Most studies of immigration to the New World have focused on the United States. Samuel L. Baily's eagerly awaited book broadens that perspective through a comparative analysis of Italian immigrants to Buenos Aires and New York City before World War I. It is one of the few works to trace Italians from their villages of origin to different destinations abroad. Baily examines the adjustment of Italians in the two cities, comparing such factors as employment opportunities, skill levels, pace of migration, degree of prejudice, and development of the Italian community. Of the two destinations, Buenos Aires offered Italians more extensive opportunities, and those who elected to move there tended to have the appropriate education or training to succeed. These immigrants, who adjusted more rapidly than their North American counterparts, adopted a long-term strategy of investing savings in their New World home. In New York, in contrast, the immigrants found fewer skilled and white-collar jobs, more competition from previous immigrant groups, greater discrimination, and a less supportive Italian enclave. As a result, rather than put down roots, many sought to earn money as rapidly as possible and send their earnings back to family in Italy. Baily views the migration process as a global phenomenon. Building on his richly documented case studies, the author briefly examines Italian communities in San Francisco, Toronto, and Sao Paulo. He establishes a continuum of immigrant adjustment in urban settings, creating a landmark study in both immigration and comparative history.
It is well known that large numbers of Europeans migrated overseas during the century preceding the Great Depression of 1930, many of them to the United States. What is not well known is that more than 20 percent of these migrants emigrated to Latin America, significantly influencing the demographic, economic, and cultural evolution of many areas in the region. Mass Migration to Modern Latin America includes original contributions from more than a dozen leading scholars of the innovative new Latin American migration history that has emerged in the past 20 years. Though the authors focus primarily on the nature and impact of mass migration to Argentina and Brazil from 1870-1930, they place their analysis in broader historical and comparative contexts. Each section of the book begins with personal stories of individual immigrants and their families, providing students with a glimpse of how the complex process of migration played out in various situations. This book demonstrates the crucial impact of the mass migrations of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries on the formation of some Latin American societies.
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