Oldal 33 [33]
HERNÁN OTERO
including the United States. As we have seen, immigrant children, the main
observation point for considering the issue, show clear signs of identification
with the host society from the 1920s onwards.
Second, if integration is both a process and a result, the Cultural Pluralism
theory gives us a good explanation of the first, while the Melting Pot reflects
the second. A vertiginous social mobility, stressed by Gino Germani in his
classical work, and state policies, an actor not usually considered by Cultural
Pluralism, were the key factors of the process. The influence of the French
model (with the state acting as an integration machine through the education
system) and the higher level of uniformity of migratory flux were other
explanatory differences with the United States.
Third, the indicators we use (endogamy, residence patterns and ethnic
nuclei) show more lasting levels of Pluralism in bigger cities (such as Cordoba,
Rosario and Buenos Aires) than in the smaller and intermediate ones, and in
groups with different religions, a clear sign of the complexity of the process.
Fourth, from a more historical point of view, two moments should be
stressed by their impact on the integration process: the Great War, a revival
but also a swan song for European communities, and the economic crisis of
1930 that dramatically reduced the migratory flux. The arrival of Peronism
in 1946 was a watershed in Argentine history. During the second half of the
20th century, the ethnic aspects of European migration, without having
completely disappeared, became a subject of the past.
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BARBERO, Maria Inés - CACOPARDO, Maria Cristina: La inmigracién europea
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BAILY, Samuel: Immigrants in the Lands of Promise. Italians in Buenos Aires
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BERTONI, Lilia Ana: Patriotas, cosmopolitas y nacionalistas. La construcciôn
de la nacionalidad argentina a fines del siglo XIX, Buenos Aires, Fondo de
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BIANCHI, Susana: Historia de las religiones en la Argentina. Las minorias
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