Oy, My Buenos Aires: Jewish Immigrants and the Creation of Argentine National Identity

Conclusion

121 Conclusion When Ashkenazi Jews began arriving in Buenos Aires by the thousands in 1905, few could imagine how the city would be transformed by 1930. Though Jewish life in Buenos Aires started as a few scattered immigrants unfamiliar with life in Argentina, by 1930 there were over one hundred thousand Jews in the city, living, working, and traveling through all of its neighborhoods, interacting with other members of the diverse population. As the ethnic group was transformed from European immigrants to members of the Argentine nation, the national identity itself was splitting into urban and rural components that together formed the modern Argentine identity. The first decades of the twentieth century were a period of nation building (both physical and intellectual) unparalleled in the history of Argentina. Though immigrants had begun arriving in the middle of the nineteenth century , it was not until the early twentieth century that their presence and contributions to the nation were explicitly included in the national narrative. Immigrants were integral to the growing primacy of Buenos Aires and the accompanying urban identity. Just as the country itself was transitioning from a society focused on agriculture to one with a growing industrial sector, the national identity was becoming more complex to reflect the new reality. By the 1920s Buenos Aires had become a cosmopolitan city with an identity to match. The mix of immigrant cultures, local desires to mimic Europe, and a booming economy made for a vibrant urban landscape. In many ways conclusion 122 it had become the modern metropolis that nineteenth-century liberals had wanted. Yet the city was not precisely what the liberals had hoped for—immigrants did not respect the traditional hierarchy the elites had worked so hard to maintain as they pushed their way into the middle class through business, education, and politics. Ethnic culture created a porteño identity that was separate from yet intertwined with the criollo identity. Like never before, the divisions between urban and rural, new and old were clear. Buenos Aires and the porteño identity were symbols of how far Argentina had come in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and how much the national identity had changed. Yet in the years after 1930 the porteño identity changed course, as a depression, dictatorships, and the end of large-scale immigration changed the city’s trajectory. Ethnic identities were an integral part of the porteño identity. By the 1920s, when the outlines of urban identity became clear, being ethnic and being Argentine were not mutually exclusive. Immigrants could claim Argentine identity in a way that would have been impossible in the late nineteenth century . They brought new traditions and cultural markers to the city, including language, food, and rituals. Those ethnic symbols were then reimagined in the porteño context, with new layers of meanings because of the new location. This patchwork of ethnic markers was integrated into the mosaic of porteño identity markers, holding as much importance as native images of urban identity. The Ashkenazi Jews from Central and Eastern Europe who came to make Argentina their home contributed to the transformation of the city and its identity even as their own identities were transformed. Jewish identities changed in the new Argentine context as immigrants confronted their new realities. Living in Buenos Aires meant existing side by side with a diverse array of other immigrants and native Argentines. The immigrants could not live as they had in Europe and had to make choices about how they would continue to be Jewish and how they would embrace Argentine identity. For many, their choices were dependent on gender, class, and generation, since each dictated where and how the immigrants would experience Argentina. First-generation immigrants struggled to establish themselves in Argentina, trying to find jobs and housing, learn a new language, and possibly support a family. For many, both men and women, life in Buenos Aires was challenging. Those who were poor and had few skills had problems supporting themselves, regardless of when they arrived in the country. Some Jews were able to make it into the middle class, creating lives for themselves worlds away from the crowded conventillos. Many of those in the second generation, conclusion 123 or those who immigrated as children, were also in a more privileged position, particularly because of their command of Spanish. Women in general had fewer choices about how to live their lives...