Oy, My Buenos Aires: Jewish Immigrants and the Creation of Argentine National Identity by Mollie Lewis Nouwen (review)

Book Reviews political ecology (18). In particular, it offers a distinctive contribution to emerging studies of political ecologies of subterranean resources and to scholarship engaged in uncovering the contradictions between neoliberal and so-called post-neoliberal models of development following on recent contributions by Anthony Bebbington, Jeff Bury, and Sarah Radcliffe. Finally , for those curious about the role of multinationals in resource governance decisions, and especially the support for, and ultimate demise of Enron on global scales, this book provides a unique, and necessary perspective. Emily Billo Goucher College Environmental Studies Program OY, MY BUENOS AIRES: JEWISH IMMIGRANTS AND THE CREATION OF ARGENTINE NATIONAL IDENTITY. By Mollie Lewis Nouwen. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2013, p. 157, $45.00. In Oy, My Buenos Aires, Mollie Lewis Nouwen offers an analysis of Jewish immigration to Buenos Aires during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with particular focus on how Jewish immigrants contributed to Argentina’s emerging national identity during these years. Nouwen contends that national identity in Argentina was divided between “rural”/criollo and “urban”/porteño elements, and that Jewish immigrants contributed to the latter category by adopting and adapting porteño cultural markers while also retaining their ethnic Jewish identities. Nouwen’s approach is cultural, focusing on qualitative rather than quantitative sources, as she puts it (11) in order to track Jewish engagements with Buenos Aires culture and society during the great immigration boom between 1889 and 1930. Nouwen’s analytical scope is multifaceted, ranging from criminal behavior to celebratory banquets and picnics. Her source analysis, moreover, is often creative and compelling; for instance, Nouwen examines advertisements to understand how Jewish immigrants simultaneously sought to retain their ethnic Jewish identities and also adopt Argentine identity markers (60–61 for an example). The book’s targeted and brief chapters make for a highly readable monograph, and one that could be easily assigned to graduate or even undergraduate students in an appropriate classroom setting. Nouwen misses some opportunities here, which leave the reader wondering why the monograph was limited to a very brief 124 pages of body text. For instance, while Nouwen uses historical evidence to make a concrete case for many of her points, there are also some largely unsupported assertions here, which call for deeper analysis. On page 66, for example , Nouwen argues that “although the city was often overwhelming and difficult to get used to for many immigrants, most of them ultimately 185 The Latin Americanist, June 2014 embraced the space they found to express themselves within the urban national identity.” While Nouwen provides plenty of evidence that Jewish immigrants engaged with Argentine culture, she does not provide a strong base of sources showing that immigrants themselves made a deliberate connection between their actions and national identity. I believe that her argument is sound, but without these sources, it also seems possible that Jewish adoptions of porteño cultural markers may have had other explanations, such as strategically attracting porteño business or evading xenophobia in Buenos Aires, rather than genuine adoptions of Argentine national identity. I also found myself, as a reader, wishing this book was just a bit longer to give Nouwen a chance to develop some of the fascinating material she mentions, but is forced to abandon without in-depth analysis. On pages 72–74, Nouwen introduces automatic cafés, in which porteños obtained quick meals and drinks from automatic dispensers, a captivating instance of modernity impacting everyday life in the city. But Nouwen’s chapter ends before she can make a concrete case for what automatic cafés mean for her analysis, and it remains a tantalizing, but under-utilized, example. The largest missed opportunity here is Nouwen’s clean differentiation between Buenos Aires and “the rest” of Argentina. In her first chapter, Nouwen examines Jewish immigration to agricultural colonies beyond Buenos Aires and how Jewish immigrants interacted with gauchos and criollo culture. In this chapter, Nouwen makes the important point that traditional divisions between the urban space of Buenos Aires and a rural Argentina beyond the port city can be over simplified and conceal revealing complexities between these categories. After this, however, Nouwen’s analysis moves to Buenos Aires, describing...