The Construction of a public history of Italian immigration in Southern Brazil

Abstract

This article focuses the analysis on the celebrations of the Centenary of Italian Immigration that took place in Rio Grande do Sul in the 1970s, when the State Government established the Biennium of Colonization. Our objective is to understand, through commemorative activities and initiatives of certain social actors, the resignifications of memory and the constitution of a public history of Italian immigration. For this, we will use as sources especially newspapers and photographs. The reinforcement of aspects that marked
the identity of the group of Italian immigrants and their descendants came to be highlighted through various activities, such as parties, parades, lunches and dinners, construction of monuments, chronicles and books that narrated the past of families as an epic. From this, a reconstruction of history was carried out, aiming at the enhancement of certain elements of the immigrant culture, meeting the political and social demands of the 1970s.