Argentina: The Italian Way

At the turn of the century, Argentine President Julio Roca, a Spanish-descended champion of the landed gentry, was visiting a jammed Italian-immigrant hostel. “What’s going to happen,” he muttered distastefully, “when the children of these people want to run the country?” Were Roca alive today, his tone might soften appreciably. “These people’s” children are indeed running Argentina, and the Italian imprint is everywhere—shaping Argentine culture and character and giving Argentina’s industry much of its momentum.

Farm Hands to Presidents. Argentina’s great wave of Italian immigrants —which in time reached 2,250,000—began in the 1800s, when the country needed farm hands to help bring in its beef and wheat crops. Before long, thousands of Italians—giddy with romantic tales of the Argentine pampas—were hurrying across the Atlantic. In the mid-1800s, some 200 Italian families set up a silk-spinning industry in Chaco province; later they began a cotton industry. When Argentina constructed a new Congress building, it was an Italian architect who designed it, an Italian company that built it. And who became the incarnation of the Argentine tango and Argentine Gaucho? None other than the handsome young Italian boy Rudolph Valentino.

Many Italians drifted into politics. Since the social revolution triggered by Dictator Juan Perón (who was of Italian ancestry), Argentina’s presidential palace has been home to a Lonardi, Frondizi, Guido, and now to Dr. Arturo Illia—all of them of Italian descent. Today, 1,200,000 of Argentina’s 21 million people are Italian-born, and another 7,000,000 have Italian blood in their veins.

Toscanini to Pucci. The Italian presence is ever more inescapable in modern-day Argentina. Statues of Garibaldi, Mazzini, and Columbus populate large urban plazas. Street names run from “Venecia” and “Milán” to “José Verdi” and “Arturo Toscanini.” Newsstands are thick with Italian magazines, bars flow with Campari, coffee shops with café alia italiana, and restaurateurs serve up steaming hot pizzas, ravioli and pasta frolla—even if they cannot always spell the names. Argentine men favor Italian-style stovepipe trousers and moccasins; many women are forsaking French styles for designers like Simonetta and Pucci.

Nowhere is the Italian influence more spectacular than in commerce and industry. In the first six months of the year, Argentina reduced its imports from the U.S., West Germany, France and Britain by 30% to 45% while increasing its imports from Italy by 70%. Italy has become Argentina’s second-best customer (after Britain), and Argentina, in turn, is Italy’s second-best (after the U.S.).

Argentina’s turbulent economy has frightened off many other foreign investors, but not the Italians. They are moving into Argentina in large numbers, producing everything from auto tires and heavy steel to photo paper, vermouth and sewing machines. Since 1948, Italian companies have poured $1 billion into Argentine industry, and current investment runs to $1,000,000 a month. Fiat alone has put $140 million into its automotive and truck-tractor plants in Córdoba; the Techint industrial complex outside Buenos Aires represents another $75 million in Italian capital. In ‘the export market, Olivetti Argentina is now selling typewriters and calculating machines to Peru and Turkey, Gilera motorcycles from Argentina are buzzing around the U.S., and Fiat electrical motors—also made in Argentina—will soon go to Egypt. Last week the Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi, Italy’s state oil monopoly, was reportedly negotiating with high-level Argentine officials, hoping to pick up the U.S. oil contracts that Illia has threatened to annul.