|
indietro
History of emigration to Argentina and Uruguay
Javier Grossutti
The first groups of Friulian farmers to leave for Argentina started in the last decades of the 19th century, and they were the first contingents of a flow which continued for nearly a century along an uninterrupted migratory chain, changing with time and with their reason for emigrating. At first they were peasant farmers looking for new land to cultivate, bringing with them the values of their country of origin to the colonies of Resistencia, Avellaneda, Caroja, Formosa, San Benito and Sampacho. Later on there were brick layers, building entrepreneurs, furnace workers heading for the cities of Cordoba, Rosario, Santa Fe and Buenos Aires, then groups which were ever more diverse, made up of people who had more and more complex reasons for emigrating, not just economic ones. The Friulian, the Giulian, the Istrian and the Dalmation emigrants to Argentina and Uruguay formed important communities and started off a reciprocal link, always renewed, with their place of origin.
The first contingents of Friulian and “Austrian” farmers who arrived in Argentina between the end of 1877 and the early 1880s had emigrated, attracted by the possibility of land being easily available. The fact that they had their origins in the farming communities can be clearly seen, for example, in the Friulian colonies of Resistencia, Avellaneda, Caroya, Formosa, San Benito and Sampacho.
At the turn of the centuries it was not only agricultural workers who emigrated to Argentina, but also brick layers, building entrepreneurs, nurses, furnace workers and intellectuals who were not happy with the political situation. The places they went to were the capitals of the provinces and the most important cities such as Cordoba, Rosario, Santa F, but above all Buenos Aires.
At the end of the First World War the Friulians once again had the choice of emigrating. Between 1920 and 1930 however, it was not only economic reasons which pushed some to emigrate. The anti-fascists Egidio Feruglio, Rodolfo Kubik, Giuseppe Tuntar, Luigi Tonet, Giovanni Minut and many other Friulians and Giulians of Slovenian or Croatian minority groups went to Argentina and Uruguay.
After 1945 the flow towards the old countries of emigration such as Argentina and Uruguay started once again. The departure of emigrants and refugees from Istria and Dalmatia, however, fizzled out at the beginning of the 1950s.
The 1980s and the arrival in the Region, between 1989 and 2002, of the descendants of Friulian and Giulian who had emigrated overseas showed the differences between the two communities who only knew the stereotype of each other.
Click here to read the entire document
|
|
|
web
administrator