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HERNÁN OTERO
In the short-term, war produced a revival of winning countries’
communities. The creation of military associations of veterans, the emergence
of new lieux de mémoire and the ethnic mobilization in the streets (added to
massive mobilization of Argentinians, for and against government neutrality)
are clear proof of this process. On the other hand, the military mobilization of
immigrants and their children (Europeans by the jus sanguinis or birth right)
produced a deep confrontation between ethnic leaders and between them
and the diplomatic authorities of the motherland. Moreover, it accelerated
the distancing from their communities of people who rejected fighting in
the war, particularly Argentinians and children of Europeans, but also many
immigrants of the first generation. The Great War implies in summary an
ethnic revival and a zenith for the communities (especially in the French and
British cases). Consequences were worse for the losing countries’ communities,
such as the Germans, that also suffered the effects of the United Kingdom
and the United States black lists against their enterprises in Argentina.
The second step of decline started with the crisis of 1930, which accelerated
the deficit of ethnic institutions (reduction of members and payment of dues,
competition of trade unions and Catholic and private associations, etc.) and
produced the merging or closure of many associations.
Finally, the confrontation between fascists and antifascists in the 1930s
and 1940s (very clear among Spaniards, Italians, Germans and French),
fostered by motherland policies of “nationalization” of emigrants, produced a
new conflict line. This fact was not really new because political confrontations
had always been critical for the internal life of communities (for example,
the fights between liberals and Catholics in the Italian case or between
monarchists and republicans in the Spanish one).
FROM PLURALISM TO MELTING POT: CENTRIPETAL TENDENCIES
Although every migratory flux had a different evolution, their integration
in the host society happened in the same period. As we will see now, this
simultaneity stresses the importance of three domestic factors: state policies,
social transformations and political participation.
A key aspect of migratory integration, usually not considered by
the Cultural Pluralism approach, was the state integration policies, in
particular in education and health. In the first case, we should emphasize
the development of the Argentine public system of education since the First
Argentine Pedagogic Congress (1882) and the Primary Education Law in 1884
(Law 1420). In harmony with the secular and positivist mentality of the so¬
called Generation of the 1880s, the law established public, mandatory, free
and secular education. The law also defined a republican integration model,
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