INVESTIGADORES
TATO Maria Ines
congresos y reuniones científicas
Título:
"Identities in tension: Italians in Argentina facing the Great War"
Autor/es:
MARÍA INÉS TATO
Lugar:
Newcastle
Reunión:
Congreso; International Conference Global War, Global Connections, Global Moments; 2018
Resumen:
During the First World War, nationalism constituted the driving force behind the mobilization for the war effort. In that sense, wartime posed a test for the national identities invoked by the belligerent states and for their capacity to gain the citizens' active support. This challenge was particularly critical in the case of the European migrants, global actors who maintained strong links with their countries of origin but also with their host societies, frequently developing a hybrid identity. This paper aims to analyse the impact of the First World War on the Italian community in Argentina, a migration country that in the second half of the nineteenth century occupied the second place in the Americas - behind the United States - in the reception of European migrants. On the eve of the Great War, immigrants formed a third of Argentine inhabitants, Italians being the largest of the foreign communities, holding almost a 12% of the total population. After the entry of Italy in the Allied side in May 1915, the Italian community in this South American country deployed an intense activism to mobilize economic and military resources in support of their homeland's war effort. However, this positive response coexisted with - explicit or veiled - internal tensions that provoked controversies around the extent of the solidarity towards the Italian government's call to arms. An issue that caused harsh debates was the migrants' integration into Argentine society, facilitated by the upward social mobility experienced by large sectors of the community. Integration was perceived as a threat to the loyalty due to Italy, especially in the case of the second generation, born and raised abroad. Addressing these topics, this paper will deal with the complex process of identity building at a critical wartime juncture among these Italians all'estero, a process that involved strong interactions between the global and the local.