Italian Brazilian
Encyclopedia
An Italian Brazilian is a person born in Brazil
of Italian ancestry.
descent, which would be the largest population of Italian background outside of Italy itself. There are no actual surveys, or even verifiable calculations supporting such claims. According to demographer Miguel Ángel García. 15 to 18 million people in Brazil have Italian ancestry. Actual field surveys seem to support García's analysis, pointing to a figure around 10.4% of the Brazilian population, or about 19.8 million people. All those figures relate to Brazilians of any Italian descent, not necessarily linked to Italian culture in any significant way. According to García, the number of Brazilians with actual links to Italian identity and culture would be around 3.5 to 4.5 million people. Scholar Luigi Favero, in a book on Italian emigration between 1876 and 1976, pinpointed that Italians were present in Brasil since the Renaissance
: Genoese sailors and merchants
were between the first to settle in colonial Brazil since the first half of the 16th century, and so - because of the many descendants of Italians emigrated there from Columbus
times until 1860 - the number of Brazilians with Italian roots should be increased to 35 millions.
Although victims of some prejudice in the first decades and in spite of the persecution during World War II, Brazilians of Italian descent managed to mingle and to incorporate seamlessly into the Brazilian society.
Many Brazilian politicians, artists, footballers, models and personalities are or were of Italian descent. Amongst Italian-Brazilian one finds several State Governors, Congressmen, mayors and ambassadors. Three Presidents of Brazil
were of Italian descent (though none of them were directly elected to such a position): Pascoal Ranieri Mazzilli
(Senate president who served as interim president), Itamar Franco
(elected vice-President under Fernando Collor, whom he eventually replaced as the latter was impeached), and Emílio Garrastazu Médici
(third of the series of generals who presided over Brazil during the military regime). Médici was also of Basque descent.
in the country is a Brazilian citizen by birthright. In addition, many who were born in Italy have become naturalized
citizens after settling in Brazil. The Brazilian government used to prohibit multiple citizenships. However, this changed in 1994 with a new constitutional amendment. After the changes in 1994 over half a million Italian-Brazilians have requested the recognition of their Italian citizenship.
According to the Italian legislation an individual with an Italian parent is automatically recognized as an Italian citizen, the jus sanguinis
principle being applied. In order to exercise the rights and obligations of citizenship an individual needs to have all documents registered in Italy, which normally involves the local consulate or embassy. Some limitations are applied to this process of recognition such as the renouncement of the Italian citizenship by the individual or the parent (if before the child’s birth), a second limitation is that women only transferred citizenship to their children after 1948. After the last electoral reform in Italy, Italian citizens abroad can also elect representatives to the Italian Chamber of Deputies
and the Italian Senate
. Italian citizens residing in Brazil elect representatives together with Argentina
, Uruguay
and other countries in South America. According to Italian senator Edoardo Pollastri, currently there are over half a million Brazilians in line to have their Italian citizenship recognized.
Italy only united as a sovereign national state in 1861. Before that Italy was politically divided in several kingdoms, ducates and other small states. This fact influenced deeply the character of the Italian migrant. "Before 1914, the typical Italian migrant was a man without a clear national identity but with strong attachments to his town or village or region of birth, to which half of all migrants returned."
During the 19th century, many Italians fled the political persecutions in Italy, mainly after the failure of revolutionary movements in 1848 and 1861. Although very small, these well educated and revolutionary group of emigrants left a deep mark where they settled. In Brazil, the most famous Italian in this period was Líbero Badaró
. Despite that, the mass Italian immigration that contributed to shape Brazilian culture after the Portuguese and the German migration movements started only after Italian unification
.
During the last quarter of the 19th century, the newly united Italy suffered an economic crisis. In the Northern regions, there was unemployment due to the introduction of new techniques in agriculture, while Southern Italy remained underdeveloped and untouched by modernization in agrarian structure. Even in the North, industrialization was still in its initial stages, and illiteracy was still common in Italy (though more in the south and islands than in the north). Thus, poverty and lack of jobs and income stimulated Northern (and also Southern) Italians to emigrate. Most Italian immigrants were very poor rural workers (braccianti).
In 1850, under British pressure, Brazil finally passed a law that effectively banned transatlantic slave trade. The increased pressure of the abolitionist movement, on the other hand, made clear that the days of slavery in Brazil were coming to an end. Slave trade was in fact effectively suppressed, but the slave system still endured for almost four decades. So the discussion about European immigration to Brazil became a priority for Brazilian landowners. The latter claimed that such migrants were or would soon become indispensable for Brazilian agriculture. They would soon win the argument and mass migration would begin in earnest.
An Agriculture Congress in 1878 in Rio de Janeiro
discussed the lack of labor and proposed to the government the stimulation of European immigration to Brazil. Immigrants from Italy, Portugal and Spain were considered the best ones, because they were white and, mainly, Catholics. Therefore, the Brazilian government started to attract more Italian immigrants to the coffee plantations.
At the end of the 19th century, the Brazilian government was influenced by eugenics
theories. According to some scholars, it was necessary to bring immigrants from Europe to enhance the Brazilian population.
The Brazilian government (with or following the Emperor's support) had created the first colonies of immigrants (colônias de imigrantes) in the early 19th century. These colonies were established in rural
areas of the country, being settled by European families, mainly German immigrants that settled in many areas of Southern Brazil.
The first groups of Italians arrived in 1875, but the boom of Italian immigration in Brazil happened in late 19th century, between 1880 and 1900, when almost one million Italians arrived.
A great number of Italians was naturalized Brazilian at the end of the 19th century, when the 'Great Naturalization' conceded automatically citizenship to all the immigrants residing in Brazil prior to November 15, 1889 "unless they declared a desire to keep their original nationality within six months."
During the last years of the 19th century, the denouncements of bad conditions in Brazil increased in the press. Reacting to the public clamor and many proved cases of mistreatments of Italian immigrants, the government of Italy
issued, in 1902, the Prinetti decree forbidding subsidized immigration to Brazil. In consequence, the number of Italian immigrants in Brazil fell drastically in the beginning of the 20th century, but the wave of Italian immigration continued until 1920.
Over half of the Italian immigrants came from Northern Italian regions of Veneto
, Lombardy
, Tuscany
and Emilia-Romagna
. About 30% emigrated from Veneto. On the other hand, during the 20th century, Central and Southern Italians predominated in Brazil, coming from the regions of Campania
, Abruzzo
, Molise
, Basilicata
and Sicily
.
The Census also revealed that the 458,281 foreign mothers of 12 or more years who lived in Brazil had 2,852,427 children, of whom 2,657,974 were born alive. The Italian women had more children than any other female immigrant community in Brazil: 1,069,862 Brazilians were born to an Italian mother, followed by 524,940 who were born to a Portuguese mother, 436,305 to a Spanish mother and 171,790 to a Japanese mother. The 6,809,772 Brazilian-born mothers of 12 or more years had 38,716,508 children, of whom 35,777,402 were born alive.
The results of this survey stand in contradiction with the claims of the Italian embassy to Brazil. While the latter point to "Italian Brazilians" making up to 15% of the Brazilian population, with absolute figures varying between 25 and 30 million, and figures for the city of São Paulo as high as 60% or 6 million, the IBGE found actually a figure of 10%, which would correspond, at the time, to a total population of about 3.5 million people of Italian origin in the whole set of metropolitan regions it researched, including São Paulo (and Porto Alegre, another metropolitan region with a high concentration of oriundi).
.* Comissariato Generale dell'Emigrazione
.** Consulates
The 1920 Census was the first one to show a more specific figure about the size of the Italian population in Brazil (558,405). However, since the 20th century the arrival of new Italian immigrants to Brazil was in full decline. The previous censuses of 1890 and 1900 had limited information (in fact, the 1900 Census never existed). In consequence, there are no official figures about the size of the Italian population in Brazil during the mass immigration period (1880–1900). There are estimates available, and the most reliable is the one done by Giorgio Mortara, even though the figures he found may have underestimated the real size of the Italian population. On the other hand, Angelo Trento believes that the Italian estimates are "certainly exaggerated", and "lacking of any foundation", since they found the figure of 1,837,887 Italians in Brazil as of 1927. Another evaluation conducted by Bruno Zuculin found the presence of 997,887 Italians in Brazil as of 1927. Notice that all these figures only include people born in Italy, and not their Brazilian born descendants.
.
Due to the internal migration, many Italians, second and third generations descendants, moved to other areas. In the early 20th century, many rural Italian workers from Rio Grande do Sul migrated to the west of Santa Catarina
and then further north to Paraná.
More recently, third and fourth generations have been migrating to other areas; thus it is possible to find people of Italian descent in Brazilian regions where the immigrants had never settled, such as in the Cerrado
region of Central-West, in the Northeast and in the Amazon rainforest
area, in the extreme North of Brazil.
The main areas of Italian settlement in Brazil were the Southern and Southeastern regions, namely the states of São Paulo, Rio Grande do Sul
, Santa Catarina, Paraná
, Espírito Santo
and Minas Gerais
.
The first colonies to be populated by Italians were created in the highlands of Rio Grande do Sul (Serra Gaúcha
). These were Garibaldi
and Bento Gonçalves
. These immigrants were predominantly from Veneto, in northern Italy. After five years, in 1880, the great numbers of Italian immigrants arriving caused the Brazilian government to create another Italian colony, Caxias do Sul
. After initially settling in the government-promoted colonies, many of the Italian immigrants spread into other areas of Rio Grande do Sul seeking better opportunities. They created many other Italian colonies on their own, mainly in highlands, because the lowlands were already populated by German immigrants and native gaúchos. The Italian established many vineyards in the region. Nowadays, the wine produced in these areas of Italian colonization in southern Brazil is much appreciated within the country, though little is available for export. In 1875, the first Italian colonies were established in Santa Catarina
, which lies immediately to the north of Rio Grande do Sul. The colonies gave rise to towns such as Criciúma
, and later also spread further north, to Paraná.
In the colonies of southern Brazil, Italian immigrants at first confined themselves within themselves, where they could speak their native Italian dialects
and keep their culture and traditions. With time, however, they would become thoroughly integrated economically and culturally into the larger society. In any case, Italian immigration to southern Brazil was very important to the economic development, as well to the culture of the region.
A part of the immigrants settled in the colonies in Southern Brazil. However, the majority of them settled in Southeastern Brazil (mainly in the State of São Paulo). In the beginning, the government was responsible for bringing the immigrants (in most cases, paying for their transportation by ship), but later the farmers were responsible for making contracts with immigrants or specialized companies in recruiting Italian workers. Many posters were spread in Italy, with pictures of Brazil, selling the idea that everybody could become rich there by working with coffee, which was called by the Italian immigrants the green gold. Most coffee plantations were in the States of São Paulo
and Minas Gerais
, and in a smaller proportion also in the States of Espírito Santo
and Rio de Janeiro. Rio de Janeiro was declining in the 19th century as a farming producer and São Paulo had already taken the lead as a coffee producer/exporter at the turn of the century, as well as big producer of sugar and other important crops. Thus, migrants were naturally more attracted to the State of São Paulo and the southern states.
Italians used to migrate to Brazil in families
. The colono, as rural immigrants were called, had to sign a contract with the farmer and was obliged to work in the coffee
plantation during a minimum period of time. However, the situation was not easy. Many Brazilian farmers were used to command slaves and treated the immigrants as indentured servant
s.
While, in Southern Brazil, the Italian immigrants were living in relatively well-developed colonies, in Southeastern Brazil they were living in semi-slavery conditions in the coffee plantation
s. Many rebellions against Brazilian farmers occurred and the public denouncements caused great commotion in Italy, forcing the Italian government to issue the Prinetti decree that established barriers to immigration to Brazil
.
In 1901, 90% of industrial workers and 80% of construction workers at São Paulo city were Italians.http://books.google.com/books?id=sFEuUUyJrSEC&pg=PA318&dq=libaneses+paulo+salvador&hl=pt-BR&ei=CI4ATq6MJKK00AHKnLHJDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CDYQ6AEwATgK#v=snippet&q=paulo&f=false
live in the South and Southeast part of the country, in recent decade
s (1960s-present), people from southern Brazil, mainly of Italian descent, have played a vital role in settling and developing the vast "cerrado
" grassland
s of Central-West, North and the west part of Northeastern Brazil.
These area
s, once economically neglected, are fast becoming one the world's most important agricultural regions
. The cerrado (Portuguese for thick and dense, meaning thick grassland) is a vast area of savanna
-like grasslands in Brazil. In the State of Mato Grosso do Sul
, Italian descendants are 5% of the population.
In 1902, the Italian immigration to Brazil started to decline. From 1903 to 1920, only 306,652 Italians immigrated to Brazil, compared to 953,453 to Argentina
and 3,581,322 to the United States. This was mainly due to the Prinetti Decree in Italy, that banned the subsidized immigration to Brazil (the Brazilian Government or landowners could not pay the passage of the immigrants anymore). Prinetti Decree was created because of the commotion in the Italian press due to the penury faced by most Italians in Brazil. The immigrants who went to Southern Brazil became small landowners and, despite the problems faced by them (dense forest, epidemics of yellow fever
, lack of consumer market) the easy access to lands increased their opportunities. However, only a minority of the Italians were taken to Southern Brazil. Most of the country's economy was based on coffee plantations, and Brazil was already the main coffee exporter in the world (since the 1850s). As a consequence of the end of slavery and that most former slaves left the plantations, there was a labour shortage on coffee plantations. Moreover, “natural inequality of human beings”, “hierarchy of races”, Social Darwinism
, Positivism
and other theories were used to explain that the European workers were superior to the native workers. In consequence, passages were offered to Europeans (the so-called "subsidized immigration"), mostly to Italians, so that they could come to Brazil and work on the plantations.
Those immigrants were employed in enormous latifundia
(large-scale farms), formerly employing slaves. In Brazil, there were no labour laws (the first concrete labour laws only appeared in the 1930s, under Getúlio Vargas
's government) and, therefore, workers had almost no legal protection. Contracts signed by the immigrants could easily be violated by the Brazilian landowners. Accustomed to dealing with African slaves, the remnants of slavery influenced on how Brazilian landowners dealt with Italian workers: immigrants were often monitored, with extensive hours of work. In some cases, they were obliged to buy the products they needed from the landowner. Moreover, the coffee farms were located in rather isolated regions. If the immigrants became sick, they would take hours to reach the nearest hospital. The structure of labor used on farms included the labor of Italian women and children. Keeping their Italian culture was also made more difficult: the Catholic churches and Italian cultural centers were far from the farms. The immigrants who did not accept the standards imposed by the landowner were replaced by other immigrants. This forced them to accept the impositions of the landowner or they would have to leave his lands. Even though Italians were considered to be "superior" to blacks by Brazilian landowners, the situation faced by Italians in Brazil was so similar to that of the slaves that farmers called them escravos brancos (white slaves in Portuguese
).
The destitution faced by Italians and other immigrants in Brazil caused great commotion in the Italian press, which culminated in the Prinetti Decree in 1902. Many immigrants left Brazil after their experience on São Paulo's coffee farms. Between 1882 and 1914, 1.5 million immigrants of different nationalities came to São Paulo, while 695,000 left the state, or 45% of the total. The high numbers of Italians asking the Italian Consulate a passage to leave Brazil was so significant that in 1907 most of the Italian funds for repatriation
were used in Brazil. It is estimated that, between 1890 and 1904, 223,031 (14,869 annually) Italians left Brazil, mainly after failed experiences on coffee farms. The majority of the Italians who left the country were unable to add the money they wanted. Most of these people returned to Italy, while others re-migrated to Argentina, Uruguay
or to the United States. The output of immigrants concerned Brazilian landowners, who constantly complained about the lack of workers. Spanish immigrants
began arriving in greater numbers, but soon Spain also started to create barriers for further immigration of Spaniards to coffee farms in Brazil. The continuing problem of lack of labor in the farms was, then, temporarily resolved with the arrival of Japanese immigrants, from 1908.
Despite the high numbers of immigrants leaving the country, the majority of the Italians remained in Brazil forever. Most of the immigrants only remained one year working on coffee farms and then they left the plantations. A small number of them earned enough money to buy their own lands, and became farmers themselves. However, the majority migrated to Brazilian urban centers. Many Italians worked in factories (in 1901, 81% of the São Paulo's factory workers were Italians). In Rio de Janeiro, a considerable number of the factory workers was also composed of Italians. In São Paulo, those workers established themselves in the center of the city, living in cortiço
s (degraded multifamily row houses). Those agglomerations of Italians in urban centers gave birth to typically Italian neighborhoods, such as Mooca
, which is until today linked to its Italian past. Other Italians became traders, mostly itinerant traders, selling their products in different regions. A common presence on the streets of São Paulo were the Italian boys working as newspaper-boys, as an Italian traveler observed: "In the crowd, we can see many Italian boys, shabby and barefoot, selling the newspapers from the city and from Rio de Janeiro, bothering the passersby with their offerings and their shouting of street roguish".
Despite the poverty and even semi-slavery conditions faced by many Italians in Brazil, over time most of this population achieved some personal success and changed their low class economic situation. Even though most of the first generation of immigrants still lived in poverty, the children of Italians, born in Brazil, often changed their social status as they diversified their field of work, leaving the poor conditions of their parents and not rarely becoming part of the local elite.
According to the 1940 Census in Rio Grande do Sul, 393,934 people reported to speak German as their first language (11.86% of the state's population). In comparison, 295,995 reported to speak Italian, mostly dialects (8.91% of the state's population). Even though the Italian immigration was larger and more recent than the German one, the Italian group tended to be more easily assimilated. In the 1950 Census, the number of people in Rio Grande do Sul who reported to speak Italian dropped to 190,376. In São Paulo, where a larger number of Italians settled, in the 1940 census 28,910 Italian born people reported to speak Italian at home (only 13.6% of the state's Italian population). In comparison, 49.1% of the immigrants of other nationalities reported to keep speaking their native languages at home (with the exception of the Portuguese, of course). Then, the prohibition of speaking Italian, German and Japanese during World War II was not so great to the Italian community as it was to the other two groups.
A major measure of the government occurred in 1889, when the Brazilian citizenship was granted to all immigrants, although this act had little influence on their identity or assimilation process. The Italian newspapers in Brazil and also the Italian government, in turn, were uncomfortable with the assimilation of Italians in the country. This occurred mostly after the Great Naturalization period. The Italian institutions encouraged the entry of Italians in Brazilian politics, although the presence of immigrants was, initially, small. The Italian dialects came to dominate the streets of São Paulo and in some Southern localities. Over time, these languages based on Italian dialects tended to disappear and nowadays their presence is small.
In the beginning, specially in rural Southern Brazil, Italians tended to marry only other Italians. On the other hand, Italians in São Paulo and, mainly, those living in urban centers tended to marry Brazilians. Over time and with the decrease of more immigrants arriving, even in Southern Brazil they started to integrate themselves with Brazilians. About the Italians in Santa Catarina, the Italian Consul asserted:
There is little information about this trend, but it was noticed a large process of integration since World War I: between 1917 and 1923, in Rio Grande do Sul: weddings between an Italian man and a Brazilian woman (997, 66.1%); Italian woman and Brazilian man (135, 9%) and Italian man and Italian woman (375, 24.9%).
These marriages between Italians and Brazilians were extremely common, mostly in the low classes, and were largely accepted for both people. However, some more closed members of the Italian community saw this integration process as negative. The German Brazilian
population was also treated by some Italians as repulsive, even though many Germans and Italians lived together in many areas of Southern Brazil. The Brazilian Indians
were often treated as wild people, and cases of conflicts between Italians and Indians for the occupation of lands in Southern Brazil were not uncommon.
According to the work of the sociologist Miguel Angel García, who interviewed people of Italian descent in Brazil in 2002, the population of Italian origin of the country may be divided into four categories. The categories are divided among the population of Brazil of Italian origin in accordance with their degree of Italian identity. The estimates about their identity is based on the estimated Brazilian population of Italian descent (García estimated that there are from 15 to 18 million people with Italian ancestors in Brazil).
According to García, the first category is composed of a small number of Italian immigrants, some 80,000 people. It is an aging community, which immigrated to Brazil
before the 1960s and their number is now in full decline. The second category is composed of 1.5 million Brazilians who are aware of their Italian roots. The third category, with 2 to 3 million people is composed of Brazilians who know they have Italian ancestors but who do not give much importance to that. The last category is composed of millions of Brazilians, perhaps 10 to 12 million people who have Italian ancestors and do not know it or do not consider it to be important. As one can see, the population of Italian origin in Brazil is very diverse, comprising a smaller number of people who still retain some sort of Italian identity
(Italian Brazilians) and a larger number of people who are completely integrated in Brazil and do not have an Italian identity anymore.
In a survey made by "Pesquisa Mensal de Emprego" (Monthly Employment Research) 10.41% of the Brazilians reported to be of Italian ancestry. It was one of the largest ancestries reported by the interviewed, along with Brazilian (86.09%), Portuguese
(10.46%), Amerindian
(6.64%) and Black
(5.09%). Brazilians tend to identify their ancestry as "Brazilian", especially the descendants of more remote ancestors, such as Africans or Indians. The descendants of more recent immigrants, including the Italians, tend to claim their ancestry to the country from where their relatives came from, even though 56.90% of the people who reported to be of Italian ancestry also reported to be of Brazilian ancestry. In the Italian group, the older generations tend to identify their Italian ancestry more strongly, while the younger generations identify their ancestry as Brazilian, which reflects the process of assimilation among young people.
Historically, Italians have been divided into two groups in Brazil. Those in Southern Brazil lived in rural colonies, in contact mostly with other people of Italian descent. Italians living in Southeast Brazil
on the other hand, the most populated region of the country, integrated into Brazilian society quite quickly.
After some years working in coffee plantations, some immigrants earned enough money to buy their own land and become farmers themselves. Others left the rural areas and moved to urban centres, mainly São Paulo, Campinas
, São Carlos
and Ribeirão Preto
. A small minority became very rich in the process and attracted more Italian immigrants. In the early 20th century, São Paulo became known as the City of the Italians, because 31% of its inhabitants were of Italian nationality in 1900. The city of São Paulo
had the second highest population of people with Italian ancestry in the world at this time, second only to Rome. In Campinas
, street signs in Italian were common, a large commercial and services sector owned by Italian Brazilians developed, and more than 60% of the population had Italian surnames. Today, nearly 30% of the population of Belo Horizonte
remains of Italian ancestry.
Italian immigrants were very important to the development of many of the big cities in Brazil, such as São Paulo, Porto Alegre
, Curitiba
and Belo Horizonte
. Bad conditions in rural areas made thousands of Italians move to these big cities. Most of them became laborers and participated actively in the industrialization of Brazil in the early 20th century. Others became investors, bankers and industrialists, such as Andrea Matarazzo, whose family became the richest industrialists in São Paulo, with a holding of more than 200 industries and businesses. In Rio Grande do Sul
, 42% of industrial companies have Italians roots.
Italians and their descendants were also quick to organize themselves and establish mutual aid societies (such as the Circolo Italiano), hospitals, schools (such as the Istituto Dante Alighieri, in São Paulo), labor union
s, newspapers (such as La Fanciulla), magazines, radio stations and even soccer teams (such as Palestra Italia, later renamed to Portuguese Sociedade Esportiva Palmeiras
in São Paulo, and Cruzeiro
in Belo Horizonte during World War II).
; however, they were not distributed homogeneously along the extensive Brazilian regions. In the state of São Paulo, the Italian community was more diverse including a large number of people from the South and from the Center of Italy. Even today, 42% of the Italians in Brazil came from the Northern regions, 36% from central
regions and only 22% from the south of Italy. Brazil is the only country with a large Italian community where the Southern Italian immigrants are minority.
In the first decades, the vast majority of the immigrants came from the North. Since Southern Brazil received most of the early settlers, the vast majority of the immigrants in this region came from the extreme North of Italy, mainly from Veneto and particularly from the provinces of Vicenza
(32%), Belluno
(30%) and Treviso
(24%). In Rio Grande do Sul, many came from Cremona
, Mantua
, from parts of Brescia
, and also from Bergamo
, in the region of Lombardy
, close to Veneto. The regions of Trentino and of Friuli-Venezia Giulia
also sent many immigrants to the South of Brazil. Of the immigrants in Rio Grande do Sul, 54% came from the Veneto, 33% from Lombardy, 7% from Trento, 4.5% from Friuli-Venezia Giulia and only 1.5% from other parts of Italy.
Starting in the early 20th century, the agrarian crisis also started to affect Southern Italy and many of them immigrated to Brazil. The Southerners went mostly to the state of São Paulo, since it was in need of workers to embrace the coffee plantations. Among the Italian immigrants in São Paulo, most came from Calabria
, Campania
and Veneto.
Nowadays, most Brazilians with Italian ancestry speak Portuguese
as their native language. During the Second World War, the public use of Italian
, German and Japanese was forbidden.
The Italian dialects
have influenced the Portuguese spoken in some areas of Brazil.The Italian Language was so spread in São Paulo that the Portuguese traveller, Sousa Pinto, said that he could not speak with cart drivers in Portuguese because they all spoke Italians dialects and gesticulating as Neapolitans http://www.iel.unicamp.br/cefiel/imagens/cursos/14.pdf.
Currently, the Italian influence on Portuguese spoken in São Paulo is not as great as in the past, although the accent of the city's inhabitants still has some traces of the Italian accents common in the beginning of the 20th century, like the intonation and also such expressions as Belo,Ma vá!, Orra meu! and Tá entendendo?http://revistalingua.uol.com.br/textos.asp?codigo=11902. Other characteristic is the difficulty to speak Portuguese in plural, saying plural words as they were singulars http://g1.globo.com/sao-paulo/noticia/2011/06/sotaque-da-mooca-pode-virar-patrimonio-historico-imaterial-de-sp.html. The lexical influence of Italian on Brazilian Portuguese, however, has remained quite small.
A similar phenomenon occurred in the countryside of Rio Grande do Sul, but encompassing almost exclusively those of Italian origin. On the other hand, there exists a different phenomenon; Talian
, a language which emerged mostly in the northeastern part of the state (Serra Gaúcha
). Talian
is a variant of the Venetian language
, with influences from other Italian dialects
and Portuguese. In southern Brazilian rural areas marked by bilingualism, even among the monolingual Portuguese-speaking population, the Italian-influenced accent is fairly typical.
The Samba Paulista was created by Adoniran Barbosa
(born João Rubinato), son of Italians immigrants. His songs translated the life of the Italian neighborhoods in São Paulo, merging the São Paulo's dialect with Samba, what latter celebrate him as the People's Poethttp://memoriaglobo.globo.com/Memoriaglobo/0,27723,GYN0-5273-258173,00.html.
One of the main example is the Samba Italiano
, a song that has Brazilian rhythm and theme, but (mostly) Italian lyrics. Below, the lyrics of this song, with the parts in (mangled) Portuguese in bold and the parts in Italian in normal font:
in São Paulo are Our Lady of Casaluce, also in Brás (May), Our Lady of Achiropita, in Bela Vista (August), and St. Gennaro, in Mooca
(September). Italian immigrants from the Puglia region who moved in great numbers to the Brás neighborhood in São Paulo at the end of the 19th century brought along a devotion to Saint Vito, a Christian martyr who was killed in June of 303 a.D.
Just like Polignano a Mare
, eventually Brás had a church devoted to St. Vito. An association was formed and hosted the first festival in June 1919. As São Paulo grew, so did the Italian community and St. Vito Festival. Today, about 6 million of São Paulo's 10,886,518 inhabitants are Italians and descendant
s (known as "oriundi"), according to statistics provided by Conscre, a São Paulo state council for foreign communities. An estimated 140,000 people were expected to attend the festival
in 2008.
Italians brought new recipes and types of food to Brazil but also helped in the development of Brazil's cuisine.
Aside from the typical Italian cuisine like pizza, pasta, risotto, panettone, milanesa, polenta, calzone, ossobuco and others, Italians helped to created new dishes that today are tipically Brazilians. Galeto(from the Italian Galletto, little rooster), Frango com Polenta (Chicken with fried Polenta),Bife à parmegiana(a beef prepared with Parmigiano-Reggiano), Catupiry
cheese, new types of sausage like Linguiça Calabresa and Linguiça Toscana (literally Calabrian and Tuscan Sausage)http://caras.uol.com.br/noticia/linguica-calabresa#image0, Chocotone (Panettone with chocolate chips) and many others recipes were created or influenced by the Italian community.
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
of Italian ancestry.
Italian immigration to Brazil
The Italian government claims there are 25 million Brazilians of ItalianItalian people
The Italian people are an ethnic group that share a common Italian culture, ancestry and speak the Italian language as a mother tongue. Within Italy, Italians are defined by citizenship, regardless of ancestry or country of residence , and are distinguished from people...
descent, which would be the largest population of Italian background outside of Italy itself. There are no actual surveys, or even verifiable calculations supporting such claims. According to demographer Miguel Ángel García. 15 to 18 million people in Brazil have Italian ancestry. Actual field surveys seem to support García's analysis, pointing to a figure around 10.4% of the Brazilian population, or about 19.8 million people. All those figures relate to Brazilians of any Italian descent, not necessarily linked to Italian culture in any significant way. According to García, the number of Brazilians with actual links to Italian identity and culture would be around 3.5 to 4.5 million people. Scholar Luigi Favero, in a book on Italian emigration between 1876 and 1976, pinpointed that Italians were present in Brasil since the Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
: Genoese sailors and merchants
Republic of Genoa
The Most Serene Republic of Genoa |Ligurian]]: Repúbrica de Zêna) was an independent state from 1005 to 1797 in Liguria on the northwestern Italian coast, as well as Corsica from 1347 to 1768, and numerous other territories throughout the Mediterranean....
were between the first to settle in colonial Brazil since the first half of the 16th century, and so - because of the many descendants of Italians emigrated there from Columbus
Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus was an explorer, colonizer, and navigator, born in the Republic of Genoa, in northwestern Italy. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean that led to general European awareness of the American continents in the...
times until 1860 - the number of Brazilians with Italian roots should be increased to 35 millions.
Although victims of some prejudice in the first decades and in spite of the persecution during World War II, Brazilians of Italian descent managed to mingle and to incorporate seamlessly into the Brazilian society.
Many Brazilian politicians, artists, footballers, models and personalities are or were of Italian descent. Amongst Italian-Brazilian one finds several State Governors, Congressmen, mayors and ambassadors. Three Presidents of Brazil
President of Brazil
The president of Brazil is both the head of state and head of government of the Federative Republic of Brazil. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the Brazilian Armed Forces...
were of Italian descent (though none of them were directly elected to such a position): Pascoal Ranieri Mazzilli
Pascoal Ranieri Mazzilli
Pascoal Ranieri Mazzilli, LS was a Brazilian politician who was President of Brazil in 1961 and 1964. Mazzilli's father was Domingo Mazzilli , an Italian from Montemurro, Basilicata, who immigrated to Brazil in 1892, at the age of 15. The mother, Angela Luizzi, was also from Montemurro and...
(Senate president who served as interim president), Itamar Franco
Itamar Franco
Itamar Augusto Cautiero Franco was a Brazilian politician and the President of Brazil from December 29, 1992, to January 1, 1995. During his long political career, Franco was also a Senator, Mayor, Ambassador, Governor and Vice President...
(elected vice-President under Fernando Collor, whom he eventually replaced as the latter was impeached), and Emílio Garrastazu Médici
Emílio Garrastazu Médici
Emílio Garrastazu Médici, was a Brazilian military leader and politician. His rightist rule from 1969 to 1974, marked the apex of military governments in Brazil.-Early life:...
(third of the series of generals who presided over Brazil during the military regime). Médici was also of Basque descent.
Citizenship
According to the Brazilian Constitution, anyone bornJus soli
Jus soli , also known as birthright citizenship, is a right by which nationality or citizenship can be recognized to any individual born in the territory of the related state...
in the country is a Brazilian citizen by birthright. In addition, many who were born in Italy have become naturalized
Naturalization
Naturalization is the acquisition of citizenship and nationality by somebody who was not a citizen of that country at the time of birth....
citizens after settling in Brazil. The Brazilian government used to prohibit multiple citizenships. However, this changed in 1994 with a new constitutional amendment. After the changes in 1994 over half a million Italian-Brazilians have requested the recognition of their Italian citizenship.
According to the Italian legislation an individual with an Italian parent is automatically recognized as an Italian citizen, the jus sanguinis
Jus sanguinis
Ius sanguinis is a social policy by which citizenship is not determined by place of birth, but by having a parent who are citizens of the nation...
principle being applied. In order to exercise the rights and obligations of citizenship an individual needs to have all documents registered in Italy, which normally involves the local consulate or embassy. Some limitations are applied to this process of recognition such as the renouncement of the Italian citizenship by the individual or the parent (if before the child’s birth), a second limitation is that women only transferred citizenship to their children after 1948. After the last electoral reform in Italy, Italian citizens abroad can also elect representatives to the Italian Chamber of Deputies
Italian Chamber of Deputies
The Italian Chamber of Deputies is the lower house of the Parliament of Italy. It has 630 seats, a plurality of which is controlled presently by liberal-conservative party People of Freedom. Twelve deputies represent Italian citizens outside of Italy. Deputies meet in the Palazzo Montecitorio. A...
and the Italian Senate
Italian Senate
The Senate of the Republic is the upper house of the Italian Parliament. It was established in its current form on 8 May 1948, but previously existed during the Kingdom of Italy as Senato del Regno , itself a continuation of the Senato Subalpino of Sardinia-Piedmont established on 8 May 1848...
. Italian citizens residing in Brazil elect representatives together with Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
, Uruguay
Uruguay
Uruguay ,officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay,sometimes the Eastern Republic of Uruguay; ) is a country in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to some 3.5 million people, of whom 1.8 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area...
and other countries in South America. According to Italian senator Edoardo Pollastri, currently there are over half a million Brazilians in line to have their Italian citizenship recognized.
Italian crisis in late 19th century
During the 19th century, many Italians fled the political persecutions in Italy, mainly after the failure of revolutionary movements in 1848 and 1861. Although very small, these well educated and revolutionary group of emigrants left a deep mark where they settled. In Brazil, the most famous Italian in this period was Líbero Badaró
Líbero Badaró
Giovanni Battista Libero Badaró was an Italian Brazilian physician, botanist, journalist and politician.-Biography:Born at Laigueglia, Liguria, he studied medicine at the University of Torino and at the University of Pavia...
. Despite that, the mass Italian immigration that contributed to shape Brazilian culture after the Portuguese and the German migration movements started only after Italian unification
Italian unification
Italian unification was the political and social movement that agglomerated different states of the Italian peninsula into the single state of Italy in the 19th century...
.
During the last quarter of the 19th century, the newly united Italy suffered an economic crisis. In the Northern regions, there was unemployment due to the introduction of new techniques in agriculture, while Southern Italy remained underdeveloped and untouched by modernization in agrarian structure. Even in the North, industrialization was still in its initial stages, and illiteracy was still common in Italy (though more in the south and islands than in the north). Thus, poverty and lack of jobs and income stimulated Northern (and also Southern) Italians to emigrate. Most Italian immigrants were very poor rural workers (braccianti).
Brazilian need of immigrants
An Agriculture Congress in 1878 in Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...
discussed the lack of labor and proposed to the government the stimulation of European immigration to Brazil. Immigrants from Italy, Portugal and Spain were considered the best ones, because they were white and, mainly, Catholics. Therefore, the Brazilian government started to attract more Italian immigrants to the coffee plantations.
Eugenics
Eugenics is the "applied science or the bio-social movement which advocates the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population", usually referring to human populations. The origins of the concept of eugenics began with certain interpretations of Mendelian inheritance,...
theories. According to some scholars, it was necessary to bring immigrants from Europe to enhance the Brazilian population.
Beginning of Italian settlement in Brazil
Rural
Rural areas or the country or countryside are areas that are not urbanized, though when large areas are described, country towns and smaller cities will be included. They have a low population density, and typically much of the land is devoted to agriculture...
areas of the country, being settled by European families, mainly German immigrants that settled in many areas of Southern Brazil.
The first groups of Italians arrived in 1875, but the boom of Italian immigration in Brazil happened in late 19th century, between 1880 and 1900, when almost one million Italians arrived.
A great number of Italians was naturalized Brazilian at the end of the 19th century, when the 'Great Naturalization' conceded automatically citizenship to all the immigrants residing in Brazil prior to November 15, 1889 "unless they declared a desire to keep their original nationality within six months."
During the last years of the 19th century, the denouncements of bad conditions in Brazil increased in the press. Reacting to the public clamor and many proved cases of mistreatments of Italian immigrants, the government of Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
issued, in 1902, the Prinetti decree forbidding subsidized immigration to Brazil. In consequence, the number of Italian immigrants in Brazil fell drastically in the beginning of the 20th century, but the wave of Italian immigration continued until 1920.
Over half of the Italian immigrants came from Northern Italian regions of Veneto
Veneto
Veneto is one of the 20 regions of Italy. Its population is about 5 million, ranking 5th in Italy.Veneto had been for more than a millennium an independent state, the Republic of Venice, until it was eventually annexed by Italy in 1866 after brief Austrian and French rule...
, Lombardy
Lombardy
Lombardy is one of the 20 regions of Italy. The capital is Milan. One-sixth of Italy's population lives in Lombardy and about one fifth of Italy's GDP is produced in this region, making it the most populous and richest region in the country and one of the richest in the whole of Europe...
, Tuscany
Tuscany
Tuscany is a region in Italy. It has an area of about 23,000 square kilometres and a population of about 3.75 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence ....
and Emilia-Romagna
Emilia-Romagna
Emilia–Romagna is an administrative region of Northern Italy comprising the two historic regions of Emilia and Romagna. The capital is Bologna; it has an area of and about 4.4 million inhabitants....
. About 30% emigrated from Veneto. On the other hand, during the 20th century, Central and Southern Italians predominated in Brazil, coming from the regions of Campania
Campania
Campania is a region in southern Italy. The region has a population of around 5.8 million people, making it the second-most-populous region of Italy; its total area of 13,590 km² makes it the most densely populated region in the country...
, Abruzzo
Abruzzo
Abruzzo is a region in Italy, its western border lying less than due east of Rome. Abruzzo borders the region of Marche to the north, Lazio to the west and south-west, Molise to the south-east, and the Adriatic Sea to the east...
, Molise
Molise
Molise is a region of Southern Italy, the second smallest of the regions. It was formerly part of the region of Abruzzi e Molise and now a separate entity...
, Basilicata
Basilicata
Basilicata , also known as Lucania, is a region in the south of Italy, bordering on Campania to the west, Apulia to the north and east, and Calabria to the south, having one short southwestern coastline on the Tyrrhenian Sea between Campania in the northwest and Calabria in the southwest, and a...
and Sicily
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
.
1940 Brazilian Census
The Brazilian Census of 1940 asked Brazilians where their fathers came from. The Census revealed that at that time there were 3,275,732 Brazilians who were born to an immigrant father. Of those, 1,260,931 Brazilians were born to an Italian father. Italian was the main reported paternal immigrant origin, followed by Portuguese with 735,929 children, Spanish with 340,479 and German with 159,809 children.The Census also revealed that the 458,281 foreign mothers of 12 or more years who lived in Brazil had 2,852,427 children, of whom 2,657,974 were born alive. The Italian women had more children than any other female immigrant community in Brazil: 1,069,862 Brazilians were born to an Italian mother, followed by 524,940 who were born to a Portuguese mother, 436,305 to a Spanish mother and 171,790 to a Japanese mother. The 6,809,772 Brazilian-born mothers of 12 or more years had 38,716,508 children, of whom 35,777,402 were born alive.
| Brazilians who were born to a foreign-born father (1940 Census) | |
|---|---|
| Main places of birth of the father | Number of children |
| Italy | 1,260,931 |
| Portugal | 735,929 |
| Spain | 340,479 |
| Germany | 159,809 |
| Syria- Lebanon- Palestine- Iraq - Middle-Eastern | 107,074 |
| Japan-Korea | 104,355 |
| Women over 12 years old who had offspring in Brazil and their children, by country of birth (1940 Census) |
|||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Country of birth of the mother | Number of females over 12 years old who had children |
Number of children | |||
| Italy | 130,273 | 1,069,862 | |||
| Portugal | 99,197 | 524,940 | |||
| Spain | 66,354 | 436,305 | |||
| Japan | 35,640 | 171,790 | |||
| Germany | 22,232 | 98,653 | |||
| Brazil | 6,809,772 | 38,716,508 | |||
Others
On the other hand, in 1998, the IBGE, within its preparation for the 2000 Census, experimentally introduced a question about "origem" (ancestry) in its "Pesquisa Mensal de Emprego" (Monthly Employment Research), in order to test the viability of introducing that variable in the Census (the IBGE ended by deciding against the inclusion of questions about it in the Census). This research interviewed about 90,000 people in six metropolitan regions (São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre, Belo Horizonte, Salvador, and Recife).The results of this survey stand in contradiction with the claims of the Italian embassy to Brazil. While the latter point to "Italian Brazilians" making up to 15% of the Brazilian population, with absolute figures varying between 25 and 30 million, and figures for the city of São Paulo as high as 60% or 6 million, the IBGE found actually a figure of 10%, which would correspond, at the time, to a total population of about 3.5 million people of Italian origin in the whole set of metropolitan regions it researched, including São Paulo (and Porto Alegre, another metropolitan region with a high concentration of oriundi).
| Arrival of Italian immigrants to Brazil by periods (source: IBGE IBGE The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics or IBGE , is the agency responsible for statistical, geographic, cartographic, geodetic and environmental information in Brazil... ) |
|||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1884-1893 | 1894–1903 | 1904–1913 | 1914–1923 | 1924–1933 | 1934–1944 | 1945–1949 | 1950–1954 | 1955–1959 | |
| 510,533 | 537,784 | 196,521 | 86,320 | 70,177 | 15,312 | N/A | 59,785 | 31,263 | |
| Italian population in Brazil | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Estimated Italian population (by Giorgio Mortara) | Year | Italian estimates | Year | Brazilian Census |
| 1880 | 50,000 | 1881* | 82,000 | ||
| 1890 | 230,000 | 1891* | 554,000 | ||
| 1900 | 540,000 | 1901** | 1,300,000 | ||
| 1902 | 600,000 | 1904** | 1,100,000 | ||
| 1930 | 435,000 | 1927* | 1,837,887 | 1920 | 558,405 |
| 1940 | 325,000 | 1940 | 325,283 |
.* Comissariato Generale dell'Emigrazione
.** Consulates
The 1920 Census was the first one to show a more specific figure about the size of the Italian population in Brazil (558,405). However, since the 20th century the arrival of new Italian immigrants to Brazil was in full decline. The previous censuses of 1890 and 1900 had limited information (in fact, the 1900 Census never existed). In consequence, there are no official figures about the size of the Italian population in Brazil during the mass immigration period (1880–1900). There are estimates available, and the most reliable is the one done by Giorgio Mortara, even though the figures he found may have underestimated the real size of the Italian population. On the other hand, Angelo Trento believes that the Italian estimates are "certainly exaggerated", and "lacking of any foundation", since they found the figure of 1,837,887 Italians in Brazil as of 1927. Another evaluation conducted by Bruno Zuculin found the presence of 997,887 Italians in Brazil as of 1927. Notice that all these figures only include people born in Italy, and not their Brazilian born descendants.
| Brazilians of Italian descent by states or regions as of 2000 estimatives | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Region | State | Total population (millions) | Italian Brazilians | ||||||
| Population (millions) | Percentage | ||||||||
| Southeastern | São Paulo São Paulo (state) São Paulo is a state in Brazil. It is the major industrial and economic powerhouse of the Brazilian economy. Named after Saint Paul, São Paulo has the largest population, industrial complex, and economic production in the country. It is the richest state in Brazil... |
33.1 | 9.9 | 29.9% | |||||
| Espírito Santo Espírito Santo Espírito Santo is one of the states of southeastern Brazil, often referred to by the abbreviation "ES". Its capital is Vitória and the largest city is Vila Velha. The name of the state means literally "holy spirit" after the Holy Ghost of Christianity... |
2.6 | 1.7 | 65.4% | ||||||
| Minas Gerais Minas Gerais Minas Gerais is one of the 26 states of Brazil, of which it is the second most populous, the third richest, and the fourth largest in area. Minas Gerais is the Brazilian state with the largest number of Presidents of Brazil, the current one, Dilma Rousseff, being one of them. The capital is the... |
15.8 | 1.3 | 8.2% | ||||||
| Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro (state) Rio de Janeiro is one of the 27 states of Brazil.Rio de Janeiro has the second largest economy of Brazil behind only São Paulo state.The state of Rio de Janeiro is located within the Brazilian geopolitical region classified as the Southeast... |
14.1 | 0.60 | 4.3% | ||||||
| Southern | Paraná Paraná (state) Paraná is one of the states of Brazil, located in the South of the country, bordered on the north by São Paulo state, on the east by the Atlantic Ocean, on the south by Santa Catarina state and the Misiones Province of Argentina, and on the west by Mato Grosso do Sul and the republic of Paraguay,... |
9.4 | 3.7 | 39.4% | |||||
| Rio Grande do Sul Rio Grande do Sul Rio Grande do Sul is the southernmost state in Brazil, and the state with the fifth highest Human Development Index in the country. In this state is located the southernmost city in the country, Chuí, on the border with Uruguay. In the region of Bento Gonçalves and Caxias do Sul, the largest wine... |
9.5 | 2.1 | 22.1% | ||||||
| Santa Catarina Santa Catarina (state) Santa Catarina is a state in southern Brazil with one of the highest standards of living in Latin America. Its capital is Florianópolis, which mostly lies on the Santa Catarina Island. Neighbouring states are Rio Grande do Sul to the south and Paraná to the north. It is bounded on the east by... |
4.5 | 2.7 | 60.0% | ||||||
| Northern Brazil | All | 8.9 | 1.0 | 11.2% | |||||
| Central-western | All | 10.4 | 0.40 | 3.8% | |||||
| Northeastern | All | 42.8 | 0.15 | 0.4% | |||||
| Total in Brazil | 151.1 | 23.6 | 15.6% | ||||||
Areas of settlement
Among all Italians who immigrated to Brazil, 70% went to the State of São Paulo. In consequence, São Paulo has more people with Italian ancestry than any region of Italy itself. The rest went mostly to the states of Rio Grande do Sul and Minas GeraisMinas Gerais
Minas Gerais is one of the 26 states of Brazil, of which it is the second most populous, the third richest, and the fourth largest in area. Minas Gerais is the Brazilian state with the largest number of Presidents of Brazil, the current one, Dilma Rousseff, being one of them. The capital is the...
.
Santa Catarina (state)
Santa Catarina is a state in southern Brazil with one of the highest standards of living in Latin America. Its capital is Florianópolis, which mostly lies on the Santa Catarina Island. Neighbouring states are Rio Grande do Sul to the south and Paraná to the north. It is bounded on the east by...
and then further north to Paraná.
More recently, third and fourth generations have been migrating to other areas; thus it is possible to find people of Italian descent in Brazilian regions where the immigrants had never settled, such as in the Cerrado
Cerrado
The Cerrado, is a vast tropical savanna ecoregion of Brazil, particularly in the states of Gioas and Minas Gerais...
region of Central-West, in the Northeast and in the Amazon rainforest
Amazon Rainforest
The Amazon Rainforest , also known in English as Amazonia or the Amazon Jungle, is a moist broadleaf forest that covers most of the Amazon Basin of South America...
area, in the extreme North of Brazil.
| Farms owned by an foreign(1920) | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Immigrants | Farms http://books.google.com.br/books?id=4hECxprAkAoC&pg=PA252&dq=f%C3%A1bricas+italianos+janeiro&hl=pt-BR&ei=CykCTvf5C4Kitge297CNDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CD0Q6AEwAA#v=snippet&q=agr%C3%ADcolas%20janeiro&f=false | ||
| Italians | 35.984 | ||
| Portuguese | 9.552 | ||
| Germans | 6.887 | ||
| Spanish | 4.725 | ||
| Russians | 4.471 | ||
| Austrians | 4.292 | ||
| Japanese | 1.167 | ||
Southern Brazil
Rio Grande do Sul
Rio Grande do Sul is the southernmost state in Brazil, and the state with the fifth highest Human Development Index in the country. In this state is located the southernmost city in the country, Chuí, on the border with Uruguay. In the region of Bento Gonçalves and Caxias do Sul, the largest wine...
, Santa Catarina, Paraná
Paraná (state)
Paraná is one of the states of Brazil, located in the South of the country, bordered on the north by São Paulo state, on the east by the Atlantic Ocean, on the south by Santa Catarina state and the Misiones Province of Argentina, and on the west by Mato Grosso do Sul and the republic of Paraguay,...
, Espírito Santo
Espírito Santo
Espírito Santo is one of the states of southeastern Brazil, often referred to by the abbreviation "ES". Its capital is Vitória and the largest city is Vila Velha. The name of the state means literally "holy spirit" after the Holy Ghost of Christianity...
and Minas Gerais
Minas Gerais
Minas Gerais is one of the 26 states of Brazil, of which it is the second most populous, the third richest, and the fourth largest in area. Minas Gerais is the Brazilian state with the largest number of Presidents of Brazil, the current one, Dilma Rousseff, being one of them. The capital is the...
.
The first colonies to be populated by Italians were created in the highlands of Rio Grande do Sul (Serra Gaúcha
Serra Gaúcha
The Serra Gaúcha, The Gaucho Highlands, is the mountainous region in the northeastern portion of Rio Grande do Sul state in southern Brazil. This mountainous region is home to many Brazilians of German and Italian descent...
). These were Garibaldi
Garibaldi (city)
Garibaldi is a town in Rio Grande do Sul, southern Brazil. It has a population of 28,714 people, most of them of Italian descent. The city is famous for its wine and champagne productions. The name Garibaldi is an homage to the Italian revolutionary Giuseppe Garibaldi and his Brazilian wife, Anita...
and Bento Gonçalves
Bento Gonçalves, Rio Grande do Sul
Bento Gonçalves is a town located in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Created in 1875, it is one of the centres of the Italian immigration in Brazil. It is also known as the 'wine capital of Brazil', due to its vineyards and wine production...
. These immigrants were predominantly from Veneto, in northern Italy. After five years, in 1880, the great numbers of Italian immigrants arriving caused the Brazilian government to create another Italian colony, Caxias do Sul
Caxias do Sul
Caxias do Sul is a city in Rio Grande do Sul, Southern Brazil, situated in the state's mountainous Serra Gaúcha region. Coordinates: 29°10′0″ S, 51°11′0″ W....
. After initially settling in the government-promoted colonies, many of the Italian immigrants spread into other areas of Rio Grande do Sul seeking better opportunities. They created many other Italian colonies on their own, mainly in highlands, because the lowlands were already populated by German immigrants and native gaúchos. The Italian established many vineyards in the region. Nowadays, the wine produced in these areas of Italian colonization in southern Brazil is much appreciated within the country, though little is available for export. In 1875, the first Italian colonies were established in Santa Catarina
Santa Catarina (state)
Santa Catarina is a state in southern Brazil with one of the highest standards of living in Latin America. Its capital is Florianópolis, which mostly lies on the Santa Catarina Island. Neighbouring states are Rio Grande do Sul to the south and Paraná to the north. It is bounded on the east by...
, which lies immediately to the north of Rio Grande do Sul. The colonies gave rise to towns such as Criciúma
Criciúma
Criciúma is a city in the Brazilian state of Santa Catarina. At , it is located 180 km south of Florianópolis, the state capital and around 900 km south of São Paulo...
, and later also spread further north, to Paraná.
In the colonies of southern Brazil, Italian immigrants at first confined themselves within themselves, where they could speak their native Italian dialects
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
and keep their culture and traditions. With time, however, they would become thoroughly integrated economically and culturally into the larger society. In any case, Italian immigration to southern Brazil was very important to the economic development, as well to the culture of the region.
Southeastern Brazil
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São Paulo (state)
São Paulo is a state in Brazil. It is the major industrial and economic powerhouse of the Brazilian economy. Named after Saint Paul, São Paulo has the largest population, industrial complex, and economic production in the country. It is the richest state in Brazil...
and Minas Gerais
Minas Gerais
Minas Gerais is one of the 26 states of Brazil, of which it is the second most populous, the third richest, and the fourth largest in area. Minas Gerais is the Brazilian state with the largest number of Presidents of Brazil, the current one, Dilma Rousseff, being one of them. The capital is the...
, and in a smaller proportion also in the States of Espírito Santo
Espírito Santo
Espírito Santo is one of the states of southeastern Brazil, often referred to by the abbreviation "ES". Its capital is Vitória and the largest city is Vila Velha. The name of the state means literally "holy spirit" after the Holy Ghost of Christianity...
and Rio de Janeiro. Rio de Janeiro was declining in the 19th century as a farming producer and São Paulo had already taken the lead as a coffee producer/exporter at the turn of the century, as well as big producer of sugar and other important crops. Thus, migrants were naturally more attracted to the State of São Paulo and the southern states.
Italians used to migrate to Brazil in families
Family
In human context, a family is a group of people affiliated by consanguinity, affinity, or co-residence. In most societies it is the principal institution for the socialization of children...
. The colono, as rural immigrants were called, had to sign a contract with the farmer and was obliged to work in the coffee
Coffee
Coffee is a brewed beverage with a dark,init brooo acidic flavor prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant, colloquially called coffee beans. The beans are found in coffee cherries, which grow on trees cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia,...
plantation during a minimum period of time. However, the situation was not easy. Many Brazilian farmers were used to command slaves and treated the immigrants as indentured servant
Indentured servant
Indentured servitude refers to the historical practice of contracting to work for a fixed period of time, typically three to seven years, in exchange for transportation, food, clothing, lodging and other necessities during the term of indenture. Usually the father made the arrangements and signed...
s.
While, in Southern Brazil, the Italian immigrants were living in relatively well-developed colonies, in Southeastern Brazil they were living in semi-slavery conditions in the coffee plantation
Plantation
A plantation is a long artificially established forest, farm or estate, where crops are grown for sale, often in distant markets rather than for local on-site consumption...
s. Many rebellions against Brazilian farmers occurred and the public denouncements caused great commotion in Italy, forcing the Italian government to issue the Prinetti decree that established barriers to immigration to Brazil
Immigration to Brazil
Immigration to Brazil is the movement to Brazil of foreign persons to reside permanently. It should not be confused with the colonisation of the country by the Portuguese, or with the forcible bringing of people from Africa as slaves....
.
| Year | Italians | Percentage of the City |
|---|---|---|
| 1886 | 5,717 | 13% |
| 1893 | 45,457 | 35% |
| 1900 | 75,000 | 31% |
| 1910 | 130,000 | 33% |
| 1916 | 187,540 | 37% |
In 1901, 90% of industrial workers and 80% of construction workers at São Paulo city were Italians.http://books.google.com/books?id=sFEuUUyJrSEC&pg=PA318&dq=libaneses+paulo+salvador&hl=pt-BR&ei=CI4ATq6MJKK00AHKnLHJDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CDYQ6AEwATgK#v=snippet&q=paulo&f=false
| Year | Italians |
|---|---|
| 1895 | 20,000 |
| 1901 | 30,000 |
| 1910 | 35,000 |
| 1920 | 31,929 |
| 1940 | 22,768 |
Other parts of Brazil
Although the majority of Brazilians of Italian descentItalian people
The Italian people are an ethnic group that share a common Italian culture, ancestry and speak the Italian language as a mother tongue. Within Italy, Italians are defined by citizenship, regardless of ancestry or country of residence , and are distinguished from people...
live in the South and Southeast part of the country, in recent decade
Decade
A decade is a period of 10 years. The word is derived from the Ancient Greek dekas which means ten. This etymology is sometime confused with the Latin decas and dies , which is not correct....
s (1960s-present), people from southern Brazil, mainly of Italian descent, have played a vital role in settling and developing the vast "cerrado
Cerrado
The Cerrado, is a vast tropical savanna ecoregion of Brazil, particularly in the states of Gioas and Minas Gerais...
" grassland
Grassland
Grasslands are areas where the vegetation is dominated by grasses and other herbaceous plants . However, sedge and rush families can also be found. Grasslands occur naturally on all continents except Antarctica...
s of Central-West, North and the west part of Northeastern Brazil.
These area
Area
Area is a quantity that expresses the extent of a two-dimensional surface or shape in the plane. Area can be understood as the amount of material with a given thickness that would be necessary to fashion a model of the shape, or the amount of paint necessary to cover the surface with a single coat...
s, once economically neglected, are fast becoming one the world's most important agricultural regions
Agriculture in Brazil
Brazil is endowed with vast agricultural resources. There are two distinct agricultural areas. The first, composed of the southern one-half to two-thirds of the country, has a semitemperate climate and higher rainfall, the better soils, higher technology and input use, adequate infrastructure, and...
. The cerrado (Portuguese for thick and dense, meaning thick grassland) is a vast area of savanna
Savanna
A savanna, or savannah, is a grassland ecosystem characterized by the trees being sufficiently small or widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach the ground to support an unbroken herbaceous layer consisting primarily of C4 grasses.Some...
-like grasslands in Brazil. In the State of Mato Grosso do Sul
Mato Grosso do Sul
Mato Grosso do Sul is one of the states of Brazil.Neighboring Brazilian states are Mato Grosso, Goiás, Minas Gerais, São Paulo and Paraná. It also borders the countries of Paraguay and Bolivia to the west. The economy of the state is largely based on agriculture and cattle-raising...
, Italian descendants are 5% of the population.
Decline of Italian Immigration
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
and 3,581,322 to the United States. This was mainly due to the Prinetti Decree in Italy, that banned the subsidized immigration to Brazil (the Brazilian Government or landowners could not pay the passage of the immigrants anymore). Prinetti Decree was created because of the commotion in the Italian press due to the penury faced by most Italians in Brazil. The immigrants who went to Southern Brazil became small landowners and, despite the problems faced by them (dense forest, epidemics of yellow fever
Yellow fever
Yellow fever is an acute viral hemorrhagic disease. The virus is a 40 to 50 nm enveloped RNA virus with positive sense of the Flaviviridae family....
, lack of consumer market) the easy access to lands increased their opportunities. However, only a minority of the Italians were taken to Southern Brazil. Most of the country's economy was based on coffee plantations, and Brazil was already the main coffee exporter in the world (since the 1850s). As a consequence of the end of slavery and that most former slaves left the plantations, there was a labour shortage on coffee plantations. Moreover, “natural inequality of human beings”, “hierarchy of races”, Social Darwinism
Social Darwinism
Social Darwinism is a term commonly used for theories of society that emerged in England and the United States in the 1870s, seeking to apply the principles of Darwinian evolution to sociology and politics...
, Positivism
Positivism
Positivism is a a view of scientific methods and a philosophical approach, theory, or system based on the view that, in the social as well as natural sciences, sensory experiences and their logical and mathematical treatment are together the exclusive source of all worthwhile information....
and other theories were used to explain that the European workers were superior to the native workers. In consequence, passages were offered to Europeans (the so-called "subsidized immigration"), mostly to Italians, so that they could come to Brazil and work on the plantations.
Those immigrants were employed in enormous latifundia
Latifundia
Latifundia are pieces of property covering very large land areas. The latifundia of Roman history were great landed estates, specializing in agriculture destined for export: grain, olive oil, or wine...
(large-scale farms), formerly employing slaves. In Brazil, there were no labour laws (the first concrete labour laws only appeared in the 1930s, under Getúlio Vargas
Getúlio Vargas
Getúlio Dornelles Vargas served as President of Brazil, first as dictator, from 1930 to 1945, and in a democratically elected term from 1951 until his suicide in 1954. Vargas led Brazil for 18 years, the most for any President, and second in Brazilian history to Emperor Pedro II...
's government) and, therefore, workers had almost no legal protection. Contracts signed by the immigrants could easily be violated by the Brazilian landowners. Accustomed to dealing with African slaves, the remnants of slavery influenced on how Brazilian landowners dealt with Italian workers: immigrants were often monitored, with extensive hours of work. In some cases, they were obliged to buy the products they needed from the landowner. Moreover, the coffee farms were located in rather isolated regions. If the immigrants became sick, they would take hours to reach the nearest hospital. The structure of labor used on farms included the labor of Italian women and children. Keeping their Italian culture was also made more difficult: the Catholic churches and Italian cultural centers were far from the farms. The immigrants who did not accept the standards imposed by the landowner were replaced by other immigrants. This forced them to accept the impositions of the landowner or they would have to leave his lands. Even though Italians were considered to be "superior" to blacks by Brazilian landowners, the situation faced by Italians in Brazil was so similar to that of the slaves that farmers called them escravos brancos (white slaves in Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
).
The destitution faced by Italians and other immigrants in Brazil caused great commotion in the Italian press, which culminated in the Prinetti Decree in 1902. Many immigrants left Brazil after their experience on São Paulo's coffee farms. Between 1882 and 1914, 1.5 million immigrants of different nationalities came to São Paulo, while 695,000 left the state, or 45% of the total. The high numbers of Italians asking the Italian Consulate a passage to leave Brazil was so significant that in 1907 most of the Italian funds for repatriation
Repatriation
Repatriation is the process of returning a person back to one's place of origin or citizenship. This includes the process of returning refugees or soldiers to their place of origin following a war...
were used in Brazil. It is estimated that, between 1890 and 1904, 223,031 (14,869 annually) Italians left Brazil, mainly after failed experiences on coffee farms. The majority of the Italians who left the country were unable to add the money they wanted. Most of these people returned to Italy, while others re-migrated to Argentina, Uruguay
Uruguay
Uruguay ,officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay,sometimes the Eastern Republic of Uruguay; ) is a country in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to some 3.5 million people, of whom 1.8 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area...
or to the United States. The output of immigrants concerned Brazilian landowners, who constantly complained about the lack of workers. Spanish immigrants
Spanish immigration to Brazil
Spanish emigration peaked in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and it was concentrated to Argentina and Cuba. Between 1882 and 1930, 3,297,312 Spaniards emigrated, of whom 1,594,622 went to Argentina and 1,118,960 went to Cuba...
began arriving in greater numbers, but soon Spain also started to create barriers for further immigration of Spaniards to coffee farms in Brazil. The continuing problem of lack of labor in the farms was, then, temporarily resolved with the arrival of Japanese immigrants, from 1908.
Cortiço
Cortiço, or gueto , is a Portuguese term commonly used in Brazil and Portugal to describe an area of urban housing where many people live in conditions of poor hygiene and poverty. Some cortiços can be seen in big Brazilian cities such as São Paulo, Salvador, Rio de Janeiro,and Recife...
s (degraded multifamily row houses). Those agglomerations of Italians in urban centers gave birth to typically Italian neighborhoods, such as Mooca
Mooca
Mooca from tupi mo-oka, meaning to build houses, is a district in the subprefecture of the same name in the city of São Paulo, Brazil. Mooca today is about to reach the mark of 65,000 inhabitants, spread in . It is also considered one of the fastest growing districts in the city, experiencing over...
, which is until today linked to its Italian past. Other Italians became traders, mostly itinerant traders, selling their products in different regions. A common presence on the streets of São Paulo were the Italian boys working as newspaper-boys, as an Italian traveler observed: "In the crowd, we can see many Italian boys, shabby and barefoot, selling the newspapers from the city and from Rio de Janeiro, bothering the passersby with their offerings and their shouting of street roguish".
Despite the poverty and even semi-slavery conditions faced by many Italians in Brazil, over time most of this population achieved some personal success and changed their low class economic situation. Even though most of the first generation of immigrants still lived in poverty, the children of Italians, born in Brazil, often changed their social status as they diversified their field of work, leaving the poor conditions of their parents and not rarely becoming part of the local elite.
Assimilation
With the exception of some isolated cases of violence between Brazilians and Italians, especially between 1892 and 1896, the integration of immigrants in Brazil happened quick and peacefully. For the Italians in São Paulo, scholars suggest that this process of assimilation occurred in up to two generations. There is research that suggests that even first-generation immigrants, born in Italy, soon became assimilated in the new country. Even in Southern Brazil, where most of the Italians were living in isolated rural communities, without much contact with Brazilians, and where they kept the Italian patriarchal family structure (and therefore the father chose the wive or husband for their children, giving preference to the Italians) the assimilation process was also quick.According to the 1940 Census in Rio Grande do Sul, 393,934 people reported to speak German as their first language (11.86% of the state's population). In comparison, 295,995 reported to speak Italian, mostly dialects (8.91% of the state's population). Even though the Italian immigration was larger and more recent than the German one, the Italian group tended to be more easily assimilated. In the 1950 Census, the number of people in Rio Grande do Sul who reported to speak Italian dropped to 190,376. In São Paulo, where a larger number of Italians settled, in the 1940 census 28,910 Italian born people reported to speak Italian at home (only 13.6% of the state's Italian population). In comparison, 49.1% of the immigrants of other nationalities reported to keep speaking their native languages at home (with the exception of the Portuguese, of course). Then, the prohibition of speaking Italian, German and Japanese during World War II was not so great to the Italian community as it was to the other two groups.
A major measure of the government occurred in 1889, when the Brazilian citizenship was granted to all immigrants, although this act had little influence on their identity or assimilation process. The Italian newspapers in Brazil and also the Italian government, in turn, were uncomfortable with the assimilation of Italians in the country. This occurred mostly after the Great Naturalization period. The Italian institutions encouraged the entry of Italians in Brazilian politics, although the presence of immigrants was, initially, small. The Italian dialects came to dominate the streets of São Paulo and in some Southern localities. Over time, these languages based on Italian dialects tended to disappear and nowadays their presence is small.
In the beginning, specially in rural Southern Brazil, Italians tended to marry only other Italians. On the other hand, Italians in São Paulo and, mainly, those living in urban centers tended to marry Brazilians. Over time and with the decrease of more immigrants arriving, even in Southern Brazil they started to integrate themselves with Brazilians. About the Italians in Santa Catarina, the Italian Consul asserted:
There is little information about this trend, but it was noticed a large process of integration since World War I: between 1917 and 1923, in Rio Grande do Sul: weddings between an Italian man and a Brazilian woman (997, 66.1%); Italian woman and Brazilian man (135, 9%) and Italian man and Italian woman (375, 24.9%).
These marriages between Italians and Brazilians were extremely common, mostly in the low classes, and were largely accepted for both people. However, some more closed members of the Italian community saw this integration process as negative. The German Brazilian
German Brazilian
A German Brazilian is a Brazilian person of ethnic German ancestry or origin...
population was also treated by some Italians as repulsive, even though many Germans and Italians lived together in many areas of Southern Brazil. The Brazilian Indians
Indigenous peoples in Brazil
The Indigenous peoples in Brazil comprise a large number of distinct ethnic groups who inhabited the country prior to the European invasion around 1500...
were often treated as wild people, and cases of conflicts between Italians and Indians for the occupation of lands in Southern Brazil were not uncommon.
Identity
| Identity | Population |
|---|---|
| Italian immigrants | 80,000 |
| Brazilians with strong Italian identity | 1.5 million |
| Brazilians with weak Italian identity | 2-3 million |
| Brazilians with Italian ancestors but no Italian identity | 10-12 million |
According to the work of the sociologist Miguel Angel García, who interviewed people of Italian descent in Brazil in 2002, the population of Italian origin of the country may be divided into four categories. The categories are divided among the population of Brazil of Italian origin in accordance with their degree of Italian identity. The estimates about their identity is based on the estimated Brazilian population of Italian descent (García estimated that there are from 15 to 18 million people with Italian ancestors in Brazil).
According to García, the first category is composed of a small number of Italian immigrants, some 80,000 people. It is an aging community, which immigrated to Brazil
Immigration to Brazil
Immigration to Brazil is the movement to Brazil of foreign persons to reside permanently. It should not be confused with the colonisation of the country by the Portuguese, or with the forcible bringing of people from Africa as slaves....
before the 1960s and their number is now in full decline. The second category is composed of 1.5 million Brazilians who are aware of their Italian roots. The third category, with 2 to 3 million people is composed of Brazilians who know they have Italian ancestors but who do not give much importance to that. The last category is composed of millions of Brazilians, perhaps 10 to 12 million people who have Italian ancestors and do not know it or do not consider it to be important. As one can see, the population of Italian origin in Brazil is very diverse, comprising a smaller number of people who still retain some sort of Italian identity
Cultural identity
Cultural identity is the identity of a group or culture, or of an individual as far as one is influenced by one's belonging to a group or culture. Cultural identity is similar to and has overlaps with, but is not synonymous with, identity politics....
(Italian Brazilians) and a larger number of people who are completely integrated in Brazil and do not have an Italian identity anymore.
In a survey made by "Pesquisa Mensal de Emprego" (Monthly Employment Research) 10.41% of the Brazilians reported to be of Italian ancestry. It was one of the largest ancestries reported by the interviewed, along with Brazilian (86.09%), Portuguese
Portuguese people
The Portuguese are a nation and ethnic group native to the country of Portugal, in the west of the Iberian peninsula of south-west Europe. Their language is Portuguese, and Roman Catholicism is the predominant religion....
(10.46%), Amerindian
Indigenous peoples in Brazil
The Indigenous peoples in Brazil comprise a large number of distinct ethnic groups who inhabited the country prior to the European invasion around 1500...
(6.64%) and Black
Afro-Brazilian
In Brazil, the term "preto" is one of the five categories used by the Brazilian Census, along with "branco" , "pardo" , "amarelo" and "indígena"...
(5.09%). Brazilians tend to identify their ancestry as "Brazilian", especially the descendants of more remote ancestors, such as Africans or Indians. The descendants of more recent immigrants, including the Italians, tend to claim their ancestry to the country from where their relatives came from, even though 56.90% of the people who reported to be of Italian ancestry also reported to be of Brazilian ancestry. In the Italian group, the older generations tend to identify their Italian ancestry more strongly, while the younger generations identify their ancestry as Brazilian, which reflects the process of assimilation among young people.
Prosperity
Southeast Region, Brazil
The Southeast Region of Brazil is composed by the states of Espírito Santo, Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. It is the richest region of the country, responsible for approximately 60% of the Brazilian GDP. São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais are three richest states of Brazil,...
on the other hand, the most populated region of the country, integrated into Brazilian society quite quickly.
After some years working in coffee plantations, some immigrants earned enough money to buy their own land and become farmers themselves. Others left the rural areas and moved to urban centres, mainly São Paulo, Campinas
Campinas
Campinas is a city and municipality located in the coastal interior of the state of São Paulo, Brazil. is the administrative center of the meso-region of the same name, with 3,783,597 inhabitants as of the 2010 Census, consisting of 49 cities....
, São Carlos
São Carlos
São Carlos is a city of 221,950 inhabitants in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. It is located at , at about 231 km from the city of São Paulo.-History:...
and Ribeirão Preto
Ribeirão Preto
Ribeirão Preto is a municipality and city in the Northeastern region of the state of São Paulo in Brazil. It is nicknamed Brazilian California, because of a combination of an economy based on agrobusiness plus high technology, wealth and sunny weather all year long. With 605,114 inhabitants,...
. A small minority became very rich in the process and attracted more Italian immigrants. In the early 20th century, São Paulo became known as the City of the Italians, because 31% of its inhabitants were of Italian nationality in 1900. The city of São Paulo
São Paulo
São Paulo is the largest city in Brazil, the largest city in the southern hemisphere and South America, and the world's seventh largest city by population. The metropolis is anchor to the São Paulo metropolitan area, ranked as the second-most populous metropolitan area in the Americas and among...
had the second highest population of people with Italian ancestry in the world at this time, second only to Rome. In Campinas
Campinas
Campinas is a city and municipality located in the coastal interior of the state of São Paulo, Brazil. is the administrative center of the meso-region of the same name, with 3,783,597 inhabitants as of the 2010 Census, consisting of 49 cities....
, street signs in Italian were common, a large commercial and services sector owned by Italian Brazilians developed, and more than 60% of the population had Italian surnames. Today, nearly 30% of the population of Belo Horizonte
Belo Horizonte
Belo Horizonte is the capital of and largest city in the state of Minas Gerais, located in the southeastern region of Brazil. It is the third largest metropolitan area in the country...
remains of Italian ancestry.
Italian immigrants were very important to the development of many of the big cities in Brazil, such as São Paulo, Porto Alegre
Porto Alegre
Porto Alegre is the tenth most populous municipality in Brazil, with 1,409,939 inhabitants, and the centre of Brazil's fourth largest metropolitan area . It is also the capital city of the southernmost Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul. The city is the southernmost capital city of a Brazilian...
, Curitiba
Curitiba
Curitiba is the capital of the Brazilian state of Paraná. It is the largest city with the biggest economy of both Paraná and southern Brazil. The population of Curitiba numbers approximately 1.75 million people and the latest GDP figures for the city surpass US$61 billion according to...
and Belo Horizonte
Belo Horizonte
Belo Horizonte is the capital of and largest city in the state of Minas Gerais, located in the southeastern region of Brazil. It is the third largest metropolitan area in the country...
. Bad conditions in rural areas made thousands of Italians move to these big cities. Most of them became laborers and participated actively in the industrialization of Brazil in the early 20th century. Others became investors, bankers and industrialists, such as Andrea Matarazzo, whose family became the richest industrialists in São Paulo, with a holding of more than 200 industries and businesses. In Rio Grande do Sul
Rio Grande do Sul
Rio Grande do Sul is the southernmost state in Brazil, and the state with the fifth highest Human Development Index in the country. In this state is located the southernmost city in the country, Chuí, on the border with Uruguay. In the region of Bento Gonçalves and Caxias do Sul, the largest wine...
, 42% of industrial companies have Italians roots.
Italians and their descendants were also quick to organize themselves and establish mutual aid societies (such as the Circolo Italiano), hospitals, schools (such as the Istituto Dante Alighieri, in São Paulo), labor union
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
s, newspapers (such as La Fanciulla), magazines, radio stations and even soccer teams (such as Palestra Italia, later renamed to Portuguese Sociedade Esportiva Palmeiras
Sociedade Esportiva Palmeiras
Sociedade Esportiva Palmeiras is a Brazilian football club from São Paulo. The club was founded on August 26, 1914, as Palestra Italia but changed to the current name on September 14, 1942...
in São Paulo, and Cruzeiro
Cruzeiro Esporte Clube
Cruzeiro Esporte Clube is a Brazilian football team, from Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, and are one of the only five clubs to have never been relegated, along with Santos, São Paulo, Flamengo and Internacional. Founded on January 2, 1921, they are only one of three clubs to have participated in...
in Belo Horizonte during World War II).
| Industries | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1907 | 1920 | ||
| Brazil http://seriesestatisticas.ibge.gov.br/series.aspx?vcodigo=IND03101&t=estabelecimentos-industriais-nas-datas-dos-inqueritos-industriais-e-do-censo-1920 | 2.258 | 13.336 | |
| Owned by Italians | 398 (17,6%) | 2.119 (15,9%) | |
| Owners of 204 largest industries in São Paulo (1962) http://www.bresserpereira.org.br/papers/1964/64.OrigensEtnicasSociais.pdf | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Generation | Percentage | ||
| Immigrant | 49,5% | ||
| Son of an immigrant | 23,5% | ||
| Brazilian(more than 3 generations) | 15,7% | ||
| Grandson of an immigrant | 11,3% | ||
| Ethnic Origin | Percentage | ||
| Italians | 34,8% | ||
| Brazilians | 15,7% | ||
| Portuguese | 11,7% | ||
| Germans | 10,3% | ||
| Syrians and Lebanese | 9,0% | ||
| Russians | 2,9% | ||
| Austrians | 2,4% | ||
| Swiss | 2,4% | ||
| Other Europeans | 9,1% | ||
| Others | 2,0% | ||
| Industries owned by a Italian | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| State | 1907 | 1920 | |
| São Paulo | 120 | 1,446 | |
| Minas Gerais | 111 | 149 | |
| Rio Grande do Sul | 50 | 227 | |
| Rio de Janeiro (city + state) | 42 | 89 | |
| Paraná | 31 | 61 | |
| Santa Catarina | 13 | 56 | |
| Bahia | 8 | 44 | |
| Amazonas | 5 | 5 | |
| Pará | 5 | 10 | |
| Pernambuco | 3 | 3 | |
| Paraíba | 2 | 4 | |
| Espírito Santo | 1 | 18 | |
| Mato Grosso | 1 | 3 | |
| Other states | 5 | 4 | |
Characteristics of Italian Immigration in Brazil
| Italian Immigration to Brazil (1876–1920) | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Region of Origin |
Number of Immigrants |
Region of Origin |
Number of Immigrants |
| Veneto Veneto Veneto is one of the 20 regions of Italy. Its population is about 5 million, ranking 5th in Italy.Veneto had been for more than a millennium an independent state, the Republic of Venice, until it was eventually annexed by Italy in 1866 after brief Austrian and French rule... (North) |
365,710 | Sicily Sicily Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,... (South) |
44,390 |
| Campania Campania Campania is a region in southern Italy. The region has a population of around 5.8 million people, making it the second-most-populous region of Italy; its total area of 13,590 km² makes it the most densely populated region in the country... (South) |
166,080 | Piemonte (North) | 40,336 |
| Calabria Calabria Calabria , in antiquity known as Bruttium, is a region in southern Italy, south of Naples, located at the "toe" of the Italian Peninsula. The capital city of Calabria is Catanzaro.... (South) |
113,155 | Puglia (South) | 34,833 |
| Lombardia (North) | 105,973 | Marche Marche The population density in the region is below the national average. In 2008, it was 161.5 inhabitants per km2, compared to the national figure of 198.8. It is highest in the province of Ancona , and lowest in the province of Macerata... (Center) |
25,074 |
| Abruzzo Abruzzo Abruzzo is a region in Italy, its western border lying less than due east of Rome. Abruzzo borders the region of Marche to the north, Lazio to the west and south-west, Molise to the south-east, and the Adriatic Sea to the east... -Molise Molise Molise is a region of Southern Italy, the second smallest of the regions. It was formerly part of the region of Abruzzi e Molise and now a separate entity... (South) |
93,020 | Lazio (Center) | 15,982 |
| Toscana (Center) | 81,056 | Umbria Umbria Umbria is a region of modern central Italy. It is one of the smallest Italian regions and the only peninsular region that is landlocked.Its capital is Perugia.Assisi and Norcia are historical towns associated with St. Francis of Assisi, and St... (Center) |
11,818 |
| Emilia-Romagna Emilia-Romagna Emilia–Romagna is an administrative region of Northern Italy comprising the two historic regions of Emilia and Romagna. The capital is Bologna; it has an area of and about 4.4 million inhabitants.... (North) |
59,877 | Liguria Liguria Liguria is a coastal region of north-western Italy, the third smallest of the Italian regions. Its capital is Genoa. It is a popular region with tourists for its beautiful beaches, picturesque little towns, and good food.-Geography:... (North) |
9,328 |
| Basilicata Basilicata Basilicata , also known as Lucania, is a region in the south of Italy, bordering on Campania to the west, Apulia to the north and east, and Calabria to the south, having one short southwestern coastline on the Tyrrhenian Sea between Campania in the northwest and Calabria in the southwest, and a... (South) |
52,888 | Sardinia Sardinia Sardinia is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea . It is an autonomous region of Italy, and the nearest land masses are the French island of Corsica, the Italian Peninsula, Sicily, Tunisia and the Spanish Balearic Islands.The name Sardinia is from the pre-Roman noun *sard[],... (South) |
6,113 |
| Total : 1,243,633 | |||
Areas of origin
Most of the Italian immigrants to Brazil came from Northern ItalyNorthern Italy
Northern Italy is a wide cultural, historical and geographical definition, without any administrative usage, used to indicate the northern part of the Italian state, also referred as Settentrione or Alta Italia...
; however, they were not distributed homogeneously along the extensive Brazilian regions. In the state of São Paulo, the Italian community was more diverse including a large number of people from the South and from the Center of Italy. Even today, 42% of the Italians in Brazil came from the Northern regions, 36% from central
Central Italy
Central Italy is one of the five official statistical regions of Italy used by the National Institute of Statistics , a first level NUTS region and a European Parliament constituency...
regions and only 22% from the south of Italy. Brazil is the only country with a large Italian community where the Southern Italian immigrants are minority.
In the first decades, the vast majority of the immigrants came from the North. Since Southern Brazil received most of the early settlers, the vast majority of the immigrants in this region came from the extreme North of Italy, mainly from Veneto and particularly from the provinces of Vicenza
Province of Vicenza
The Province of Vicenza is a province in the Veneto region of northern Italy. Its capital city is Vicenza.The province has an area of 2,723 km², and a total population of 840,000 . There are 121 comuni in the province...
(32%), Belluno
Province of Belluno
TheThe Province of Belluno is a province in the Veneto region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Belluno.It has an area of 3,678 km², and a total population of 214,026 .-Geography:...
(30%) and Treviso
Province of Treviso
The Province of Treviso is a province in the Veneto region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Treviso.The province has an area of 2,477 km², and a total population of 886.886 . There are 95 municipalities in the province .-Municipalities:-External links:*...
(24%). In Rio Grande do Sul, many came from Cremona
Province of Cremona
The Province of Cremona is a province in the Lombardy region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Cremona.The province has an area of 1,771 km² and in 2008 census, had a population of 358,628. There are 115 comuni...
, Mantua
Province of Mantua
The Province of Mantua is a province in the Lombardy region of northern Italy. Its capital is the city of Mantua.-Communes:It includes 70 comuni , ranging in area from Viadana, with 102.19 km², to Mariana Mantovana, with 8.81 km²....
, from parts of Brescia
Province of Brescia
The Province of Brescia is a Province in Lombardy, Italy. It borders with the province of Sondrio in the N and NW, the province of Bergamo in the W, province of Cremona in the SW and S, the province of Mantova to the S, and to the east, the province of Verona and Trentino .Source for statistical...
, and also from Bergamo
Province of Bergamo
The Province of Bergamo is a province in the Lombardy region of Italy. It has a population of 1,098,740 , an area of 2,722.86 square km, and contains 244 comuni...
, in the region of Lombardy
Lombardy
Lombardy is one of the 20 regions of Italy. The capital is Milan. One-sixth of Italy's population lives in Lombardy and about one fifth of Italy's GDP is produced in this region, making it the most populous and richest region in the country and one of the richest in the whole of Europe...
, close to Veneto. The regions of Trentino and of Friuli-Venezia Giulia
Friuli-Venezia Giulia
Friuli–Venezia Giulia is one of the twenty regions of Italy, and one of five autonomous regions with special statute. The capital is Trieste. It has an area of 7,858 km² and about 1.2 million inhabitants. A natural opening to the sea for many Central European countries, the region is...
also sent many immigrants to the South of Brazil. Of the immigrants in Rio Grande do Sul, 54% came from the Veneto, 33% from Lombardy, 7% from Trento, 4.5% from Friuli-Venezia Giulia and only 1.5% from other parts of Italy.
Starting in the early 20th century, the agrarian crisis also started to affect Southern Italy and many of them immigrated to Brazil. The Southerners went mostly to the state of São Paulo, since it was in need of workers to embrace the coffee plantations. Among the Italian immigrants in São Paulo, most came from Calabria
Calabria
Calabria , in antiquity known as Bruttium, is a region in southern Italy, south of Naples, located at the "toe" of the Italian Peninsula. The capital city of Calabria is Catanzaro....
, Campania
Campania
Campania is a region in southern Italy. The region has a population of around 5.8 million people, making it the second-most-populous region of Italy; its total area of 13,590 km² makes it the most densely populated region in the country...
and Veneto.
| Italian Immigration to Brazil | |
|---|---|
| Region | Percentage |
| North | 53,7% |
| South | 32,0% |
| Center | 14,5% |
| Region | Percentage |
|---|---|
| Veneto Veneto Veneto is one of the 20 regions of Italy. Its population is about 5 million, ranking 5th in Italy.Veneto had been for more than a millennium an independent state, the Republic of Venice, until it was eventually annexed by Italy in 1866 after brief Austrian and French rule... |
26,6% |
| Campania Campania Campania is a region in southern Italy. The region has a population of around 5.8 million people, making it the second-most-populous region of Italy; its total area of 13,590 km² makes it the most densely populated region in the country... |
12,1% |
| Calabria Calabria Calabria , in antiquity known as Bruttium, is a region in southern Italy, south of Naples, located at the "toe" of the Italian Peninsula. The capital city of Calabria is Catanzaro.... |
8,2% |
| Lombardy Lombardy Lombardy is one of the 20 regions of Italy. The capital is Milan. One-sixth of Italy's population lives in Lombardy and about one fifth of Italy's GDP is produced in this region, making it the most populous and richest region in the country and one of the richest in the whole of Europe... |
7,7% |
| Tuscany Tuscany Tuscany is a region in Italy. It has an area of about 23,000 square kilometres and a population of about 3.75 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence .... |
5,9% |
| Friuli-Venezia Giulia Friuli-Venezia Giulia Friuli–Venezia Giulia is one of the twenty regions of Italy, and one of five autonomous regions with special statute. The capital is Trieste. It has an area of 7,858 km² and about 1.2 million inhabitants. A natural opening to the sea for many Central European countries, the region is... |
5,8% |
| Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol | 5,3% |
| Emilia-Romagna Emilia-Romagna Emilia–Romagna is an administrative region of Northern Italy comprising the two historic regions of Emilia and Romagna. The capital is Bologna; it has an area of and about 4.4 million inhabitants.... |
4,3% |
| Basilicata Basilicata Basilicata , also known as Lucania, is a region in the south of Italy, bordering on Campania to the west, Apulia to the north and east, and Calabria to the south, having one short southwestern coastline on the Tyrrhenian Sea between Campania in the northwest and Calabria in the southwest, and a... |
3,8% |
| Sicily Sicily Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,... |
3,2% |
| Piedmont Piedmont Piedmont is one of the 20 regions of Italy. It has an area of 25,402 square kilometres and a population of about 4.4 million. The capital of Piedmont is Turin. The main local language is Piedmontese. Occitan is also spoken by a minority in the Occitan Valleys situated in the Provinces of... |
2,8% |
| Apulia Apulia Apulia is a region in Southern Italy bordering the Adriatic Sea in the east, the Ionian Sea to the southeast, and the Strait of Òtranto and Gulf of Taranto in the south. Its most southern portion, known as Salento peninsula, forms a high heel on the "boot" of Italy. The region comprises , and... |
2,5% |
| Marche Marche The population density in the region is below the national average. In 2008, it was 161.5 inhabitants per km2, compared to the national figure of 198.8. It is highest in the province of Ancona , and lowest in the province of Macerata... |
1,8% |
| Molise Molise Molise is a region of Southern Italy, the second smallest of the regions. It was formerly part of the region of Abruzzi e Molise and now a separate entity... |
1,8% |
| Lazio | 1,1% |
| Umbria Umbria Umbria is a region of modern central Italy. It is one of the smallest Italian regions and the only peninsular region that is landlocked.Its capital is Perugia.Assisi and Norcia are historical towns associated with St. Francis of Assisi, and St... |
0,8% |
| Liguria Liguria Liguria is a coastal region of north-western Italy, the third smallest of the Italian regions. Its capital is Genoa. It is a popular region with tourists for its beautiful beaches, picturesque little towns, and good food.-Geography:... |
0,7% |
| Sardinia Sardinia Sardinia is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea . It is an autonomous region of Italy, and the nearest land masses are the French island of Corsica, the Italian Peninsula, Sicily, Tunisia and the Spanish Balearic Islands.The name Sardinia is from the pre-Roman noun *sard[],... |
0,4% |
| Aosta Valley | 0,2% |
| Main group of Italians immigrants living in São Paulo state(1936) http://books.google.com/books?id=ncc7WLAXlmQC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Do+outro+lado+do+Atl%C3%A2ntico:+um+s%C3%A9culo+de+imigra%C3%A7%C3%A3o+italiana+no+Brasil&hl=pt-BR&ei=nw8BTpakKMHg0QGqwdzSDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Region | Population | ||
| Veneto Veneto Veneto is one of the 20 regions of Italy. Its population is about 5 million, ranking 5th in Italy.Veneto had been for more than a millennium an independent state, the Republic of Venice, until it was eventually annexed by Italy in 1866 after brief Austrian and French rule... |
228,142 | ||
| Campania Campania Campania is a region in southern Italy. The region has a population of around 5.8 million people, making it the second-most-populous region of Italy; its total area of 13,590 km² makes it the most densely populated region in the country... |
91,960 | ||
| Calabria Calabria Calabria , in antiquity known as Bruttium, is a region in southern Italy, south of Naples, located at the "toe" of the Italian Peninsula. The capital city of Calabria is Catanzaro.... |
72,686 | ||
| Lombardy Lombardy Lombardy is one of the 20 regions of Italy. The capital is Milan. One-sixth of Italy's population lives in Lombardy and about one fifth of Italy's GDP is produced in this region, making it the most populous and richest region in the country and one of the richest in the whole of Europe... |
51,338 | ||
| Tuscany Tuscany Tuscany is a region in Italy. It has an area of about 23,000 square kilometres and a population of about 3.75 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence .... |
47,874 | ||
| Main groups of Italians in some neighborhoods in São Paulo | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Region | Neighborhoods http://books.google.com.br/books?id=1z-HzdgMe4MC&pg=PA111&dq=bom+retiro+v%C3%AAnetos&hl=pt-BR&ei=us8DTsCAO5K6tge2rf2RDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CDEQ6AEwATgK#v=onepage&q=bom%20retiro%20v%C3%AAnetos&f=false | ||
| Calabria Calabria Calabria , in antiquity known as Bruttium, is a region in southern Italy, south of Naples, located at the "toe" of the Italian Peninsula. The capital city of Calabria is Catanzaro.... |
Bixiga | ||
| Campania Campania Campania is a region in southern Italy. The region has a population of around 5.8 million people, making it the second-most-populous region of Italy; its total area of 13,590 km² makes it the most densely populated region in the country... and Apulia Apulia Apulia is a region in Southern Italy bordering the Adriatic Sea in the east, the Ionian Sea to the southeast, and the Strait of Òtranto and Gulf of Taranto in the south. Its most southern portion, known as Salento peninsula, forms a high heel on the "boot" of Italy. The region comprises , and... |
Brás | ||
| Veneto Veneto Veneto is one of the 20 regions of Italy. Its population is about 5 million, ranking 5th in Italy.Veneto had been for more than a millennium an independent state, the Republic of Venice, until it was eventually annexed by Italy in 1866 after brief Austrian and French rule... |
Bom Retiro Bom Retiro Bom Retiro may refer to:*Bom Retiro, a district of the Brazilian city of São Paulo*Bom Retiro, a Brazilian city in the state of Santa Catarina... |
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Language
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- The Italian is more heard in São Paulo than in Turin, Milan or Naples, because while between us the dialects are spoken, in São Paulo all dialects merge under the Venetianss and Toscans' influx, who are the majority, and the natives adopted the Italian as an official language.
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- - Gina Lombroso, Italian traveler in São Paulo(1908).http://www.archive.org/stream/nellamericameri00lombgoog/nellamericameri00lombgoog_djvu.txt
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- The Italian is more heard in São Paulo than in Turin, Milan or Naples, because while between us the dialects are spoken, in São Paulo all dialects merge under the Venetianss and Toscans' influx, who are the majority, and the natives adopted the Italian as an official language.
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Nowadays, most Brazilians with Italian ancestry speak Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
as their native language. During the Second World War, the public use of Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
, German and Japanese was forbidden.
The Italian dialects
Italian dialects
Dialects of Italian are regional varieties of the Italian language, more commonly and more accurately referred to as Regional Italian. The dialects have features, most notably phonological and lexical, percolating from the underlying substrate languages...
have influenced the Portuguese spoken in some areas of Brazil.The Italian Language was so spread in São Paulo that the Portuguese traveller, Sousa Pinto, said that he could not speak with cart drivers in Portuguese because they all spoke Italians dialects and gesticulating as Neapolitans http://www.iel.unicamp.br/cefiel/imagens/cursos/14.pdf.
Currently, the Italian influence on Portuguese spoken in São Paulo is not as great as in the past, although the accent of the city's inhabitants still has some traces of the Italian accents common in the beginning of the 20th century, like the intonation and also such expressions as Belo,Ma vá!, Orra meu! and Tá entendendo?http://revistalingua.uol.com.br/textos.asp?codigo=11902. Other characteristic is the difficulty to speak Portuguese in plural, saying plural words as they were singulars http://g1.globo.com/sao-paulo/noticia/2011/06/sotaque-da-mooca-pode-virar-patrimonio-historico-imaterial-de-sp.html. The lexical influence of Italian on Brazilian Portuguese, however, has remained quite small.
A similar phenomenon occurred in the countryside of Rio Grande do Sul, but encompassing almost exclusively those of Italian origin. On the other hand, there exists a different phenomenon; Talian
Talian
Talian is a dialect spoken mainly in the wine-producing area of the state of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil. Talian is sometimes called Vêneto ...
, a language which emerged mostly in the northeastern part of the state (Serra Gaúcha
Serra Gaúcha
The Serra Gaúcha, The Gaucho Highlands, is the mountainous region in the northeastern portion of Rio Grande do Sul state in southern Brazil. This mountainous region is home to many Brazilians of German and Italian descent...
). Talian
Talian
Talian is a dialect spoken mainly in the wine-producing area of the state of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil. Talian is sometimes called Vêneto ...
is a variant of the Venetian language
Venetian language
Venetian or Venetan is a Romance language spoken as a native language by over two million people, mostly in the Veneto region of Italy, where of five million inhabitants almost all can understand it. It is sometimes spoken and often well understood outside Veneto, in Trentino, Friuli, Venezia...
, with influences from other Italian dialects
Italian dialects
Dialects of Italian are regional varieties of the Italian language, more commonly and more accurately referred to as Regional Italian. The dialects have features, most notably phonological and lexical, percolating from the underlying substrate languages...
and Portuguese. In southern Brazilian rural areas marked by bilingualism, even among the monolingual Portuguese-speaking population, the Italian-influenced accent is fairly typical.
Music
The Italian influence in Brazil reached also the music, not only with traditional Italian songs but also with the merging with other Brazilians music styles. One of the main results of the fusion is the Samba Paulista, a Samba with strong Italians influence.The Samba Paulista was created by Adoniran Barbosa
Adoniran Barbosa
Adoniran Barbosa, artistic name of João Rubinato , was a famous Brazilian traditional samba singer and composer.-Early years:...
(born João Rubinato), son of Italians immigrants. His songs translated the life of the Italian neighborhoods in São Paulo, merging the São Paulo's dialect with Samba, what latter celebrate him as the People's Poethttp://memoriaglobo.globo.com/Memoriaglobo/0,27723,GYN0-5273-258173,00.html.
One of the main example is the Samba Italiano
Samba Italiano
"Samba Italiano" is a popular samba song composed in 1965 by Adoniran Barbosa , who was a son of Italian immigrants of the city of Valinhos, Brazil, and knew well the pidgin Italian-Portuguese dialect spoken in the streets of São Paulo, mostly in the sections of Mooca, Brás and Bexiga.The lyrics...
, a song that has Brazilian rhythm and theme, but (mostly) Italian lyrics. Below, the lyrics of this song, with the parts in (mangled) Portuguese in bold and the parts in Italian in normal font:
Original in São Paulo's pidgin Gioconda, piccina mia, Vai brincar ali no mare í no fundo, Mas atencione co os tubarone, ouviste Capito, meu San Benedito? Piove, piove, Fa tempo que piove qua, Gigi, E io, sempre io, Sotto la tua finestra E vuoi senza mi sentire Ridere, ridere, ridere Di questo infelice qui Ti ricordi, Gioconda, Di quella sera in Guarujá Quando il mare ti portava via E mi chiamasti Aiuto, Marcello! La tua Gioconda ha paura di quest'onda | Free translation to English Gioconda, my little Go frolicking there, deep into the sea But pay attention to the sharks, do you hear Understood, my Saint Benedict? It rains, it rains It has rained for a long time here, Gigi And I, always I Under your window And you, without hearing me Laughing, laughing and laughing Of this unhappy one here Do you remember, Gioconda That afternoon in Guarujá When the sea took you away And you called for me: Help, Marcello! Your Gioconda is afraid of this wave |
St. Vito Festival
St. Vito Festival is one of the most important Italian festivals in São Paulo. It is a celebration in honor of Saint Vito, the patron saint of Polignano a Mare, a city in the Puglia region, in Italy. Many Italian immigrants in Brás, a São Paulo district, came from Puglia. Festa de São Vito is also a time when the Italian community in São Paulo gathers to party and eat traditional food. Other important Italian celebrationsFestival
A festival or gala is an event, usually and ordinarily staged by a local community, which centers on and celebrates some unique aspect of that community and the Festival....
in São Paulo are Our Lady of Casaluce, also in Brás (May), Our Lady of Achiropita, in Bela Vista (August), and St. Gennaro, in Mooca
Mooca
Mooca from tupi mo-oka, meaning to build houses, is a district in the subprefecture of the same name in the city of São Paulo, Brazil. Mooca today is about to reach the mark of 65,000 inhabitants, spread in . It is also considered one of the fastest growing districts in the city, experiencing over...
(September). Italian immigrants from the Puglia region who moved in great numbers to the Brás neighborhood in São Paulo at the end of the 19th century brought along a devotion to Saint Vito, a Christian martyr who was killed in June of 303 a.D.
Just like Polignano a Mare
Mare
Female horses are called mares.Mare is the Latin word for "sea".The word may also refer to:-People:* Ahmed Marzooq, also known as Mare, a footballer and Secretary General of Maldives Olympic Committee* Mare Winningham, American actress and singer...
, eventually Brás had a church devoted to St. Vito. An association was formed and hosted the first festival in June 1919. As São Paulo grew, so did the Italian community and St. Vito Festival. Today, about 6 million of São Paulo's 10,886,518 inhabitants are Italians and descendant
Lineal descendant
A lineal descendant, in legal usage, refers to a blood relative in the direct line of descent. The children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, etc...
s (known as "oriundi"), according to statistics provided by Conscre, a São Paulo state council for foreign communities. An estimated 140,000 people were expected to attend the festival
Festival
A festival or gala is an event, usually and ordinarily staged by a local community, which centers on and celebrates some unique aspect of that community and the Festival....
in 2008.
Food
Aside from the typical Italian cuisine like pizza, pasta, risotto, panettone, milanesa, polenta, calzone, ossobuco and others, Italians helped to created new dishes that today are tipically Brazilians. Galeto(from the Italian Galletto, little rooster), Frango com Polenta (Chicken with fried Polenta),Bife à parmegiana(a beef prepared with Parmigiano-Reggiano), Catupiry
Catupiry
Catupiry is one of the most popular "requeijão" brands in Brazil. It was developed by the Italian immigrant Mario Silvestrini in the state of Minas Gerais in 1911. The name derives from the native Tupi word meaning "excellent"....
cheese, new types of sausage like Linguiça Calabresa and Linguiça Toscana (literally Calabrian and Tuscan Sausage)http://caras.uol.com.br/noticia/linguica-calabresa#image0, Chocotone (Panettone with chocolate chips) and many others recipes were created or influenced by the Italian community.
Other Influences
- Use of ciaoCiaoThe word "ciao" is an informal Italian verbal salutation or greeting, meaning either "hello", "goodbye", "bye" or "hi". Originally from the Venetian language, it was adopted into the Italian language and eventually entered the vocabulary of English and of many other languages around the world...
("tchau" in Portuguese) as a 'goodbye' salutation (all of Brazil), - Wine production (in the South),
- A few loan words (italianisms), such as esquifoso (schifoso, disgusting), pivete, and others.
- Early introduction of more advanced low-scale farming techniques (Minas GeraisMinas GeraisMinas Gerais is one of the 26 states of Brazil, of which it is the second most populous, the third richest, and the fourth largest in area. Minas Gerais is the Brazilian state with the largest number of Presidents of Brazil, the current one, Dilma Rousseff, being one of them. The capital is the...
, São Paulo and all Southern Brazil).
See also
- Italian ArgentineItalian ArgentineAn Italian Argentine is a person born in Argentina of Italian ancestry. It is estimated up to 25 million Argentines have some degree of Italian descent...
- Italian AmericanItalian AmericanAn Italian American , is an American of Italian ancestry. The designation may also refer to someone possessing Italian and American dual citizenship...
- Italian Australian
- Italian Canadian
- Italian PeruvianItalian PeruvianAn Italian Peruvian is a Peruvian citizen of Italian descent. The phrase may refer to someone born in Peru of Italian descent or to someone who has immigrated to Peru from Italy...
- Italian UruguayanItalian settlement in UruguayAn Italian Uruguayan is an Uruguayan citizen of full or partial Italian ancestry. Almost half of the population is of Italian origin or has some degree of Italian descent...
- Italian diasporaItalian diasporaThe term Italian diaspora refers to the large-scale migration of Italians away from Italy in the period roughly beginning with the unification of Italy in 1861 and ending with the Italian economic miracle in the 1960s...
- Demography of Brazil
- White BrazilianWhite BrazilianWhite Brazilians make up 48.4% of Brazil's population, or around 92 million people, according to the IBGE's 2008 PNAD . Whites are present in the entire territory of Brazil, although the main concentrations are found in the South and Southeastern parts of the country...
- White Latin AmericanWhite Latin AmericanWhite Latin Americans are the people of Latin America who are white in the racial classification systems used in individual Latin American countries. Persons who are classified as White in one Latin American country may be classified differently in another country...
- List of Portuguese words of Italian origin
Further reading
- Bertonha, João Fábio. Os italianos. Editora Contexto. São Paulo, 2005 ISBN 85-7244-301-0
- Cenni, Franco. Os italianos no Brasil. EDUSP. São Paulo, 2003 ISBN 85-314-0671-4
- Clemente, Elvo (et all). Italianos no Brasil: contribuições na literatura e nas ciências, séculos XIX e XX EDIPUCRS. Porto Alegre, 1999 ISBN 8574300462
- Franzina, Emilio. Storia dell'emigrazione italiana. Donzelli Editore. Roma, 2002 ISBN 88-7989-719-5
- Favero, Luigi y Tassello, Graziano. Cent'anni di emigrazione italiana (1876–1976). Cser. Roma, 1978
- Trento, Ângelo. Do outro lado do Atlântico. Studio Nobel. São Paulo, 1988 ISBN 85-213-0563-X
External links
- Oriundi.net. A site for descendants from Italians in Brazil