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HERNÁN OTERO
Fourth, immigration was responsible for fast urbanization. Ihe urban
population increased from 289 in 1869, to 379 in 1895, 539 in 1914 and
579 in 1930. Ihis process was the conseguence of urban settlements of
immigrants, in spite of the objectives of the intellectual elites, the rural
origin of the majority of immigrants and the large availability of lands which,
in general, remained under control of native landholders. For the same
reason, immigrants were incorporated in secondary and tertiary sectors of
the economy, and were a master key of industrialization in the largest cities
(mainly Buenos Aires and then Cordoba and Rosario).
Fifth, the settlement of immigrants in the country was unequal. Their
presence was quite significant in the city (49% in 1914) and province of Buenos
Aires (34%), the richest and largest of the country. Other provinces of the
so called “Pampa Gringa” such as Santa Fe and Cordoba, had an important
contribution. Provinces protected by import duties, such as Mendoza
(wine) or Tucumän (sugar) also received a significant flux, but in a smaller
proportion. In other parts of the country, their presence was not important
from a quantitative point of view. In short, European migration stressed,
in a deep way, the territorial imbalance of the country: the richer regions
increased their population proportion from less than 60% in 1869 to more
than 80% in 1930. As Gino Germani pointed out, the result of this process
could be defined as the “dual Argentina”.*
Sixth, in a clear contrast with the United States, Argentina received
basically the so-called “new migration”, coming from the South and East
of Europe. Italians and Spanish, in that order, were 79% of the migratory
flux between 1874 and 1914, followed by the smaller group of the French,
(226,874 immigrants). After the Great War, a period with negative migratory
balance due to a drastic reduction of entries and a rise of returns, immigrants
from Central Europe, Syria and Lebanon, increased their presence without
modifying the Latin preponderance.
Seventh, from a religious point of view, immigration was basically Catholic.
The Jewish population, scarce in 1890, increased by colonization enterprises
in the provinces of Buenos Aires, Santa Fe and Entre Rios, but especially after
the pogroms in Russia and during the Holocaust. It has been calculated that
more than 200,000 Jews emigrated to Argentina from 1880 until the creation
of the State of Israel in 1948.° Jewish migration was composed of Russians
and Polish and, in a much smaller proportion, by Germans and people from
3 Eduardo Miguez: Poblacién y sociedad, in Miguez: América Latina en la Historia
contempordnea. Argentina. La Apertura al mundo. 1880-1930, Madrid, Fundacion Mapfre—
Taurus, 2011.
Gino Germani: Politica y sociedad en una época de transicion. De la sociedad tradicional a
la sociedad de masas, Buenos Aires, Paidés, 1962.
Haim Avni: Argentina y la historia de la inmigraciön judia (1810-1950), Buenos Aires,
Editoria Universitaria Magnes, Universidad Hebrea de Jerusalén, AMIA, 1983.
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