Sunday, November 27, 2005
"An Argentine is an Italian who speaks Spanish and thinks he's British"
The ANNOTICO Report
This article is mostly about the presence or invisibleness
of Blacks in Argentina, particularly in stark contrast to the omnipresence
of Blacks in neighboring Brazil.
But I couldn't resist the information about Italians
in Argentina.
Incidentally, today in neighboring Brazil (mainly the
state of Sao Paulo) has the largest Italian community outside Italy. The
over 5 million Italians trace their heritage to the 1.3 million immigrants
that arrived between 1870 and 1920.
The article says: Most Argentines are of Spanish
and Italian descent with almost half believed to be eligible for Italian
passports.
A long-running joke is that an Argentine is an Italian
who speaks Spanish and thinks he's British.
I would love to know the origins of that comment. Especially
since the Argentines tried to wrest the Falkland Islands, located off Argentina's
coast, and populated mostly by sheep, unsuccessfully from the British in
1982, that resulted in the overthrow of the Argentine Military Junta.
Blacks in Argentina -- officially a few, but maybe a
million
San Francisco Chronicle
Ruthie Ackerman, Chronicle Foreign Service
Sunday, November 27, 2005
Buenos Aires -- Maria Lamadrid, an Afro-Argentine,
vividly recalls the day when her country's immigration authorities prevented
her from boarding a plane for Panama, demanding she present them with a
"real passport."
"They told me, 'This can't be your passport. There are
no blacks in Argentina,' " she said of the 2001 incident....
Indeed, most Argentines are of Spanish and Italian descent
with almost half believed to be eligible for Italian passports. A long-running
joke is that an Argentine is an Italian who speaks Spanish and thinks he's
British.
Given the common belief among her fellow citizens that
all blacks who reside in Argentina are foreigners, says Lamadrid, her organization
-- with financial aid from the World Bank and Argentina's census bureau
-- is currently working to add an "Afro-descendants" category to the 2010
census....
The number of Argentines with African ancestry is difficult
to gauge. Although Africa Vive says there are a million Afro-descendants,
anthropologists say the number may be no higher than 10,000....
When famed African American entertainer Josephine Baker
visited Argentina in the 1950s, she reportedly asked the biracial minister
of public health, Ramon Carillo: 'Where are the Negroes?' " Carillo answered:
'There are only two, you and I.' " ...
"Argentines say there are no blacks here. If you're looking
for traditional African people with very black skin, you won't find it.
African people in Argentina are of mixed heritage."
African slaves were first brought to Argentina in the
1770s to toil on large haciendas and serve as domestic servants. Slavery
wasn't abolished until 1853. [10 years before the US]...
On its Web site, Africa Vive says some of the nation's
most cherished cultural activities -- tango and the Sunday barbecue (asado)
-- are rooted in African culture. It also mentions such well-known Argentines
of African descent as musician Jose Maria Morales, composer Casildo Thompson
and poet Gabion Ezeiza. The nation's first president, Bernardino Rivadavia,
was called the "Chocolate Dictator" by his political opponents. ..
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f
=/c/a/2005/11/27/MNGH0FU3UG1.DTL