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MODERNIZATION, MIGRATION AND NATIONAL IDENTITY IN THE ARGENTINE CASE, 1870-1945
particularly during the period 1880-1930, was a kind of big bang because
of its enormous effects on Argentine history until the middle of the 20th
century. Among many others, we can point out the following ones.
First, immigration accelerated the population growth that increased from
1,897,000 inhabitants in 1869 to 4,123,800 in 1895, 8,162,000 in 1914 and
15,893,800 in 1947. These figures show an average annual rate superior to 3%
between 1869 and 1914 and 2% between that date and 1947. In other words, the
population duplicated every 24 years from the middle of the 19" century until
the decade of 1920.
Second, although the number of immigrants to the United States was far
higher than in Argentina, the proportional weight of immigrants in the latter was
the highest in the world during this period. Thus, the proportion of foreigners
in the total Argentine population went from 12.1% in 1869 to 29.9% in 1914, to
fall to 15.3% in 1947. This contribution is even more important if we consider
its indirect impact: the children of immigrants born in the country, Argentine
people according to native law based on ius solis or land right. The European
migratory flux became less important after the economic crisis of 1930. A new
flux arrived during the second post war period. In effect, between 1945 and
1959 Argentina received 899,977 immigrants (basically Italians and Spaniards,
but also 22,500 Germans) which in general (70.8%) remained in the country.’ In
contrast with European migration, emigration from Latin American countries
was Clearly smaller but continuous (between 2 and 3 % of the total immigrants
between 1869 and 2001).
Third, the main mechanisms of travel and initial settlement were migratory
chains and primary social networks, composed by members of the same
family or village. Interpersonal knowledge favored the spreading of
trustworthy information, the loans of money for the tickets and other kinds of
material support. For that reason, and in spite of many important colonization
enterprises, migration to Rio de la Plata was largely spontaneous, especially
after the economic crisis of 1890.
' On the immigration to Argentina see José Moya: Cousins and Strangers. Spanish Immigrants
in Buenos Aires, 1850-1930, University of California Press, Berkeley, Los Angeles, California,
1998; Maria Bjerg: Entre Sofie y Tovelille. Una historia de los inmigrantes daneses en la
Argentina (1848-930), Buenos Aires, Biblos, 2001; Alejandro Fernandez: Un ‘mercado étnico’
en el Plata. Emigraciôn y exportaciones españolas a la Argentina, 1880-1935, Madrid,
CSIC, 2004; Fernando Devoto: Historia de la inmigraciôn italiana en la Argentina, Buenos
Aires, Camara de Comercio Italiana de la Repüblica Argentina, 2006; Marcelino Irianni:
Historia de los vascos en la Argentina. Buenos Aires, Biblos, 2010; Hernän Otero: Historia de
los franceses de la Argentina, Buenos Aires, Biblos, 2012; and, especially, Fernando Devoto:
Historia de la inmigraciôn en Argentina, Buenos Aires, Sudamericana, 2003.
Maria Inés Barbero y Maria Cristina Cacopardo: La inmigracién europea a la Argentina
en la segunda posguerra: viejos mitos y nuevas condiciones, Estudios Migratorios
Latinoamericanos, No. 19, 1991, 291-322.
+ 21°