The diverse understandings of foreign migration to the South of Brazil (1818-1950)

Abstract

In this text I analyze some of the conceptual and subjective meanings of the notion of immigration, observing how these are appropriated in the debates on foreign colonization that influenced immigration policy in Brazil during the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century. I also discuss everyday representations of immigration contained in writings by German immigrants sent to colonize areas of southern Brazil, exploring the liminal identity that emerges as a result of the difficulty experienced settling in still untamed areas of Brazil. The text examines understandings of immigration more directly associated with the colonization process promoted by the Brazilian state, still included in the 1945 Law of Foreigners, through which large areas of uncultivated lands in the south of the country were occupied by European immigrants (and their descendants) in the form of family smallholdings. Under these circumstances, German immigration preceded other flows of migrants, despite Brazilian nationalistic concerns over assimilation.Neste trabalho pretendo discutir alguns significados mais gerais da fundamentação conceitual da imigração e as apropriações e substituições do termo que estão presentes nos debates sobre as políticas de colonização estrangeira no Brasil, objeto de polêmicas desde o século XIX. Em contrapartida, a análise contempla as representações de senso comum de imigrantes alemães acerca da imigração e da conseqüente identidade liminar produzida pela decisão de se estabelecer, em caráter definitivo, no Brasil. O trabalho aborda os entendimentos da imigração associados mais diretamente ao processo de colonização privilegiado pelo Estado brasileiro, inclusive na legislação correspondente, no longo percurso histórico que vai de 1818 até meados do século XX.