-
Foreword
- University of Texas Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
ix Foreword In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, Latin American countries began to open their borders to European immigrants. The national goals were often expressed in racist terms of “civilizing the nation,” with the covert—and sometimes overt—aim of settling the immigrants in national territories still occupied by indigenous people. Argentina was late in extending the institutional organization of the pampas, which were occupied by indigenous people and Creoles until the mid-nineteenth century. As immigrants began to settle in the expansive pampas to the north of Buenos Aires, a new vibrant culture emerged as they interacted with the poor Creoles and indigenous peoples. Judith Freidenberg introduces us to this heritage with a description of a tour she and her mother took to Villa Clara in the province of Entre Ríos, where her parents grew up in the early decades of the twentieth century. In a journey through time and space, Freidenberg seeks an understanding of how immigrants—Jewish, French, Spanish, Belgian, German, Russian, and Swiss— made an impact on the formation of the Argentine nation as they learned to live together. The Jews were the most cohesive immigrant group seeking a new life in the country, primarily because they had fled the pogroms of the old country. Because they depended on the Jewish Colonization Association, which controlled the land where they lived and worked, they were tied to the community by bureaucratic as well as communal relations. Yet, their survival depended on their remarkable adaptation to a lifestyle developed by the gauchos, often poor Creoles, who preceded them in taming a harsh environment. Throughout our tour into this often romanticized past, the author admonishes us to listen to the many distinct voices of people who claim this history as theirs. Using archival material, some formalized in written deeds and published local histories, along with specific memories of descendants, the author encourages us to develop our own understanding of how immigrants from many distinct backgrounds constructed new lives and new economies in an utterly foreign environment. The Jews adapted elements of the gauchos’ nomadic horse-riding society to create their own settled crop cultivation, administrative, and commercial systems. Construction of a railroad promoted urban growth of the village, with the “iron horse”—a term used by North American Indians for trains—bringing in new settlers and taking out crops to be sold in regional, national, and global markets. This process of adaptation to an often unfriendly natural environment is illuminated by a rich array of sources—oral narratives of the settlers, cultural material in the local museum, and archival sources unearthed in the course of research—that Freidenberg uses to tell a story of the unfolding constructions of a multilayered cultural heritage. What is gained, and what is invented in this unfolding production, reveals the transformation of people who invented a nation as they learned to live together. Villa Clara has now transformed from a producer of goods and services to a producer of heritage. Freidenberg meticulously examines this process as she explores and observes the panoramic displays of a changing society in the periodic commemorations of the settlement’s founding. As the social memory of the immigrants is constructed, individual memories combine with, and sometimes contradict, collective memories to create a vibrant whole. The formation of a multicultural country out of the binary opposition of indigenous people and Spanish conquerors was not peaceful. The resolution of this conflict occurred in the pampas, with the symbolic figure of the gaucho as often admired—particularly by the children of the settlers—as reviled by the Spaniards in their early ventures into the pampas. Gaucho society was a male culture in both imagery and action; the Jewish gaucho was formed in this matrix, which has inspired many colorful histories noted in Freidenberg’s text. Women were bearers but not recorded actors of the Creole and immigrant cultures that met, reproduced, and ensured survival in the formative years of the nation. Jews, as Freidenberg tells us, draw their strength from relatives. This includes not only genetically related kin, but also people who are ritually accepted as relatives by the group who carries out the commandments. The religious quorum required to carry out the laws is composed of at least ten men, and though descent is through women, these male leaders define the religious entity that constitutes community. I would not have realized the force of this core element if I had not heard of my deceased husband’s grandfather...