January 27th, Trump issued EO 13769 suspending the refugee program as well as the entry to the United States of America of citizens from seven predominantly Muslim countries. On the very same day, Trump's Argentine counterpart, President Mauricio Macri, issued Decreto de Necesidad y Urgencia 70/2017 (DNU - Decree of Need and Urgency) that reformed Argentine immigration statutes, lowering the requirements for the deportation of foreign residents while expediting the deportation process. This simultaneity could very well be just an unfortunate coincidence but what should call our immediate attention is that the content of these measures—the xenophobic targeting and racialized stereo-types [End Page 176] that they mobilize—are strikingly similar. According to the Center for Legal and Social Studies (CELS), Macri's DNU 70/2017 reinstates the same criteria that existed under the 1976-1983 Argentine dictatorship. Under the Law 22.439, also known as the Ley Videla (after de facto president of Argentina Jorge R. Videla) in place until 2004, undocumented immigrants were denied access to social services such as education and health care, both free and public in Argentina, and the right to legitimate legal defense. At the time of its implementation Congress had been dissolved and national security doctrines "justified" the establishment of a system of control and sanction of the immigrant population. But what can possibly justify a measure like this under a democratic government, where it is the prerogative of the Congress to legislate on immigration issues? According to CELS, DNU 70/2017 was neither justified on the basis of need, nor of urgency. "Immigration" was not a central issue of Macri's political campaigns neither as Mayor of the city of Buenos Aires, nor for President of Argentina. Yet, Macri's xenophobia is not new. During his tenure as the Mayor of Buenos Aires (2007-2015), he and members of his administration made several remarks linking immigration from neighboring countries with delinquency of all kinds, from petty crime to illegal occupation of land and drug trafficking. Furthermore, Macri, just like Trump, won his campaign and has built his policies by tapping into deep-rooted fears and grievances. For instance, his campaign tapped into middle class discourses about a lack of law and order in an urban space increasingly perceived as dangerous and ungovernable. This is not the only similarity between the two presidents. Macri's association with Donald Trump goes back to the 1980s when he and his father tried to close a deal with him in New York. In a 2005 interview Macri said of Trump and himself: "we remained buddies. Every time I go to New York, I visit him, and I have lunch with him and his wife" (Página 12 2016). That said, Macri did not support Trump's candidacy and instead bet on Hillary Clinton's continuation of Obama's diplomatic and economic policies. Yet, the morning after the election, Macri congratulated Trump on twitter, arranged to have a phone call that took place on November 14th and tried to secure a visit to the United States. In a public opinion poll undertaken a few days prior to the announcement of DNU 70/2017, the pollster Poliarquía (http://poliarquia.com/encuesta-nacional-sobre-politica-migratoria/) reported that the level of approval for at least two of the measures—the banning of immigrants with a criminal record and "deportation express" procedures—surpassed 80 percent. But this is not new, either. In Argentina, migrants have been scapegoated for the lack of jobs and the critical economic situation at multiple points throughout the 20th century (Grimson 2001, 2006; Guano 2003). For instance, in 1902, the Ley de Residencia (Residence Law) legalized the deportation of...

Política migratoria Argentina: una mirada desde el institucionalismo histórico

This article analyzes the Argentine immigration policy from the perspective of historical institutionalism theory. In the twentieth century, in particular since the enactment of the Residency Law of 1902, that policy was characterized by a restrictive character, which was intensified along the century by different regulations, with Videla Law (1981) as one of its major milestones. With the return of democracy, various projects intended to abolish this law, but it was not until 2004 that this purpose was achieved with the so-called Project Giustiniani. This paper presents a case study of the Argentine immigration policy, supporting the hypothesis that the Immigration Law N°25.871 of 2004 meant the breakdown of Path Dependence followed by the Argentine immigration institutions over the twentieth century.

Música y danza como espacios de participación de los jóvenes hijos de migrantes bolivianos y paraguayos en Buenos Aires (Argentina)

Este artículo se desprende de una tesis doctoral que –desde una perspectiva antropológica- se enfocó en las identificaciones y formas de participación de la “segunda generación” de inmigrantes en la ciudad capital de la Argentina. En el presente análisis se retoman algunos aspectos de la participación de los hijos de bolivianos y paraguayos de Buenos Aires a partir del examen de sus prácticas artístico-culturales, especialmente de música y danza vinculada al origen de sus padres. Tomando en cuenta los procesos de identificación de la generación de los hijos, se pretende situar a estas prácticas artísticas y a la participación de estos jóvenes en el marco de ciertas coyunturas y cambios actuales (que exceden el ámbito de la ciudad y el país, y alcanzan un nivel inter/ trans-nacional). De este modo se propone una concepción de “lo político” desde una perspectiva diferente a la que remite a las prácticas tradicionales desde las cuales se piensa la participación social y/o política, que brinde elementos para concebir a la música y a la danza como herramientas de transformación especialmente entre jóvenes urbanos de sectores populares.

“Marginal Immigrants”: Jewish-Argentine Immigration to the State of Israel, 1948–1967

The article focuses on two common issues in the study of immigration to Israel: the scope of Argentine Jewish immigration and its socio-demographic composition. I devote special focus to the institutional-organizational aspect of the migration and the activists who contributed to it in an attempt to confront Israel’s immigration policy and its execution in Argentina. To address this topic, the article tracks the stories of tens of thousands of Argentine immigrants who arrived in Israel between 1948 and 1967 through the combination of both qualitative and quantitative sources, especially an electronic database consisting of the personal information of 10,487 Argentine immigrants. The scope of the Argentine migration is analyzed, relative to both Argentina’s Jewish population and the rate of overall Jewish immigration to Israel. The article continues with a reconstruction of the demographic, social, and economic backgrounds (i.e., gender, age, ethnicity, marital status, family makeup, profession) of the Argentine immigrants. By cross-referencing and integrating quantitative and qualitative data along with firsthand accounts of the migration, the article presents a detailed, thorough, and wide-ranging picture of the immigration process in all its complexity. This comprehensive image renders visible what lies beyond the scope of statistics on both the Argentine Jewish and overall contemporaneous immigration to Israel.

Paternal Communities: Social Welfare and Immigration in Argentina, 1880–1930

This article charts the emergence of several immigrant-run social welfare institutions in Argentina between 1880 and 1930. Using German-language organizations as an illustrative case study, it argues that immigrants played an important role in shaping the system of social welfare in Argentina over a long historical period. It focuses on the autonomy affluent immigrants sought to attain and the ideas about class, gender, and ethnicity they invoked in their pursuit of this goal. The cause of social welfare helped self-proclaimed leaders construct a specific image of their community, solidify gender and class hierarchies, and paternalistically organize workers under their leadership. These actions fostered a place for affluent immigrants within a broader system of social relations in Buenos Aires. In carving out a space for ethnic communities in a domain where the state, the Catholic Church, and Spanish-speaking philanthropists also had influence, German and other wealthy immigrants transcended the individual communities they aspired to care for and helped shape the relationship between community and society.

Acerca de la identidad boliviana en Argentina. Un análisis de tres casos de estudio en la provincia de Buenos Aires, Argentina

This paper is about the representations, practices and cultural expressions carried out by groups of Bolivian immigrants and their descendants in the cities of Olavarria, Tandil and Azul in the province of Buenos Aires, Argentina. For this purpose, the three case studies presented are analyzed based on the theoretical notions of identities and ethnic groups proper to the field of social anthropology. It thus seeks to contribute to knowledge about the construction of the identities of Bolivian immigrants in Argentina and, especially, to the discussion of those perspectives that propose the cultural assimilation of these groups into the host society.

More than two to tango: Argentine tango immigrants in New York City

More than two to tango: Argentine tango immigrants in New York City

David Aliano. Mussolini's National Project in Argentina.

This is a thoughtful analysis of fascist Italy's project to promote the political and ideological construction of transnational Italian nationhood among Italian immigrants in Argentina. The author draws effectively on government archival material in Italy and Argentina, as well as on newspaper and other sources, in exploring “the role played by Argentine national discourses in shaping the debate over Italian national identity that took place on Argentine soil” (p. 18). Benito Mussolini reversed 1920s nationalist alarm in Italy over early twentieth-century emigration by shaping alternative, inspiring notions of a geographically ample Italian nation. Aliano documents the multifaceted fascist project to win political converts among Italian immigrants in Argentina, which included offers of service from the renowned playwright Luigi Pirandello during two Argentine tours (1927 and 1936). While initially focused on political support for fascism, the project evolved to more subtle activities that included the sponsorship of educational initiatives and children's summer camps as well as a propaganda campaign that featured newsreels and handbooks for training fascists in Argentina.

Ethnic Rituals and the Public Space: Mexican and Chilean Jews in Film

IntroductionThe incorporation of Latin American economies into the process of globalization that emerged in the eighties, and the consequent hegemony of neoliberalism, brought about a crisis in national identities. The deindustrialization process engendered massive unemployment and a clandestine economy; the decline of the welfare state triggered exclusion, poverty, and crime; migration altered the composition of the ethnic mosaic and gave rise to the growing legitimization of minority identities; freedom of choice, centered on consumerism and pleasure, now also extended to sexual diversity. One manifestation of these changes in the continent's cinemas has been the increasingly frequent appearance of Jewish narratives and characters in movies intended for the general public and the global movie market. These films represent their countries of origin in international festivals, and also take part in the Jewish film festivals held every year, attracting a wide audience that is not exclusively Jewish. The trend is indicative of the reconstruction of a white ethnicity, almost invisible on Latin American movie screens until three decades ago, with particularities that allow for the analysis of possibilities and limitations for the representation of cultural diversity. Thus Jewish experiences as represented in movies become, from my perspective, a testimony to the processes of multiculturalism.This article will analyze the movies Cinco dias sin Nora (Nora's Will), directed by Mariana Chenillo (Mexico, 2008), and El brindis (To Life), directed by Shai Agosin (Chile, Mexico, 2007), based on the premise that film texts are aesthetic testimonies to cultural processes taking place in the societies in which they are produced.1 If we consider the characters' presence in the public space, and the representation of traditions and rituals, we arrive at the conclusion that these movies construct the cultural difference, and the subaltern identity's alterity, by negotiating the legitimacy of Jewish religious rites in the face of each country's hegemonic identity, while the presence of the characters in the public space is a testimony of certain ethnic minority conflicts in the national context.Alterity and ContextThe sociopolitical crises unleashed by the modifications carried out for the inclusion of national economies in the process of globalization, in addition to the ideological hegemony of neoliberalism, brought about changes that compelled national identities to adjust to the new circumstances. Barriers were lifted so that goods and capital could circulate freely; however, this created deindustrialization, which in turn generated population displacements from remote areas to the cities and between different countries on the same continent, as well as migratory flows to and from Latin America. Consequently, certain groups, previously excluded or newly arrived, gained visibility, such as indigenous peoples in Mexico and Chile, or Bolivian, Paraguayan, and Asian immigrants in Argentina. Thus the Other- ness of Jews, who in the past had been represented in literature as a transcendent alterity whose significance emerged from circumstances and context, seems to diminish and become integrated.2In societies in which whiteness is hegemonic-like the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom-there are highly segregated groups suffering from racial marginalization, including African Americans and other people of color. In contrast, the segregation of Jews in these societies is mostly attributed to the community's own desire to preserve a distinctive identity, and only to a lesser degree to the impact of anti-Semitism. Studies centered on the discourse may describe the Jewish identities in Latin America as the result of a permanent struggle against discrimination and the exclusion engendered by anti-Semitism; on the other hand, sociological studies that examine the insertion of Jews into the social structure may conclude that they fall within the white category. …

Yugoslav teachers in Argentina 1939-1944

In this paper we present reports of Yugoslav teachers who held classes to immigrants in Argentina 1939-1944, organized by the government of Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Teachers’ reports to Yugoslav Embassy in Buenos Aires testify of Kingdom of Yugoslavia efforts to oppose assimilation and promote and strengthen “Yugoslav national unity”. The reports also describe general social circumstances of Yugoslav immigrants, show various details from their everyday life and contain valuable data on numerous political, economic, social and cultural problems of this diaspora in Argentina and their relationship with motherland. We believe that archive materials presented in this paper opens numerous questions which could be topics of separate researches. Some of them could be the following: To which extent the teachers’ reports represented the actual situation and to which they were shaped to match policy and expectations of Kingdom of Yugoslavia? What was the actual influence of teachers to spreading the “national unity” among immigrants? Have their work left trace in Yugoslav diaspora and in which way? Beside all of the open issues, it is certain that teachers’ reports contain valuable data on immigrants’ everyday life, curriculum, schooling conditions, relationship with motherland, etc.

Argentine multiculturalism and the ethnographic shift in documentary cinema: Martín Rejtman's Copacabana

The paper examines Martín Rejtman's critical documentary work in the context of broader representations of Argentina, especially Buenos Aires, as a multicultural society. It contends that the notion of multiculturalism, as a description of postcolonial social formations, does not properly apply to the Argentine case, and that the construction of an image of Buenos Aires in terms of a harmonious, multiracial coexistence is an injurious misrepresentation. The paper first focuses on Rejtman's new approach to the cultural analysis of immigration in Argentina as it stems from the imposition of ‘curiosity’ and the adoption of an ethnographic perspective. Secondly, it assesses the relationship between this new proposal, the notion of multiculturalism, and its applicability to the Argentine context. Finally, it appraises the connections between the analysis of contemporary Argentina and the significance of the progression from a poetics of fiction to a poetics of documentary in Rejtman's Copacabana (2006) and his other films.

アルゼンチンにおける「移民」の社会問題化とその周縁

アルゼンチンにおける「移民」の社会問題化とその周縁