Argentina in the Era of Mass Immigration

Introduction

In his exploration of the dichotomy between civilization and barbarism in 1845, Domingo F. Sarmiento, an Argentine intellectual who would become president some years later, proposed Argentina should seek European immigrants to help populate and modernize the large Latin American nation. The Immigration and Colonization Act of 1876 became the catalyst for what would become known as the “era of mass immigration” (1880–1930), a period in Argentine history that would see a continuous, uninterrupted flow of people across the Atlantic. There were many reasons why Europeans desired to migrate to the Americas in general, and to Argentina in particular. Most immigrants sought to leave behind the difficult economic times that led them to experience hunger and poverty, while others wanted to escape discrimination and persecution. The longing for a better life, for themselves and their families, led them to leave their countries of origin for a chance at a more promising future. Innovations in technology—namely the steamship, but also the railroad—made this odyssey possible for millions of people. The 1876 law offered immigrants food and lodging upon arrival, promised to help them find work, and provided them with a free train ride to their final destination. These, and other incentives, in addition to the global and regional mechanisms in place, made Argentina one of the largest immigrant destinations in the world during the era of mass migration, second only to the United States. It is estimated that between 1850 and 1930, Argentina received more than 6.6 million immigrants. Italians, Spanish, French, German, British, and others came to “make it in America” and, while not everyone stayed (approximately half of them either returned to their country of origin or continued their migration to another destination), it certainly forever affected the character of the Argentine nation. The government of Argentina attracted immigrants not only from Europe, but also from the Middle East and Asia. Jews and Arabs, for instance, arrived from three empires on the verge of disintegration: the Ottoman Empire, the Tsarist Empire, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire of central Europe, making Argentina home to one of the largest Jewish populations in the world. Argentina thus became as much a country of immigrants as the United States. Yet, in contrast to its North American neighbor, the effects of immigration had a greater impact on Argentina because the proportion of newcomers to the existing population was much greater, thus affecting its language and culture in unimaginable ways. The purpose of this article is to focus on the historical and sociological aspects of immigration to Argentina in the period from 1880 to 1930. The impact of immigration on its cultural production—its literature, music, and art—is beyond the scope of this study.

General Overviews

Devoto 2004 provides an excellent point of departure to begin an examination of the phenomenon of mass immigration to Argentina. Broad in scope, it considers the global and regional causes that led millions of immigrants to leave their countries of origin and begin a new life in the Americas. Germani 1966 and Sarramone 1999 provide further general overviews of immigration to Argentina, with important charts and tables that help illustrate the this phenomenon. Bjerg 2009 examines the trajectories of European immigration through the testimonies of five immigrants from various backgrounds and regions of Europe—namely, Denmark, Ukraine, and Italy—that help paint a clear picture of the vicissitudes encountered upon arrival to Argentina. The essays found in Bjerg and Otero 1995 also bring into question and challenge previous interpretations of immigrants’ adaptation to their new country. The reaction by locals to immigration is discussed in Blancpain 2011 and Onega 1982, while Swidersk and Farjat 2000 provides invaluable resources regarding the infrastructure that awaited immigrants by focusing on the hotels that lodged them upon arrival.

Bjerg, María. Historias de la inmigración en la Argentina. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Edhasa, 2009.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Divided in two parts, the book first frames the phenomenon of immigration to Argentina around a solid panorama that occupies the first five chapters. The second part of the book focuses on the lives of five immigrants to show what barriers they had to confront upon arrival to the country. The experience of adaptation, deterritorialization, and assimilation are all carefully considered from various angles.
Find this resource:
Bjerg, María, and Hernán Otero, eds. Inmigración y redes sociales en la Argentina moderna. Buenos Aires, Argentina: CEMLA-IEHS, 1995.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An important collection of essays dealing with the impact of social networks in the lives of European immigrants to Argentina. The twelve studies included in the volume challenge the traditional view that emphasized the immigrant’s unproblematic process of adaptation into Argentine society, presenting a more complex and diverse pattern of immigrant behavior.
Find this resource:
Blancpain, Jean Piere. Les européens en Argentine: Immigration de masse et destins individuels (1850–1950). Paris: L’Harmattan Edition, 2011.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Explores the reactions of the locals to mass immigration. Also examines the three minority contingents—the French, Germans, and English—as a qualified working force. The French and English had a big influence in urban architecture, administration, and education.
Find this resource:
Bletz, May E. Immigration and Acculturation in Brazil and Argentina: 1890–1929. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.
DOI: 10.1057/9780230113510Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Explores questions of nationality in Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, and São Paulo, in the context of mass immigration to southern South America. By examining fictional, journalistic, and (pseudo)scientific texts of the period, the author argues that processes of representation and identity formation between national and immigrant groups have to be examined within the historical context of the host nations.
Find this resource:
Devoto, Fernando. Historia de la inmigración en la Argentina. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Editorial Sudamericana, 2004.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This book constitutes the first synthesis of the history of immigration to Argentina. It examines the global and regional mechanisms that made migration to Argentina possible to millions of people, while also exploring the processes of insertion of immigrants in Argentine society.
Find this resource:
Germani, Gino. “Mass Immigration and Modernization in Argentina.” Studies in Comparative International Development 2.11 (1966): 165–182.
DOI: 10.1007/BF02800543Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Examines the causes that led Argentina to promote European immigration, and considers the impact of mass immigration in demographic, economic, and social terms. The article also analyzes the process of assimilation of foreigners and its impact on Argentine culture. It provides numerous tables and charts that help illustrate said impact.
Find this resource:
Onega, Gladys S. La inmigración en la literatura argentina (1880–1910). Buenos Aires, Argentina: Centro Editor de América Latina S.A, 1982.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
While focused on the literature produced between 1880 and 1910, Onega’s book provides a necessary reading on the intellectual debates going on in Argentina during the era of mass immigration.
Find this resource:
Sarramone, Alberto. Los abuelos inmigrantes: Historia y sociología de la inmigración argentina. Azul, Argentina: Editorial Biblos Azul, 1999.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A general overview of immigration to Argentina in the era of mass immigration. Offers a sociological study of agricultural colonization in various provinces of Argentina. It includes a summary of the main immigrant groups that settled throughout the country.
Find this resource:
Swidersk, Graciela, and Jorge Luis Farjat. Los antiguos hoteles de inmigrantes. Colección Arte y Memoria Audiovisual. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Gráfica Integral, 2000.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A comprehensive study on the lodging of immigrants to Argentina upon arrival. The book relies on extensive archival material, drawings, sketches, and photographs to explain the difficulties faced by immigrants in their first few days and weeks in the country.
Find this resource:
Italians

Between the middle of the 19th century and the Great Depression of 1930, about three million Italians immigrated to Argentina, forming the largest group of newcomers—ahead of the two million Spaniards and a quarter-million French who arrived during the same period. As shown by Devoto 2006, Cocopardo and Moreno 1994, Foerster 1919, Schneider 2000, and Rosa 2013, Italian immigration to Argentina was very diverse and heterogeneous, made up of people from diverse linguistic, cultural, social, and economic backgrounds. Baily 2004 allows for the opportunity to think about Italian immigration across the Americas, with a marked emphasis on the two largest cities on the Atlantic during the era of mass immigration: Buenos Aires and New York. The formation of Italian institutions in Argentina played a key role in the reception and the adaptation process of immigrants, as noted in Choate 2008 and Baily 1969. Newer studies reveal the problematic of Italian and Argentine collaboration in the early days of Fascism and beyond, as discovered by Bertagna 2007.

Baily, Samuel L. “The Italians and the Development of Organized Labor in Argentina, Brazil, and the United States, 1880–1914.” Journal of Social History 3.2 (1969): 123–134.
DOI: 10.1353/jsh/3.2.123Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Considers the role played by Italian immigrants in the labor movements of Argentina, Brazil, and the United States, and shows the importance of how these workers were received by their newly adopted countries.
Find this resource:
Baily, Samuel L. Immigrants in the Lands of Promise: Italians in Buenos Aires and New York City, 1870–1914. Cornell Studies in Comparative History. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A comparative analysis of Italian immigration to New York and Buenos Aires before World War I. The book traces the footsteps of Italian immigrants from their villages of origin to various destinations abroad while focusing on Argentina and the United States. A landmark study in both immigration and comparative history.
Find this resource:
Bertagna, Federica. La inmigración fascista en la Argentina. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Siglo XXI, 2007.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Reconstructs the trajectories of Italian Fascists to Argentina. The book shows various degrees of involvement between numerous Italian institutions operating in Argentina and the Mussolini regime. Clearly written, the book is accessible to academics and nonacademics alike.
Find this resource:
Choate, Mark I. Emigrant Nation: The Making of Italy Abroad. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
With a marked emphasis on the era of mass immigration, the book deals with Italian politics between the 1880s and 1920s and their effects on the immigrant communities of Argentina, among others, including that of Brazil. Also examined are the role of Italian language and culture abroad and the debates that ensued on both sides of the Atlantic.
Find this resource:
Cocopardo, Maria Cristina, and José Luis Moreno, eds. La familia italiana y meridional en la emigración a la Argentina. Naples, Italy: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 1994.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A collections of essays on southern Italian immigration to Argentina that explore the role of the family throughout the migratory process.
Find this resource:
Devoto, Fernando. Historia de los italianos en la Argentina. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Editorial Biblos, 2006.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
One of the most important contributions to the study of Italian immigration to Argentina. Devoto analyzes the enormous impact this very large and heterogeneous immigrant group had on Argentine culture, and the limited visibility of their experience in Argentine history books.
Find this resource:
Foerster, Robert F. The Italian Emigration of Our Times. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1919.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A seminal study on Italian immigration to the Americas during the era of mass immigration. Two whole chapters are dedicated to Argentina.
Find this resource:
Rosa, Silvia Giovanna. Italiane d’Argentina: Storia e memorie di un secolo d’emigrazione al femminile (1860–1960). Turin, Italy: Ananke, 2013.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Examines Italian women’s experience in Argentina through letters, diaries, autobiographic materials, and oral sources. It is a study of gender in the context of transoceanic immigration.
Find this resource:
Schneider, Arnd. Futures Lost: Nostalgia and Identity among Italian Immigrants in Argentina. Oxford and New York: Peter Lang, 2000.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The book examines the views on identity, modernity, and success among upper-middle-class Italian Argentines interviewed by the author in the later 1980s. The study attempts to balance what the author of the book perceives as a concentration in previous studies on working-class Italian immigrants.
Find this resource:
Spanish

As shown in Moya 1998, Spanish immigration to the Western Hemisphere between the mid-19th century and the Great Depression reached more than four million people, and, unlike other European immigrant groups bound for the Americas, most of them went to Argentina, not the United States. The impact of Spanish immigration to Argentina left an indelible mark on its culture, as explained by the articles collected in Cristóforis and Fernández 2008. But like other immigrant groups, Spanish immigrants did not all settle in Buenos Aires. Da Orden 2005, for instance, focuses on Spanish communities a few hundred kilometers south of the capital, in the city of Mar del Plata, where the author documents social mobility and familial relations among the immigrants that settled there between 1890 and 1930. Spanish immigration was far from homogeneous, as noted in Sánchez Albornoz 1988, and it included people from Andalusia, Catalonia, Asturias, and the Basque Country, among other regions. Galicians were the largest of the Spanish groups to arrive in Argentina in the era of mass immigration, and they were able to rapidly form various social and cultural associations centered around language, music, literature, and cuisine, on the one hand, and political and civic organizations, on the other, as shown in the edited collection of essays Núñez Seixas 2001.

Cristóforis, Nadia de, and Alejandro Fernández, eds. Las migraciones españolas a la Argentina: Variaciones regionales (siglos XIX y XX). Buenos Aires, Argentina: Editorial Biblos, 2008.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A dynamic collection of essays that offer innovative approaches to the study of Spanish immigration to Argentina, emphasizing its heterogeneous character and allowing for the reconstruction of both an Argentine and Spanish past.
Find this resource:
Da Orden, María L. Inmigración española, familia y movilidad social en la Argentina moderna: Una mirada desde Mar del Plata (1890–1930). Buenos Aires, Argentina: Editorial Biblos, 2005.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A study of Spanish immigration to Mar del Plata, a city located in the province of Buenos Aires. It examines various paths to assimilation, explored through an analysis of integration, social mobility, and familial relations in Spanish immigrants who settled between 1890 and 1930.
Find this resource:
Moya, José C. Cousins and Strangers: Spanish Immigrants in Buenos Aires, 1850–1930. Berkley: University of California Press, 1998.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Citing a wealth of primary sources, Jose C. Moya, offers an original interpretation of Spanish immigration to Argentina, from its origins to residence patterns, community development, labor, and cultural engagement.
Find this resource:
Núñez Seixas, Xosé Manuel, ed. La Galicia austral: La inmigración gallega en la Argentina. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Editorial Biblos, 2001.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A study of Spanish Galician immigration to Argentina. As the most numerous among Spanish immigrants to Argentina, Galicians founded cultural and political associations that took into account their specific ethnic and linguistic differences.
Find this resource:
Sánchez Albornoz, Nicolás. Españoles hacia América: La emigración en masa, 1880–1930. Madrid: Alianza, 1988.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Divided into two parts, the book first examines the effects of migration to America in various regions of Spain, such as Galicia, Andalusia, Catalonia, Asturias, and the Basque Country. The second part of the book deals explicitly with the consequences of immigration to several Latin American countries, including Argentina.
Find this resource:
Jews

Argentina is home to the largest Jewish community in Latin America, and the third largest in the Western Hemisphere. While the vast majority of Jewish immigrants arrived in Argentina from eastern, central, and to a lesser degree, western Europe, there was a sizable minority of Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews, whose experience was largely overshadowed by Ashkenazi culture, as shown in Brodsky and Rein 2013. Within Argentina, many Jews followed traditional immigration strategies by consolidating communities and institutions in Buenos Aires and other cities (see Lewin 1981 and Mirelman 1990). But many others settled on the land, in agricultural colonies sponsored by Baron Maurice de Hirsch’s 19th-century Jewish Colonization Association, a group with far-reaching impact that is examined in Avni 1991 and Elkin and Merkx 1987. Earlier works, such as Elkin 1980, reach far beyond Argentina and across time periods. Such studies planted the seeds for later works, such as Deutsch 2010, which gives Jewish women much-deserved recognition for their role in the era of mass immigration to Argentina.

Avni, Haim. Argentina and the Jews: A History of Jewish Immigration. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1991.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The book examines Argentina’s first experience with Jewish immigration in the years following its independence from Spain, and later dedicates three chapters to the era of mass immigration in which immigration from eastern and central Europe become the main focus. The volume closes with a chapter on families that left Argentina—some forty thousand people—for Israel in the 1940s and 1950s.
Find this resource:
Brodsky, Adriana M., and Raanan Rein, eds. The New Jewish Argentina: Facets of Jewish Experiences in the Southern Cone. Leiden, The Netherlands, and Boston: Brill, 2013.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A collection of essays that fill an important lacuna in the existing historiography of Argentine Jews. Most articles are devoted to social and cultural history and are written from a variety of perspectives that will be relevant to historians and students of ethnicity and diaspora.
Find this resource:
Deutsch, Sandra McGee. Crossing Borders, Claiming a Nation: A History of Argentine Jewish Women, 1880–1955. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010.
DOI: 10.1215/9780822392606Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A compelling book that focuses on the role of Jewish women in the process of nation formation. Drawing on extensive archival research and rich oral histories, the author shows women’s powerful and influential role in community building, politics, and cultural life in Argentina’s heyday of mass immigration.
Find this resource:
Elkin, Judith Laikin. Jews of the Latin American Republics. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
One of the earliest and most influential works on the Jewish presence in Latin America. The book covers the Jewish presence throughout the region and across time periods, but it emphasizes the experience of the rural settlements in the Argentine pampas, and their struggle with migration, assimilation, and exclusion.
Find this resource:
Elkin, Judith Laikin, and Gilbert W. Merkx, eds. The Jewish Presence in Latin America. Boston: Allen & Unwin, 1987.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A volume of essays presented at a research conference on the Jewish experience, held in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 1984. The book contains nine articles, of which five pertain to Argentina and collectively provide a great deal of information about the uniqueness of the Latin American Jewish experience.
Find this resource:
Lewin, Boleslao. Cómo fue la inmigración judía en la Argentina. 2d ed, Buenos Aires, Argentina: Editorial Plus Ultra, 1981.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A rigorous analysis of immigration to Argentina, with particular emphasis on the Jewish experience. The book explores Jewish immigration to Argentina from the phenomenon of crypto-Jewish identity during colonial times until the days of mass immigration. Several facets of modern Jewish immigration to Argentina are examined, including community life, social structure, and cultural aspects.
Find this resource:
Mirelman, Victor. Jewish Buenos Aires, 1890–1930: In Search of an Identity. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1990.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Mirelman’s book shows how decisive the years between 1890 and 1930 proved to be in the formation of Latin America’s largest Jewish community. The book explains the development of community institutions, such as cultural, political, and Zionist organizations; community reactions to anti-Semitism and the white-slave trade, and gives examples of Jewish cultural expressions in those early decades.
Find this resource:
Ashkenazi Jewry

The works included in this section provide a good panorama of Jewish Ashkenazi immigration to Argentina between 1880 and 1930. Tolcachier 1998 offers a good overview of Argentine Jewish historiography up until the 21st century, while Avni 2005 and Sofer 1982 consider the particularity of the plight of immigrants hailing from central and eastern Europe and their settlement in Argentina through the work of Baron Maurice de Hirsch, who in 1891 created the Jewish Colonization Association to give Russian Jews a new home in southern South America. His role in the organization of this philanthropic enterprise and the legacy of the agricultural colonies of Argentina’s interior are carefully studied in Freidenberg 2010 and Kapszuk 2001. In recent years, there have been a number of groundbreaking studies in Latin American Jewish studies that challenge earlier preconceived notions about the particularity of Ashkenazi Jewish immigration. Rein 2010 and Lewis Nouwen 2013 consider the impact of Jewish immigration in terms of language, ethnicity, and identity.

Avni, Haim. Argentina y las migraciones judías: De la Inquisición al Holocausto y después. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Editorial Milá, 2005.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
While broad in scope, this invaluable contribution to Latin American Jewish historiography focuses mostly on the years of mass immigration to Argentina and the experience of central and eastern European Jews in their newly adoptive country.
Find this resource:
Freidenberg, Judith Noemí. The Invention of the Jewish Gaucho: Villa Clara and the Construction of Argentine Identity. Jewish Life, History, and Culture. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2010.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Examines the lives of Russian Jewish settlers in the agricultural colonies established by the Jewish Colonization Association, and interweaves ethnographic and historical sources to explore the experience of European immigrants drawn by an attractive open-door Argentine immigration policy.
Find this resource:
Kapszuk, Elio Shalom Argentina. Shalom Argentina: Huellas de la colonización Argentina (Tracing Jewish Settlement). Buenos Aires, Argentina: Ministerio de Turismo, Cultura y Deporte, 2001.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A bilingual resource guide published by Argentina’s national government that, following an introduction to the history of Jewish immigration to the agricultural colonies established by Baron Maurice de Hirsch, offers several itineraries created to promote cultural tourism in the 21st century. The book has a wealth of materials, including rare photographs of the villages depicting life then and now, sketches and drawings, and a number of interviews with descendants of Jewish colonists.
Find this resource:
Lewis Nouwen, Mollie. Oy, My Buenos Aires: Jewish Immigrants and the Creation of Argentine National Identity. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2013.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The book explores the impact Yiddish-speaking Ashkenazi immigrants had on Argentine national identity. In the first two decades of the 20th century, Argentina witnessed the arrival of more than 100,000 immigrants from central and eastern Europe, who, like other migrants, embraced their adoptive country while retaining their ethnic and cultural identities. Through a variety of sources, the author examines the intersections of ethnic and national identities.
Find this resource:
Rein, Raanan. Argentine Jews or Jewish Argentines? Essays on Ethnicity, Identity, and Diaspora. Leiden, The Netherlands, and Boston: Brill, 2010.
DOI: 10.1163/ej.9789004179134.i-286Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A collection of essays on various aspects of the Jewish experience in Argentina, including the era of mass migration. The book challenges essentialist concepts and overemphasis on Jewish particularity, proposing that Jews, like other ethnic immigrant groups, were not monolithic but fragmented by social class, place of origin, gender, and political ideologies.
Find this resource:
Sofer, Eugene F. From Pale to Pampa: A Social History of the Jews of Buenos Aires. New York: Holmes & Meier, 1982.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
One of earlier works on Latin American Jewish historiography in English, From Pale to Pampa traces the history of Jews that arrived in Argentina as a result of the pogroms and persecution in the Russian Pale of Settlement.
Find this resource:
Tolcachier, Fabiana Sabina. “The Historiography of Jewish Immigration to Argentina: Problems and Perspectives.” In Arab and Jewish Immigrants in Latin America: Images and Realities. Edited by Ignacio Klich and Jeffrey Lesser, 204–226. New York: Routledge, 1998.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An overview of the historiography of Jewish immigration to Argentina, with a marked emphasis on the Ashkenazi experience. The article focuses on historiographical material written in English and Spanish from the 1980s to the 1990s.
Find this resource:
Sephardic and Mizrahi Jewry

In the history of the Jewish presence in Latin America in general, and Argentina in particular, Sephardic and Mizrahi identities have not received the scholarly attention they deserve. In recent years, several studies have taken giant steps to correct this imbalance. Bejarano and Aizenberg 2012, for instance, helps fill a significant void in both Jewish and (Latin) American historiography. In both her work on Sephardic and Arab Jews in Argentina (Brodsky 2004 and Brodsky 2008), Adriana Brodsky has shown that Sephardim often resisted their minority status in relation to the larger Ashkenazi Jewish community. Recent studies, such as Klich 2006, have thus refocused research on Latin American Jews away from Yiddish-speaking, Ashkenazi Jewry, and toward an equal consideration of Middle Eastern Jewish immigrants. Epstein 2008 gives a voice to the Moroccan Jewish experience, Argentina’s smallest Jewish ethnicity.

Bejarano, Margalit, and Edna Aizenberg, eds. Contemporary Sephardi Identity in the Americas: An Interdisciplinary Approach. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2012.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A volume that fills a void in both Jewish and Latin American studies by focusing on the Sephardic Jewish experience in the Americas. Broad in scope, the book provides several sections that address Sephardi Jewish immigration to Argentina. Following a thorough introduction, the book offers chapters that focus on how Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews bridged their gap in the publication of a Jewish Zionist newspaper in Buenos Aires, and on the Syrian Jewish community of Buenos Aires.
Find this resource:
Brodsky, Adriana M. “The Contour of Identity: Sephardic Jews and the Construction of Jewish Communities in Argentina, 1880 to the present.” PhD diss., Duke University, 2004.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This doctoral dissertation focuses on how the Sephardim resisted their minority status within the largely Ashkenazi Jewish Argentine community and its organizations, and defended their individual identities.
Find this resource:
Brodsky, Adriana M. “Re-configurando comunidades: Judíos sefaradíes/árabes en Argentina (1900–1950).” In Árabes y judíos en Iberoamérica: Similitudes, diferencias y tensiones. Edited by Raanan Rein, 119–134. Seville, Spain: Fundación Tres Culturas, 2008.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This important contribution focuses on Sephardic and Arab Jewish immigrant communities in Argentina’s interior and their relationship to each other, and to other Jewish communities in the capital city of Buenos Aires, refocusing research on Latin American Jews away from Yiddish-speaking, Ashkenazi Jewry, and toward an equal consideration of Middle Eastern Jewish immigrants.
Find this resource:
Epstein, Diana. “Instituciones y liderazgo comunitario de los judíos de origen marroquí en Buenos Aires.” In Árabes y judíos en Iberoamérica. Similitudes, diferencias y tensiones. Edited by Raanan Rein, 135–158. Sevilla, Spain: Fundación Tres Culturas, 2008.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An essential work for those seeking to understand Argentina’s smallest Jewish community: the Moroccan Jews. The study focuses on the two migratory waves of Moroccan Jewish immigration (the first in the years 1870–1930, and the second in 1950–1970) and examines the main characteristics of this lesser-known immigrant ethnic group.
Find this resource:
Klich, Ignacio. “Arabes, judíos y árabes-judíos en la Argentina de la primera mitad del novecientos.” In Árabes y judíos en América Latina: Historia, representaciones y desafíos. Edited by Ignacio Klich, 31–76. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Siglo XXI Editora Sudamericana, 2006.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This article problematizes the experience of Syrian and Lebanese Jews, known as “Arab Jews,” from the early days of mass immigration to the years that led to Israel’s War of Independence. At once members of both Jewish and Arab Argentine communities, Arabic-speaking Argentine Jews maintained a productive relationship with both Christian and Muslim Arabs until the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Find this resource:
Arabs

Arab immigration to Argentina originated mostly from the Ottoman Empire, causing people to be referred to as turcos (Turks) upon arrival and settlement. Even though Arab Argentines are a highly diverse group of individuals with varied historical origins, identities, and religious affiliations (Christian, Muslim, and Jewish), they share many common denominators centered around Arab language and cultural practices (Alfaro Velcamp 1998, Civantos 2006). Studies in Syrian-Lebanese immigration, such as Klich 1992, Martos 2007, and Hyland 2011, reveal a multifaceted migratory group that was able to create and establish important cultural, ethnic, and social institutions in spite of an ever-changing political reality. Taub 2008 examines the often stereotyped representations of Arab Argentines in print media at the turn of the 19th century and their influence in the construction of the Arab immigrant in the Argentine imaginary.

Alfaro Velcamp, Theresa. “The Historiography of Arab Immigration to Argentina: The Intersection of the Imaginary and the Real Country.” In Arab and Jewish Immigrants in Latin America: Images and Realities. Edited by Ignacio Klich and Jeffrey Lesser, 227–248. New York: Routledge, 1998.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Explores the historiography of Arab immigration to Argentina by analyzing the contrast between the Argentina in the Arab imaginary and the country as it was found by those who immigrated.
Find this resource:
Civantos, Christina. Between Argentines and Arabs: Argentine Orientalism, Arab Immigrants, and the Writing of Identity. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A literary and cultural study of the dialogue between Argentines of European descent and Arab immigrants to Argentina from the mid-1800s to the mid-1900s. This book is also a literary history of Argentine Orientalist literature and Arab-Argentine immigrant literature that puts the Arab experience in the Americas in general, and in Argentina in particular, on the map.
Find this resource:
Hyland, Steven. “‘Arisen from Deep Slumber’: Transnational Politics and Competing Nationalisms among Syrian Immigrants in Argentina, 1900–1922.” Journal of Latin American Studies 43.3 (August 2011): 547–574.
DOI: 10.1017/S0022216X11000770Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Considers Syrian immigration to Argentina between 1900 and 1922. It analyzes the role of Syrian intellectuals in relation to transnational politics and the emergence of Arab nationalisms in the first two decades of the 20th century.
Find this resource:
Klich, Ignacio. “Criollos and Arabic Speakers in Argentina: An Uneasy Pas de Deux, 1880–1914.” In The Lebanese in the World: A Century of Emigration. Edited by Albert Hourani and Nadim Shehadi, 243–284. London: I. B. Tauris, 1992.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This article offers a solid framework for the study of Lebanese and other Arab-speaking immigrants in Argentina between 1888 and 1914. Grounded on a rich bibliography, the author examines the encounters between criollos and Arab-speaking immigrants in the years of mass immigration.
Find this resource:
Martos, Sofia. “The Balancing Act: Ethnicity, Commerce, and Politics among Syrian and Lebanese Immigrants in Argentina, 1890–1955.” PhD diss., University of California, 2007.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Covers the years from the beginning of mass immigration to Argentina to the end of the second presidential term of Juan Peron. Examines the creation of cultural and ethnic institutions, business ties, and family and social lives of Arab immigrants from Syria and Lebanon, with particular emphasis on the city of Cordoba.
Find this resource:
Taub, Emmanuel. “La conformación esterotípica de un otro-incivilizado a través de la revista Caras y Caretas (1898–1918).” In Árabes y judíos en Iberoamérica: Similitudes, diferencias y tensiones. Edited by Raanan Rein, 59–82. Seville, Spain: Fundación Tres Culturas, 2008.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The article focuses on the Orientalist stereotypes fomented by Caras y Caretas, an influential Argentine magazine, toward the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. Grounded on solid scholarship, the author analyzes the symbolic configurations of the terms “Arab,” “Islamic,” and “Oriental” found in the magazine’s discourse and the effects these had on the construction of Arab identity in the Argentine imaginary.
Find this resource:
English, Irish, and Welsh

English settlers began arriving in Argentina in the early 19th century. Unlike other immigrants who went to the country seeking refuge or escaping war and poverty, the English arrived first as small business owners, and later as landowners and industrialists, railway and civil engineers, and those working in the banking, commerce, and other industries, as shown in Graham-Yooll 1999 (originally published in 1981). On the other hand, Irish immigration to Argentina happened in various stages. The very first families settled in the area in colonial times and were followed by soldiers who had been taken prisoners by the British during the River Plate invasions of 1806 and 1807. After the wars of independence, Irish immigration grew as a result of the connections and the bonds that had been established by descendants of these early immigrants. The number of Irish that settled in Argentina varies greatly between authors. Murray 2004 estimates that between 40,000 and 45,000 Irish arrived in Argentina between 1822 and 1945, and about half of them either moved north to the United States or returned to Ireland; while Korol and Sábato 1981 suggests a much smaller number. Most records of Irish immigration to Argentina are still the product of the meticulous work undertaken by Eduardo Coghlan (see Coghlan 1982 and Coghlan 1987), whose genealogies and lists of Irish family names in Argentina remain relevant, as shown in Kelly 2009, a work on Irish identity in Argentina. Williams 1991 and Priamo 2003 show that Welsh immigrants, in contrast, came to Argentina seeking a way to resist what they perceived was an increasing British colonization of their language and culture. In 1865, 160 settlers founded Y Wladfa (The Colony) following the steps of Welsh Congregationalist leader Michael D. Jones, the project’s architect, for whom the founding of this new colony would become a new Wales free from English interference.

Coghlan, Eduardo A. El aporte de los irlandeses a la formación de la Nación Argentina. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Librería Alberto Casares, 1982.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A useful resource on the history of the Irish in Argentina and their contributions to the formation of the nation. It offers charts and tables, with numbers obtained from the 1895 national census that reveal a rich and complex migratory experience.
Find this resource:
Coghlan, Eduardo A. Los irlandeses en la Argentina: Su actuación y descendencia. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Librería Alberto Casares, 1987.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Eduardo Coghlan’s 963-page book is a genealogical catalogue of the Irish Argentine community that includes Irish-born emigrants to Argentina, and most of their families up to the third, and sometimes fourth, or fifth generation. A unique work of research, and an indispensable source for students of the Irish in Argentina.
Find this resource:
Graham-Yooll, Andrew. The Forgotten Colony: A History of the English Speaking Communities in Argentina. Buenos Aires, Argentina: L.O.L.A., 1999.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Originally published in 1981, this expanded second edition tells the story of British immigration to Argentina during the 19th and 20th centuries. It provides a good overview of British life in Argentina from its merchant and shepherd past to the Falkland Islands/Malvinas War of 1982.
Find this resource:
Kelly, Helen. Irish “Ingleses”: The Irish Immigrant Experience in Argentina, 1840–1920. Dublin, Ireland: Irish Academic Press, 2009.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A thorough examination of the Irish immigrant experience in Argentina. This book is a study of the conflicting identities that emerged as a result of the Irish immigrants’ early identification with the British language and culture.
Find this resource:
Korol, Juan Carlos, and Hilda Sábato. Cómo fue la inmigración irlandesa en la Argentina. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Editorial Plus Ultra, 1981.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This book shows how the Irish first arrived in the second half of the 19th century and were able to adapt to their host nation, becoming, within a few decades, wealthy and influential members of the Pampean bourgeoisie.
Find this resource:
Murray, Edmundo. Devenir irlandés: Narrativas íntimas de la emigración irlandesa a la Argentina (1844–1912). Buenos Aires, Argentina: Eudeba, 2004.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This book makes available for the first time a wealth of resources on the Irish experience in Argentina. By combining letters and memoirs of both immigrants and their descendants, the author weaves the social and cultural history of both Ireland and Argentina in the 19th century.
Find this resource:
Priamo, Luis. Una frontera lejana: La colonización galesa del Chubut, 1865–1935. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Fundación Antorchas, 2003.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An invaluable photographic history of Welsh immigration and settlement in the Argentine province of Chubut. A collection of essays that serve as an introduction helps frame the history of this immigration since the arrival of the first families in 1865. Each section tells a story about this community as seen through the eyes of the region’s best-known photographers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Find this resource:
Williams, Glyn. The Welsh in Patagonia: The State and the Ethnic Community. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1991.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Covers the history of Welsh immigration in the Chubut province from 1865 until the community’s eventual assimilation as a result of their descendants’ intermarriage with the local, Spanish-speaking, and Catholic population.
Find this resource:
Germans

Germans have a long and varied history in Argentina. German immigration to the country grew significantly in the era of mass migration and, as Newton 1977 points out, Germans in Buenos Aires were quick to establish cultural institutions and welfare agencies that created a strong sense of community built around language and culture. Yet not all Germans came from Germany. As shown in Weyne 1987, a significant number of ethnic Germans came from other parts of Europe, including Russia, escaping the country’s cultural assimilation process known as Russification. In the 20th century the German community of Argentina had different responses to the rise of Nazism. Newton 1992 offers a view that contrasts the public’s perception of Argentina as a haven for Nazis and examines both the effects of the pressures exerted by the British and US Governments and the counterintelligence campaign launched by Germany under Hitler’s rule.

Newton, Ronald C. German Buenos Aires, 1900–1933: Social Change and Cultural Crisis. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1977.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Newton reconstructs the growth and development of the German community in South America’s then largest city by borrowing from a variety of primary sources, including newspapers, memoirs, and records of associations and welfare agencies. In the final chapters the book turns to Hitler’s rise to power and the resident German elite’s response to it in Buenos Aires.
Find this resource:
Newton, Ronald C. The “Nazi Menace” in Argentina, 1931–1947. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1992.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The book offers an examination of Argentina’s German community in the 1930s and their response to the Nazis’ rise to power. Newton problematizes the reactions of the US and British governments to a perceived Nazi threat while demystifying the image of the country as a Nazi haven. Absent in the book is a reflection on the Jewish dimension of German immigration to Argentina.
Find this resource:
Weyne, Olga. El último puerto: Del Rhin al Volga y del Volga al Plata. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Instituto Torcuato Di Tella, 1987.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A book about the itinerary of ethnic Germans from Russia to Argentina and an examination of their settlements in rural areas in the Buenos Aires and Entre Ríos provinces of Argentina.
Find this resource:
French

The French constitute one of the largest European immigrant groups to have settled in Argentina. As explained in Pelosi 2008, French immigrants who arrived in Argentina in the years of mass immigration found established cultural institutions, and many maintained close family and cultural ties with their country of origin. Sarramone 1994 and Otero 1992 show the heterogeneous character of French immigration and the variations in language and culture exhibited by French immigrants from the Basque country and Gascony. Based on previously unpublished diplomatic documents of the French government, Otero 2011 reconstructs the characteristics and the evolution of French schools in Argentina between 1880 and 1950.

Otero, Hernán Gustavo. “La inmigración francesa en Tandil: Un aporte metodológico para el estudio de las migraciones en demografía histórica.” Desarrollo Económico 32.125 (1992): 79–106.
DOI: 10.2307/3467045Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This study focuses on French immigration to this very specific area of the Province of Buenos Aires between 1850 and 1914. The article also looks into the regional origins of these immigrants and demonstrates a high degree of heterogeneity among the French immigrant population.
Find this resource:
Otero, Hernán Gustavo. “Las escuelas étnicas de la comunidad francesa: El caso argentino, 1880–1950.” Anuario de Estudios Americanos 68.1 (2011): 163–189.
DOI: 10.3989/aeamer.2011.v68.i1.536Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An enormous contribution to the study of French immigration to Argentina, this article examines the role played by the establishment of French ethnic schools throughout the country, and how they impacted Argentine culture.
Find this resource:
Pelosi, Hebe C. Las relaciones franco-argentinas 1880–1918: Inmigración, comercio y cultura. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Librería-Editorial Histórica, 2008.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Considers urban and rural settlement patterns among French immigrants to Argentina. It takes into account the networks created among them upon arrival and their relationship to France. The social and cultural influence of French institutions in Argentina during the era of mass immigration is also carefully examined.
Find this resource:
Sarramone, Alberto. Bearneses, gascones y otros franceses en la Pampa. Azul, Argentina: Editorial Biblos Azul, 1994.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A highly descriptive history of French immigration to Argentina that follows the steps of Bearnaise, Gascon, and Basque settlers, and their relationship to the people and to the land of their adoptive country.
Find this resource:
Other Immigrant Groups

Argentina became home to hundreds of thousands of other immigrants in the era of mass immigration. This section takes into account a number of studies on these other groups that arrived from Portugal, Ukraine, Scandinavia, and Asia. While the presence of the Portuguese predates the era of mass immigration, it lacked continuity until the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. In stark contrast to early Portuguese immigrants to Argentina, those arriving at the end of the 19th century settled throughout Argentina, not just in Buenos Aires. As shown in Borges 2009, Portuguese emigration became one of the paths to social mobility. Another significant immigrant group, not because of their numbers but due to their overall impact, were Scandinavians. Bjerg 2001 makes a very important contribution to the field in a work on Danish immigration. The Ukrainian migration to Argentina is reconstructed in Cipko 1995, a dissertation that seeks to fill a void in the study of Slavic immigration to country. While migration to Argentina has remained mostly European in character, there has been a more sporadic and indirect migration stemming from Asia. Following Brazil and Peru, Argentina is home to the third-largest Japanese community in Latin America. The immigrants from the Ryukyu Islands, south of the home archipelago in the western Pacific constituted, according to Tigner 1967, Argentina’s dominant group among Japanese immigrants during this period in history.

Bjerg, María M. Entre Sofie y Tovelille: Una historia de los inmigrantes daneses en la Argentina, 1848–1930. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Editorial Biblos, 2001.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The book incorporates findings from archives, government and religious publications, personal diaries, and letters to trace the footsteps of Danish migration to the city of Tandil and its surroundings, in the Province of Buenos Aires, from the middle of the 19th century through the era of mass immigration.
Find this resource:
Borges, Marcelo J. Chains of Gold: Portuguese Migration to Argentina in Transatlantic Perspective. Studies in Global Social History. Boston: Brill Academic, 2009.
DOI: 10.1163/ej.9789004176485.i-353Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This social history of transatlantic migration is centered around the study Portuguese migration and settlement in two Argentine communities. The book combines macro and micro perspectives in its study of Algarvian migration to Argentina from two villages in southern Portugal, their voyage and subsequent process of adaptation both outside of Buenos Aires and in Patagonia.
Find this resource:
Cipko, Serge. “Our Tomb or Salvation?”: The History of Ukrainian Immigration into Argentina in the Interwar Period, 1920–1939. PhD diss., University of Alberta, 1995.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Reconstructs the Ukrainian experience in Argentina in the interwar period. It shows that Argentina became the largest recipient of Ukrainian emigration, and that Ukrainians were one of the largest immigrant groups to enter Argentina in the 1920–1939 period. Cipko studies the factors that led to Ukrainian emigration, their settlement patterns in Argentina, and their reception by Argentine society. Particular attention is devoted to the ambivalent attitude of Argentine elites toward Slavic immigrants.
Find this resource:
Tigner, James Lawrence. “The Ryukyuans in Argentina.” Hispanic American Historical Review 47.2 (1967): 203–224.
DOI: 10.2307/2511480Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This article constitutes one of the few studies on Japanese immigration to Argentina at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. It considers the immigrants’ adaptation to their new country and their occupational concentrations in various segments of the economy.
Find this resource: