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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°
