Italian Uruguayans

The recorded presence of Italians in Uruguay started with the founding of Montevideo. Nevertheless, Italians began arriving in Uruguay in large numbers in the 1870s, mainly due to economic disturbances. The climax of this wave of Italian immigrants would have occurred from the late XIX century up until the world wars. The migratory continued until the 1960s, when the Italian economic miracle would have helped Italy to be in a better position than it was before.

According to a group of historians, a calculation concluded that in the generation of Uruguayans born after the year 1990, nearly 68%, or more than two thirds of the total, had Italian roots.

The first Italians arrived in Spanish and Portuguese colonies of South America in the 16th century. In what is now Uruguay, the first Italians were primarily from the Republic of Genoa and worked in the business and commerce related to the transoceanic shipping between "old and new world". It is notable that the first settler in Montevideo was an Italian, Giorgio Borghese (who Hispanicized his name to Jorge Burgues). The Italian population continued to grow into the 19th century andwhen the constitution of Uruguay was adopted in 1830, there were thousands of Italian-Uruguayans, mostly in the capital, Montevideo.

Immigrants from other areas of Italy followed with Lombardi exiles, craftsmen, farmers, the followers of Garibaldi, Southern Italians of various trades and even those active in many other ways, including a minority of adventurers.

From 1875 to 1890, Italians were the largest part of a wave of immigration to Uruguay from Spain and Italy. That continued in the 20th century until the early 1960s but was followed by a sharp reduction, coinciding with economic and political upheavals in both Uruguay and Italy. Then, Italian immigration continued to decline because of greater attraction exerted by Argentina, Brazil and the United States. By the end of the 20th century, the trend finally began to run out.

As of 2003, there were only 33,000 first-generation Italians in the South American country , but many Uruguayans were well aware of their Italian ancestry. By 1976, Uruguayans of Italian descent numbered over 1,300,000, almost 45% of the total population, including Italian-Argentine residents in Uruguay. High concentrations are found in Montevideo and the city of Paysandú, where almost 65% of the population is of Italian origin.

The first Italian immigrants who arrived in the land were almost all of Genoese, Piedmontese, Neapolitan, Sicilian and Venetian origin.

In the first half of the 19th century, Giuseppe Garibaldi was a participant in Uruguay's wars for independence, and many Italian patriots in Uruguay were attracted to the ideas of the leader.

The political movement which joined many residents of the Rio de la Plata with Italian was called Current Garibaldina. In recognition of Garibaldi are many tributes to his memory such as a "Avenida" (Course) of Montevideo with its name, a monument to his memory in the city of Salto, and el 'Italian Hospital of Buenos Aires.

Between the late the 19th and the early 20th centuries was the third phase of immigration coming from Italy. Those Italians who arrived and in the fourth stage, after the Second World War, gave a great contribution to Uruguayan architecture and gastronomy. There was the foundation of the Italian Hospital of Montevideo in the last decade of the 19th century, which bears the name of King Umberto I of Italy.

Italians who emigrated to Uruguay in the 19th century worked mainly in construction, trade, and agriculture. Some were able to open the road as politicians and businessmen in the 20th century. Francisco Piria, of Genoese ancestors, became one of the leading manufacturers in Uruguay and even created a seaside town that still bears his name, Piriápolis. Various Italo-Uruguayans became presidents of Uruguay (Addiego, Demicheli, Gabriel Terra, Baldomir, Sanguinetti) and writers of international renown (such as Delmira Agustini and Mario Benedetti).

Alfredo Baldomir Ferrari, 27th president of Uruguay.

During the 1930s, the Italian community became very important in Uruguayan society. That coincided with the rise to power of Italian-Uruguayan Gabriel Terra from 1931 to 1938 and his successor Baldomir Ferrari (1938–1943) and his relatives. President Gabriel Terra was able to obtain land and funding support from Mussolini and Hitler to build a dam on the Rio Negro, creating the largest artificial lake in South America. In addition, Terra promoted the beginning of the process of 'industrialization by means of the Italian companies. He openly appreciated Italian fascism and tried to imitate some characteristics and corporate policies.

In Montevideo, for example, was a political Fascio with 1,200 members, and 150 volunteers gave Italian-Uruguayans the Italian conquest of Ethiopia in 1936.

The Italian diplomat Mazzolini said that Mussolini considered Uruguay as the most "Italian" state of the Americas with which to make a possible future political and ethnic-racial alliance. The Italian language gained considerable importance in Montevideo in those years and became compulsory in secondary schools in Uruguay in 1942 under Ferrari.

Further, around 1938 a certain number of Italian Jews came to Uruguay, feeling rejected in their mother country by the anti-Semitic racial laws.[2]

An overall estimate of Italian immigrants to Uruguay from its independence until the 1960s is 350,000 but, given the balance of migration, must be halved. Over a third of the Uruguayan population has an Italian surname. The 2011 Uruguayan census revealed 5,541 people who declared Italy as their country of birth.[4]

The flow of Italians to Uruguay can be broken into several waves:

• From 1830 to 1850 in which at least 20,000 immigrants arrived, almost all from Piedmont and Liguria.

• The 1850s during which an equally-high number landed in Montevideo (about 25,000 from Lombardy and Sardinia).

• The 1860s and the 1870s, of about 90,000 Italians from across the country.

• The late 19th and the early 20th centuries, characterised by mass migration stimulated by propaganda and prepaid journeys but generally poorly trained and illiterate; 110,000 reached Montevideo.

• The 20th century, after the First World War (about 15,000).

Italians in Uruguay come from 40% Northern Italy, 17% Central Italy, and 34% Southern Italy. The main Italian regions of origin are Campania, with 5,231 residents (16% of the total); Lombardy (5,029); Piedmont (4,250); Lazio (3,353); and Liguria (3,018).

In 2007, Italian citizens (including those with dual citizenship with Uruguayan) who are resident in Uruguay were 71,115. The entire Italian community is held in high esteem by the Uruguayan population, also by a marked process italianisation in society especially in the local cuisine (like Caruso sauce) and the local dialect (such as Lunfardo, which probably derives from the dialect word "Lumbarda" of immigrants from Lombardy).

In Uruguay, the Italian influence was more isolated since only 27% of the Italo-Uruguay reside outside the metropolitan area of the capital, but there were different Italian communities and founded several cultural entities (as in Rivera, the border with Brazil).

Alfredo Baldomir Ferrari was the president of Uruguay from 1938 to 1943. In 1942, he made Italian a compulsory subject in secondary schools. Paysandú, near the border with Argentina, has the most Italian influence and is currently estimated that over 60% of its population of about 80,000 inhabitants are of Italian origin. Furthermore, Italian is widely spoken, partly since Italian is taught in all schools. Among the most famous Italian-Uruguayan ties are the EU benevolence, the Scuola Italiana, and the Italian Federation of Paysandú.

The Group of Paysandú Lombardi keeps cultural ties with the Italian emigration, especially with Lombardy.

Italian associations in Uruguay are relatively numerous. These are the main ones:

- Scuola Italiana di Montevideo

- Circle Lucano

- Association of Sons of Tuscany

- Association Veneti in Uruguay

- Group of Paysandú Lombardi

- Group Trentini Rivera

- Association of Lombards in Montevideo (Associazione Lombarda di Montevideo)

The following list has well-known Uruguayans who are Italian citizens or have Italian ancestry:

• Uruguayans in Italy
• Demographics of Uruguay
• Immigration to Uruguay
• Lunfardo
• Italy–Uruguay relations
• Italian Argentine

• Goebel, Michael. "Gauchos, Gringos and Gallegos: The Assimilation of Italian and Spanish Immigrants in the Making of Modern Uruguay 1880–1930," Past and Present (2010) 208(1): 191–229.
• Bresciano, Juan Andrés. "L'Immigrazione Italiana in Uruguay Nella Piu Recente Storiografia (1990-2005)." ["Italian immigration to Uruguay in the most recent historiography, 1990-2005"] Studi Emigrazione, June 2008, Vol. 45 Issue 170, pp 287–299

• Pi Hugarte, Renzo; Vidart, Daniel (1970). El legado de los inmigrantes (PDF) (in Spanish). Montevideo: Nuestra Tierra.