Oldal 31 [31]
HERNÁN OTERO
(53%) of colonels and generals were immigrant children." This process
was obviously deeper and faster in other state institutions, from public
administration to universities, and private ones, like religious establishments
(from the 1920s in the Protestant establishments and the 1930s and 1940s in
Jewish ones)".
As we have seen, the competition of the public health system was crucial
for ethnic mutual aid societies from the 1930s, due to the economic crisis
(reduction of members and payment of dues) of the latter. In the same way,
the nationalization of railroad and port companies in the 1940s was a decisive
strike against material support for many communities, particularly the
British and French.
The second main factor for migratory integration was the huge transformation
of the social structure produced by modernization and mass migration. Rapid
urbanization, changes in the agrarian sector and industrialization allowed the
formation of a middle class, whose proportion in the labor force increased from
10.6% in 1869 to 25.2% in 1895. By 1914, they had reached 30.4% of the total
labor force, a classic threshold to define a country as a middle class society. The
middle class was more important in cities and in the population from European
origins. The access of immigrants into the upper class was more typical of
groups who arrived before mass migration (English, Irish, French, etc.) when
the possibilities of social mobility (the ownership of land, for example) were
greater.
Social mobility allowed the rise of immigrants and their children to liberal
professions, state jobs and non-manual work. The evolution of economic
conditions allowed also new and better cultural consumption and the
emergence of a middle class ethos about the value of work, children’s education,
savings, house ownership, and so on. This ethos early distinguished Argentina
in the Latin American context and resisted the negative effects of the economic
crisis of the last quarter of the 20th century.
Obviously, this optimistic image should be nuanced. Industrialization and
harsh living and working conditions produced a high level of social conflict (for
example, after the crises of 1890 and 1930, or during and after the Great War)
and a dynamic and strong labor movement. Trade unions had an important
presence of European leaders and members, many of them with experience of
Anarchism, Socialism or syndicalism. In 1947, for example, 20% of the working
class were first generation immigrants.
Becoming part of the labor movement did not prevent the continuity of
ethnic identities because there was sometimes a common ground between
8 Hernan Cornut: La influencia de la inmigracién en el Ejército Argentino durante la década
de 1920, Epocas, Universidad del Salvador, 4, December, 2011, 101-129.
Susana Bianchi: Historia de las religiones en la Argentina. Las minorias religiosas, Buenos
Aires, Sudamericana, 2004, 84.
* 30°