Emigration, collective organization and socio-political intervention: notes on the role of the Galician community in Argentina in the modernization of Galicia (I900-1936)

RUY FARÍAS

Migration and New International Actors: An Old Phenomenon Seen With New Eyes

Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Lugar: Cambridge; Año: 2012; p. 109 - 130

Emigration is the phenomenon that defines the history of Galicia in the Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries. This had consequences on its society, economy and political structure. Despite the multiple unpleasant individual experiences, emigration implied the incorporation of Galicia to the world economy in a decisive phase of conformation of capitalism. At the same time, emigration meant the utilization of part of the resources generated in Galicia in order to face a relative but an apparent transformation process. Almost everything that happened in Galicia in those years was impacted and shaped by emigration. The great influence of emigration in the configuration of Galicia previous to the Spanish Civil War can be synthesized in three elements: the economic remittances sent by the emigrants to their families (material remittance); the cultural and educational remittances (particularly in the form of educational equipment), and the impact that the returned migrants had on the political and associative spheres. The two last ones are what we call ?immaterial remittance?. The sociopolitical impact of the emigration was even greater than the economic impact of the remittances in Galicia. This is precisely the aspect in which the present work will be centered by focusing in the case of the colony settled in Argentina.