The Scramble for Citizens: Dual Nationality and State Competition for Immigrants 9780804784757

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THE SCR AMBLE FOR CITIZENS

THE SCR AMBLE FOR CITIZENS Dual Nationality and State Competition for Immigrants David Cook-Martín

Stanford University Press Stanford, California

Stanford University Press Stanford, California © 2013 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system without the prior written permission of Stanford University Press. Printed in the United States of America on acid-free, archival-quality paper Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Cook-Martín, David (David A.), author.   The scramble for citizens : dual nationality and state competition for immigrants / David Cook-Martín.   pages cm.   Includes bibliographical references and index.  ISBN 978-0-8047-8298-2 (cloth : alk. paper)   1. Dual nationality—Argentina. 2. Dual nationality—Italy. 3. Dual nationality— Spain. 4. Citizenship—Argentina. 5. Citizenship—Italy. 6. Citizenship—Spain. 7. Argentina—Emigration and immigration—Government policy. 8. Italy— Emigration and immigration—Government policy. 9. Spain—Emigration and immigration—Government policy. I. Title. JL2083.C67 2012 323.6’3—dc23 2012013926

Contents



List of Tables and Figures

vii

Acknowledgments

ix

Introduction 1

1

The Competitive Dynamics of Citizenship and Immigration Policy

24

2

Citizenship Reconfigured

62

3

The Quest for Grandma’s Passport: How and Why Argentines Get a Second Nationality

97

4 5

Citizens, Workers, Voters: The Consequences of Plural Citizenship

129

Citizenship in an Integrating World

153

Notes

167

References

177

Index

197

Tables and Figures

Tables 1.1 Italian and Spanish Migration to Argentina with Rates of Return, 1861–1920

32

1.2 Destinations of European Migrants, ca. 1820–1932

35

2.1 Net Migrations of Argentines to International Destinations, 1950–2006

86

2.2 3.1

Arrivals and Departures of Argentine Travelers via Ezeiza International Airport, Buenos Aires, 1999–2006 Number of Registered Italians by Year in Countries with the Largest Italian Communities, 2000–2009

87 104

Figures 1.1 Main Destinations by Percentage of Total Italian Emigration, 1876–1925

30

1.2 Main Destinations by Percent of Total Spanish Emigration, 1888–1968

31

1.3 Per Capita GDP in Spain, Italy, and Argentina, 1900–1945

33

1.4

Italian and Spanish Immigration as a Proportion of Total Argentine Immigration, 1857–1940

34 vii

viii

Tables and Figures

1.5 Spanish Emigration to the Americas and Related Legal Measures, 1860–1940

44

1.6 Italian Emigration to the Americas and Related Legal Measures, 1876–1940

45

2.1

67

Gross European Immigration to Argentina, 1938–1975

2.2 Per Capita GDP in Italy, Spain, and Argentina, 1946–2001

68

Acknowledgments

T

he path to this book began in a Madrid hostel, took me to Buenos Aires, back to Madrid, Barcelona, and Genoa, always with returns to my home base of Los Angeles. In each place I talked to people and visited archives in search of answers to questions about the unfolding quality of citizenship. While I researched and wrote, our two toddlers became teenagers, friends married and divorced, and loved ones died. I took a job in a midwestern college town. Life does indeed happen while one is writing books. And like the rest of life, the writing of books is a struggle. I have been fortunate then to count on the generous support of institutions, colleagues, and family. The Center for European and Eurasian Studies at UCLA and the Center for European Studies at Berkeley provided start-up support. The National Science Foundation (#SES0512080) and Grinnell College (Harris Faculty Fellowship) allowed me to extend my historical research and the luxury of writing time. Colleagues at the Instituto Gino Germani at the University of Buenos Aires, the Centro de Estudios Migratorios Latinoamericanos, and the Archivo General de la Nación as well as Spanish and Italian universities made this work possible: in particular, Susana Novick, Alicia Bernasconi, Daniel Santillo, María Gabriela Murías, Gabriela Mera, and Pedro Peruca. I am especially in debt to the many people who shared their stories with me, especially the incomparable Nito Gil, who passed last year. Mentors like Roger Waldinger, Rogers Brubaker, Kitty Calavita, Rebecca Emigh, Donna Gabaccia, Gail Kligman, David Lopez, and José Moya played

ix

x

Acknowledgments

key roles at various stages of the project. Many colleagues generously read drafts, offered encouragement, and challenged arguments. I would especially like to thank David FitzGerald, Ödül Bozkurt, Eric Carter, Mark Choate, Judy Hunter, Karla Erickson, Sandra Gil Araujo, Astrid Henry, Judy Hunter, Christian Joppke, Stephanie Limoncelli, Mara Loveman, Adam McKeown, Dan Reynolds, Takeyuki Tsuda, and Anahí Viladrich. The anonymous reviewers for Stanford University Press, and especially Editor Kate Wahl, helped tremendously. Students in my political sociology seminar at Grinnell College changed how I wrote this book, and for that I am grateful. Caitlin Fuller provided invaluable research support. De Dudley, administrator extraordinaire, made it possible to get to press. It is a privilege and an indulgence to thank my immediate and extended family for making sure I did not forget that there was still a life to be lived while I worked on this book. Nick and Gabe have earned a PhD in helping me to keep it real. My wife, Claudia, has been an unwavering supporter and antidote to the neuroses of academia. I dedicate this book to Nick, Gabe, and Claudia. My parents, David and Raquel, and siblings, Raquel and Andrés, were my first sociological interlocutors and have always shown genuine curiosity in my work. Elsa, my mother-in-law, kept me alert with generous infusions of yerba mate as I wrote the early chapters of this book. My grandmother Angela inspired my interest in transgenerational migrants with her own stories. I am deeply saddened they are not here to see the publication of this book. My thanks also to the global diaspora of Cooks and Martíns for lessons about passionate and slightly insane living.

Introduction

I

t is a brilliantly sunny and cool Buenos Aires morning outside the Spanish embassy in August 2003. By nine o’clock in the morning, a line of people extends from the front door to the corner, almost a full block. They are waiting to apply for Spanish nationality or, as many put it, to “get a Spanish passport.” Lines get long so early that some enterprising Porteños—as this city’s dwellers refer to themselves—do brisk business by saving a spot for clients who must drop kids off at school or check in at work before joining other aspiring Spaniards. I learn about these daily practices and people’s concerns by waiting in line with them. Their stories suggest that, while the worst of the 2001 financial crisis in Argentina has passed, uncertainty about the future lingers in the minds of an economically strapped middle class. Many tell me that their grandparents and great-grandparents came looking for a better life and thought they had found it in the land of silver.1 Now the descendants of these mythic, hard-working immigrants see their aspirations threatened if not dashed by a financial crisis that has decimated their savings. In these circumstances, the nationality of a long gone Spanish abuela or Italian nonna can be a ticket to a place with better prospects. The people I talk to in these lines and in one-on-one interviews alternate between pragmatic explanations of their decision to seek a second nationality, justifications for what fellow Argentines might view as disloyalty, and surprise or anger that the fortunes of Argentina have declined in the face of seemingly insurmountable challenges. Regardless of how many other passports they

1

2

Introduction

hold, interviewees assert their Argentine identity. Emotion punctuates much of what these would-be emigrants tell me. Lidia, a professional woman in her fifties, whom I meet at a repository of immigration records, is applying for an Italian passport so that her children can improve their work prospects.2 She needs proof of her relatives’ arrival in Argentina to support her application. Although by her own account she is there for strictly strategic reasons, she is overcome with emotion when the database assistant shows her an entry in the digitized historical records of port authorities. There she sees the names of her great-grandparents, grandmother, and great-uncles, the name of the steamer that carried them to Buenos Aires, and the date of arrival in the early 1900s. Lidia also discovers that her grandmother returned to Italy once with her family for a visit, suggesting that ties with the home country were not severed after the initial trip to Argentina. She wonders about the trip, other relatives that may have accompanied her family, and those who stayed behind. Questions about where they came from and what they experienced come pouring out. She regrets not asking her grandparents more questions. Lidia’s experience illustrates how affective links to an ancestral homeland become mixed with a desire to have a legal affiliation with its state. Argentines are not alone in their struggle to come to terms with the meaning and implications of ancestral homeland nationality and dual citizenship. The Aussiedler, or ethnic Germans, and members of the Jewish diaspora are among the best-known examples of people for whom place of birth or residence do not neatly align with citizenship.3 An ethnic German, for instance, may at one time have held the nationality of a birth country other than Germany but also had access to German citizenship through ancestral connections. And there are many other instances of a mismatch between jurisdictional and ethnic belonging: Latin Americans descended from Italian, Japanese, and Spanish emigrants; ethnic Hungarians in Eastern Europe; descendants of the Irish in the Americas; and West Siberians of Estonian descent (Corcoran 2002; Fox 2006a; Kulu 1998; Rhi Sausi and García 1992; Tsuda 2003).4 In most of these cases, migration and nationality laws forged in a different historical context give the descendants of emigrants a privileged migratory or citizenship status. This pattern of migration or citizenship policy emerged as a result of population movements at a time when both sending and receiving countries were solidifying their borders and membership rules. In any event, purported members of a national diaspora abroad, as well as their birth and ancestral homeland countries, face challenges similar to



Introduction

3

those briefly described in the opening stories, primarily because most people in the West presume that there is an enduring and exclusive link between nation-states.5 Governments have historically viewed plural citizenship as an anomalous status that challenges the quality of the link between individuals and their state and nation. State officials have worried about plural affiliations since the advent of nationality law, but global migrations beginning in the 1920s sharpened this concern. The League of Nations, for example, named committees to inventory types of nationality law and to solve the “problem” of plural citizenship through an international convention on nationality.6 A substantial portion of the proposed convention aimed to minimize the potential for plural nationality. Richard Flournoy, an influential scholar and state expert on these matters, decried the problems caused by the division of countries’ nationality policies into those that favored blood descent (jus sanguinis) and those that privileged place of birth (jus soli). What he saw as the nefarious effects ranged from conflicting demands on citizens by at least two states to the problem of individuals able to vote in multiple jurisdictions or not at all (Flournoy 1921; 1926). These effects had been foreseen early on by the framers of nationality law in Latin America. In Argentina’s Chamber of Deputies, Deputy Montes de Oca referred to the problem of using both birthplace and blood as determinants of citizenship when he said of the children of immigrants born in Argentina: “They would be Argentine by birth and at the same time, foreigners, which is to say that they would have prerogatives not available to the children of the Republic of Argentina.”7 Even today, governments worry about the practical implications of dual citizenship. The U.S. government, for instance, “recognizes that dual nationality exists but does not encourage it as a matter of policy because of the problems it may cause,” such as the claims by other countries on dual national U.S. citizens.8 The normative assumption of an enduring and exclusive link between individuals and their nation-states informs the suspicion with which governments and people at large have viewed plural citizenship. And yet, dual citizenship has become more widespread and less of a juridical anomaly (Sejersen 2008). The assumption has been that once citizenship links states to individuals, this link takes precedence over other such ties. However, substantial migration since the nineteenth century has meant that people’s memberships have not neatly mapped onto the jurisdictions through which they move and in which they settle.9 As a result, individuals have multiple membership

4

Introduction

statuses: some adopt the nationality of a country in which they settle, others retain their birth nationality, others do both, and some have had single, dual, or no nationality during their lifetime, depending both on fluctuations in the letter and implementation of laws to which they have been subject and on the ways they have negotiated these changes.10 This trend has increased the potential for even more cases of dual citizenship. How have we arrived at this situation and what are the circumstances under which people choose dual citizenship? What have been the specific mechanisms through which dual nationality has become possible, and when do people pursue the option of taking on other nationalities? I explore these questions by examining contextual dynamics that have shaped the quality of legal and affective bonds between nation-states and citizens. Concretely, I analyze immigration and nationality law, its implementation, the organizational initiatives to win the hearts and minds of people who have migrated between Argentina and Italy and Spain since the mid-nineteenth century, and people’s reactions to these laws and administrative practices. I argue that the very legal and organizational efforts made by state-builders of the past to affiliate and gain the allegiance of these individuals have made possible the dual memberships represented by the line outside the Spanish embassy in Buenos Aires. States’ attempts to link people to particular territories and nations were challenged by an increase in international migration beginning in the nineteenth century. Under these circumstances, sending and receiving states scrambled to make people citizens by means of laws and related administrative practices. Nationality laws organized on the principle of birthplace (jus soli) and naturalization through residence made it easy in the short and medium terms for countries receiving immigrants to claim the children of new arrivals and to offer parents citizenship on relatively easy terms. Nationality laws organized on the principal of blood descent (jus sanguinis) made it possible for states from which people emigrated to maintain at least juridical ties to their departed citizens and offspring. In the long term, these dormant nationality ties have become active as the fortunes of sending and receiving countries have changed. The recent market-driven erosion of rights and privileges traditionally guaranteed by national states has motivated individuals in former countries of immigration to seek nationality in ancestral homeland states; these individuals believe that two nationalities are more valuable than one. The chapters of this book detail the legal and administrative mechanisms at work, describe the patterns of law and practice that came out of these



Introduction

5

mechanisms, and explore the implications of the dynamics of citizenship for how we think of this foundational form of political membership. To set the stage for what is to come, I begin by specifying what I mean by citizenship, how other scholars have typically explained it, and why it is a concept of enduring relevance. I also articulate why the relationship between countries and their mobile members during the period examined can help people in other contexts understand how citizenship has evolved and how it affects them. What Is Citizenship? Making people citizens of France, the United States, Argentina, or many other countries has involved two distinct but interrelated processes. The first process has been one of cultural integration accomplished through the work of roads and railways, schools, print media, and military service in a particular state jurisdiction (Anderson 1991; Deutsch 1966; Eley and Suny 1996; Geertz 1963; Gellner 1983; Weber 1976). A second has entailed state organizational efforts to define citizens in law and to create the administrative means to implement and enforce nationality laws. Citizenship has been a crucial dimension of the process by which states embrace and penetrate individuals or render them available for administration (Mann 1993; Torpey 2000). If citizenship policy has defined the boundaries of national political communities, immigration law has operated as a sorting device for who may enter political jurisdictions (Brubaker 1998), on what terms, and with what potential, if any, for full membership; hence the need to jointly consider these legal norms. Citizenship is a slippery, normatively charged, and ideologically contested concept. Precisely these challenges make it an analytically valuable concept since they require that serious students of citizenship unpack its meaning and the ways in which it is used. The “return of assimilation” in the field of immigration illustrates the logic and potential benefits of rehabilitating a problematic concept (Alba and Nee 2003; Brubaker 2001). Sociologist Robert Smith (2006, 7) in particular has noted how preserving the term assimilation allows an analyst to capture its nationalist and coercive significance and consequences for immigrants. Similarly, by using the term citizenship—which admittedly carries a more positive valence than assimilation—I draw attention to the different political theoretical traditions it subsumes, its inherent theoretical and practical tensions, and its reconfiguration in the contemporary context.

6

Introduction

Citizenship is an elusive term because it refers to two distinct though related meanings, which people often conflate: state-defined or legal citizenship, and affective citizenship. Legal citizenship refers to an individual’s membership in a state as formally prescribed by official rules or laws. Max Weber (1978) has famously defined the state as an organization that exercises the legitimate means of violence over a particular territory and its inhabitants. Building on Weber, Rogers Brubaker (1992) notes that the modern state is both a territorial and a membership organization. Historically, citizenship in this configuration has referred to membership in an association of officially defined insiders. Residence in a state’s jurisdiction has typically made individuals available for official administration but has not necessarily made them members. The status of citizen and its associated rights and privileges derive from this kind of membership in an association of citizens. This is a Roman model of citizenship, wherein membership entitles insiders to rights and privileges, access to which is guaranteed by a ruler (Pocock 1992). It is the kind of membership people have in mind when they say that someone is, for example, an Italian citizen: able to freely enter and leave that country’s territory, to vote in its elections, and to benefit from protection of the Italian government while traveling abroad. An older, Aristotelian model of citizenship stresses that membership in the polity entails the practice of ruling and being ruled. Participation in democratic governance and deliberation are essential to this understanding of citizenship. From this perspective, an Italian citizen is one that participates in referenda, voting, and public debate rather than one who “merely” has an Italian passport or citizenship certificate. I refer to this model as participatory citizenship. If legal citizenship and associated rights and obligations stress the state in “nation-state,” affective citizenship stresses the nation. Modern states have historically mobilized the idea of an imagined political community in support of their culturally integrative efforts (Anderson 1991). Individuals have often identified with “the nation” in ways that shaped their subjectivities and oriented their action in the world. In this form of citizenship, a subjective sense of identification rather than a legally defined status links the individual to a broader community. This is the stuff of national identity and nationalism—or “patriotism” for those who see nationalism only in others. Affective citizenship is what motivates people to take up arms and risk death in defense of the nation, to use we in reference to an abstract collection of individuals related to a putative nation, or to rush into the streets in celebration of a victory by



Introduction

7

the national football squad during a World Cup. In these examples, identity is linked to a perceived nation that overlaps with a state territory, but national identities can span more than one jurisdiction, as when ethnic Hungarians in Romania identify with the Hungarian nation (Fox 2006b). People use citizenship imprecisely and in reference to different dimensions of the two broad meanings described, a tendency that fosters pointless debates. For instance, the worn discussions about “postnational citizenship” and the “limits of citizenship” (Soysal 1994) occur frequently between scholars who focus on the status of citizen (formal or legal citizenship), and hence view citizenship as largely unchanged in the recent past, and those who focus on identifications and political participation (affective and participatory citizenship). The meaning of citizenship may have remained relatively constant in the first sense but has changed in the affective sense, and proponents of each view will talk past each other if they assume one or the other to be a definitive or universal meaning (Joppke 2007). Moreover, these emphases tend to focus on one or another face of citizenship: those who focus on legal citizenship are more likely to recognize the external face of citizenship, or what scholars have dubbed citizenship at the threshold, while those who have given more weight to affective and especially participatory citizenship privilege the internal face of citizenship. The distinction between internal and external faces of citizenship suggests an underlying ideology that naturalizes a division of the world into nationstate compartments. This ideology largely explains the squabbles between cosmopolitan and nationalist camps that stress internal and external faces of political belonging. It also contains the seeds for further ideological contradictions. For instance, while political liberalism in the historic sense contains a sensibility for growing inclusion—recall the Marshallian account of everexpanding citizenship rights—it also is exclusive at the threshold. It was the right to exit, not to entry, that became enshrined as a universal liberal right during the great migrations of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This emphasis took hold because countries have aspired to domestic universalism—with notable exceptions—but have been pragmatically particularistic toward foreigners, who are excluded from full citizenship status and rights. Linda Bosniak (2006) has correctly stressed that citizenship is a contested concept and that discussions about its scope are political battles over “visions of collective life that we want to embrace and enact.” In particular, she objects

8

Introduction

to the tyranny of the national in defining citizenship, and to the contradictions and ironies of formulating nationalist understandings of liberal political belonging.11 It is not clear that scholars are willfully or inadvertently naturalizing citizenship in the way suggested by Bosniak or that they fit neatly into the camps she describes, but it is true that efforts to conceptualize citizenship matter a great deal. Just as law is performative because it constitutes that which it purports to describe, academic discourse is not merely descriptive but can legitimate a particular vision of political membership (Austin 1975; Bourdieu 1991; Scott 1998). Still, to maintain that people have historically imagined citizenship in legal and affective idioms that use the nation or state as referents is not to concede that these idioms are natural or inevitable, but rather that they have been pervasive and powerful. As this book shows, people have found ways to imagine membership and belonging in the gaps between the official framings of different countries, often in the language of modern nationalism, and constrained by state organizations. This evaluation of legal and affective citizenship is not necessarily a legitimation, although it may not always recognize other potential framings. Bosniak recognizes the difficulties inherent in proposing alternative views of citizenship and indeed struggles to do so. Her struggle supports my contention about the historical idioms in which people have imagined political membership and belonging. A positive first step is precisely to expose the contradiction inherent to imagining membership in a world of states that exercise legitimate control over clearly demarcated territories and that often mobilize the idea of a nation to sustain this type of organization, and a liberal political philosophy that stresses universal rights of individuals. A close second step is to recognize that the meaning and significance of citizenship changes along with institutions historically linked to it. This book takes the political field constituted by Argentina, Spain, and Italy as its object of study to explore the changing meanings of legal and affective citizenship over time and across institutional contexts. Legal citizenship is an important starting point for several reasons. Methodologically, its concrete expressions—laws and associated administrative practices—can be examined across national and temporal contexts. Substantively, laws create the relationship they purport to describe when they sort people into citizens with access to goods controlled by a state organization and foreigners without this prerogative. Nationality laws merit careful scrutiny because they say a great deal about state actors’ view of the world. Nationality has also frequently



Introduction

9

served as a baseline for political subjectivities. Indeed, official membership categories have often, over time, become part of how people understand and identify themselves. In the years following Italian Unification in the 1860s, an Italian passport did not necessarily signal identification with the greater Italy, and the evidence shows that local identifications persisted well into the twentieth century. However, the substantial number of young men who returned from the Italian diaspora to fight in the Great War suggests that by the early twentieth century the legal category of “Italian” had gained legitimacy and commanded some level of allegiance (Choate 2008, 190). Finally, the importance of nationality becomes painfully clear when individuals lack a legal relationship with a country. In a world where fundamental rights have become linked to individuals’ state membership, its absence is considered such a highly anomalous condition that Hannah Arendt (1973) worried it left people bereft of “any community whatsoever.” The prospect of statelessness is of such concern that many countries have signed the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, and the United Nations has created a legal category of stateless persons to monitor the extent of the problem.12 In brief, while nationality does not exhaust citizenship, it is one of its most crucial and consequential dimensions. To fully understand the relationship between legal and affective citizenship requires consideration of the process by which political membership and belonging gained their contemporary meaning. Conventional Accounts and Their Limits Conventional accounts of how states make citizens implicitly assume that processes of cultural integration and administrative penetration happen primarily within nation-state containers and that they move inexorably toward assimilation or some normatively palatable equivalent. The assumption of containment results in studies that view domestic factors as most important to the making of citizenship. Challenges to this process may be located internally (e.g., native minorities) or externally (e.g., immigrants), but they are overcome primarily through the efforts of sovereign states. Such studies tend to center on particular countries or to compare how two or more countries have made citizens. Emblematic examples include modern European and early postcolonial states like France and Germany, as well as the United States, Canada, and Argentina. France was a destination for other Europeans and North

10

Introduction

Africans whose loyalty and submission the country had to gain (Brubaker 1992; Hoerder 2002; Noiriel 1996). Germany faced the challenge of embracing and nationalizing migrants from neighboring countries and more recently from the Middle East (Hollifield 1992; Joppke 1998). The United States confronted the difficulties of integrating migrants from Europe, Asia, and Latin America into a political community that marginalized a native-born population of African descent as well as autochthonous inhabitants (Fitzgerald 1996; King 2003; Tichenor 2002). Canada tried to integrate English, French, and Aboriginal national groups, as well as to incorporate immigrants from other European countries and Asia (Choquette 1997; Harney 1978; Kymlicka 1995). Through its “crucible of races,” Argentine statemakers claim to have successfully melded a massive number of immigrants with a small Creole and Afro-Argentine population (Andrews 1980; Germani 1970; 1971). This is not to say that all receiving countries have wanted to embrace and nationalize migrants. The Chinese Exclusion Acts in the United States aimed to restrict the entry, settlement, and eventual naturalization of Chinese migrants (Calavita 2001; Cook-Martín and FitzGerald 2010), but that effort occurred precisely because policy makers had a conception of who could be culturally integrated. In the contemporary arena, Germany has until recently been notoriously reluctant to make citizens of Turkish migrants and their children born in Germany. In the main, however, conventional accounts view citizenship as having been forged within a contained political field where receiving states have acted unilaterally in nationalizing processes. Studies have also tacitly assumed that the assimilation of disparate individuals into a national whole has been a unidirectional and irreversible process. Peasants become French at different rates, to different extents, and following different pathways, but in the end they become French in the sense that they are politically, infrastructurally, and affectively linked to the nationstate (Weber 1976). English, German, Irish, and Italians in the United States eventually become American even if stratified by origins or religion (Gordon 1964; Herberg 1960). Piemontese, Genovese, Sicilians, Galicians, and Catalans in Argentina follow different trajectories, but scholars and others presume that by the second generation all share a common language and a sense of Argentineness (Devoto 1992). By this view, it is nearly inconceivable in any of these contexts that the process leading to categorization or identification as “citizen” would be reversed or its results undone.



Introduction

11

There are, however, clear contemporary instances in which the accomplishment of a strong and enduring citizenship as portrayed in national narratives is unraveling. The act of soliciting parental or ancestral nationality is a good example, although it does not necessarily imply that birth citizenship is coming undone. With the recent downturn of the U.S. economy, the descendants of Irish, Italian, Greek, Latvian, and other immigrants have started to apply for the nationality of their forebears (Abramson 2008). The decline of Latin American economies in the early part of the twenty-first century, and in particular Argentina’s economic collapse, motivated many to seek a second legal citizenship as a way to hedge against financial uncertainty or to explore familial links with other countries. To be sure, plural nationality does not entail a zero-sum gain of affective and legal ties for one country at the expense of the other. A second nationality, however, erodes the legal exclusivity and durability of links forged by past states with their subjects. The question is whether past, culturally integrative processes are coming undone or, put differently, whether dissimilation is happening where assimilation had purportedly been accomplished. In this book, dissimilation refers to a process of differentiation that reconfigures what citizenship had meant to its institutional architects: a legally exclusive and durable tie between states and their subjects on the basis of which rights, privileges, and obligations are distributed and personal identities formed. This definition differs from J. Milton Yinger’s (1981, 257)—“a process whereby intra-societal differences are maintained and created round subcultural groups”—because it focuses on both the legal and cultural integration of individuals into a political body and draws attention to the reversal of statuses and identities thought to have been fixed or completed. Tomás Jiménez and David FitzGerald (2007) use the concept to show how immigrant assimilation to one national context implies the concurrent dissimilation from the sending country. My use of dissimilation takes a longer view to argue that, under certain conditions, this seemingly unidirectional and irreversible process can unravel. This book examines dissimilation as a process of differentiation that essentially reconfigures the meaning of citizenship. I argue that the citizenship link can be reconfigured because competitive dynamics have produced particular membership patterns that under propitious institutional and structural conditions affect individuals’ relation to states, the nation, and the resources they monopolize. People assumed to have been culturally

12

Introduction

integrated and embraced by a nationalizing state are becoming differentiated along specific and significant dimensions. Whether, how, and with what consequences new loyalties or practices accompany or follow the acquisition of a second nationality remains an open question. Institutionally, the proposed approach uncovers a neglected competitive dynamic that results in a pattern of nationality that persists over generations. Structurally, this nationality pattern has become relevant with the dramatic inversion of the economic and political fortunes of Spain, Italy, and Argentina. The reconfiguration of citizenship, especially after World War II, has been shaped by the institutional legacies of past dynamics among countries in a context of policy emulation, supraregional convergence, and domestic factors. In particular, the extension of market-based logics to the rights and obligations guaranteed by states for citizens has devalued this political relation (Somers 2008). My argument has implications for the way we think about the importance of law in defining political and social membership. More broadly, it advances our understanding of social solidarity, or “how the world hangs together,” when the nature of social ties changes (Ruggie 1998). It does so by constituting a relational or transactional view of political membership that specifies actors, interactions among them in changing contexts and at different levels of political organization, mechanisms by which social relations change, and specific actions of individual and collective agents. A Historical-Relational Approach to the Making of Citizens I attribute the guiding assumptions of the conventional perspectives discussed to an overwhelming focus on strong core countries that have received people from relatively weak peripheral ones during especially active periods of statecraft. By contrast, I propose a systemic analysis of countries embedded in an interstate network with unequally distributed power and under the influence of broader global processes (Zolberg 1997). In this book, I also refer to this as an international political field framework. In this analysis, the actions of a particular country affect and take into account those of other countries. Further, I broaden the historical scope to show how and why the making of citizens is a process that may be both reversed in its practical effects and reconfigured in its meaning. The long view advocated here is in contrast to migration histories that draw hard distinctions between flows before and after 1930. I illustrate the



Introduction

13

payoff of this expanded geopolitical and historical scope by analyzing citizenship formation in a quintessential country of immigration (Argentina) and in two traditional countries of emigration (Italy and Spain) over a 150-year period. This historical-relational approach reveals an alternative dynamic for making citizens, a different reading of cases on which scholars have built explanations of political membership, and a greater understanding of circumstances that might lead to the undoing of past processes. This approach has implications for the sociology of law and for a political sociology of citizenship and migration. The sociology of law often assumes a nationally contained process of legal formation; yet a long view shows that legislatures and judiciaries have frequently shaped policies in response to perceptions about the actions of other countries, under direct pressure from them, or in an effort to anticipate the law or jurisprudence of other countries. The field of international migration, which has been defined by the existence of a system of states and laws, often focuses on the resolution of problems posed by legal-categorical outsiders to particular nation-states; this focus constrains analytic understandings of these challenges. Citizenship studies conceive of nation-state membership in a variety of historically and jurisdictionally distinct ways that are seldom specified and often cause confusion (Joppke 2007). Further, these studies have oversampled on the usual suspects of citizenship making and have thus narrowed knowledge about political membership and belonging. Scholars in all of these fields have repeatedly proclaimed the advent of a postnational world. And yet, while people who look for ways to manage the uncertainties related to rapid economic transformations on a global stage relativize allegiances and connections to particular countries, they still imagine the form and style of citizenship in the vernacular of an all-encompassing system of states. This apparent contradiction is not surprising given that, as Arendt (1973) underscored, there is no meaningful form of membership conceivable that does not have a modern state as a referent. A Revealing Threesome This book analyzes nationality and immigration laws in Spain, Italy, and Argentina since the mid-nineteenth century. The migration system comprising these countries is especially suited for this study because it is longstanding (from the mid-nineteenth century to the present), multidirectional (includes flows to and from Southern Europe and Latin America), and

14

Introduction

substantial in size (includes two of the top historical emigration countries of Europe, and the second immigrant destination in the Americas). To overcome the limitations of focusing on paradigmatic cases in North America and Western Europe during foundational periods, this study examines less well-known instances over a longer period of time. Specifically, it examines the migratory system encompassing Italy, Spain, and Argentina since the midnineteenth century. A migratory system refers to countries linked by both population flows and a history of economic and political interdependence.13 To the extent that states have vied for the allegiance and affection of migrants, this system has implied a political field in which membership is contested. Although, as sending and receiving contexts, these countries have also been located in other migratory systems and political fields, each was especially significant to the flows and nation-building strategies of the others. Ideally, scholars would examine the making of citizens in the global configuration of states, but for the heuristic purposes of this book, a focus on smaller systems suffices. From a demographic perspective, Argentina, Italy, and Spain have shared massive migration flows between the mid-nineteenth century and the early 1930s, substantial streams in the postwar period up to 1965, and more recently a “reverse” flow from Argentina to Italy and Spain (1989 to present). Relative to an initial population of 1.8 million at the time of the first census in 1869, Argentina received more European migrants by 1932 than any other country in the Americas and was second only to the United States in the absolute number of European arrivals (Germani 1962, 198). Over two-thirds of these migrants were Italians and Spaniards. Leaving aside the relatively more circulatory migration from Italy to other parts of Europe, Argentina received a considerable percentage of Italian emigration. Argentina was far and away the most important destination of Spanish emigration. In absolute numbers, close to 5 million Italians migrated to Argentina between 1876 and 1976. About 3.17 million Spaniards migrated to Argentina between 1857 and 1975.14 From an economic standpoint, these countries have been integrated into the Atlantic economy as labor sources and markets and as trading partners since the late nineteenth century. More recently, the implementation of neoliberal privatization policies in Argentina attracted significant Italian and Spanish investment. Politically, the fortunes of these countries have often been intertwined. The significant mobility of Italians and Spaniards, especially before the Great Depression, implies that the citizen-making efforts of



Introduction

15

their homeland states—typical of the era—were aimed at moving targets. Not only were these people moving, but they spent a considerable amount of time exposed to similar efforts by major receiving states like Argentina. However assimilated this population was from the perspective of any given state, the long view adopted in this study exposes the contingency of citizenship making. As economic and political circumstances changed over the last four decades, the direction of migration flows among these countries has reversed. Laws that give descendants of former emigrants a privileged migratory or citizenship status facilitate migration from Argentina to Spain and Italy. A significant number of individuals privileged by these laws, however, remain in Argentina with their newly acquired second citizenship. The procedures and networking required to attain a second citizenship, as well as the rights and exercise of rights associated with it (e.g., voting), have generated identificational, practical, and political distinctions between Argentine dual nationals and their Argentine peers with no such options. In this sense, these two groups have become unlike or have dissimilated. This insight surfaces only if one takes a long enough view of migration and related phenomena. The study of Spain, Italy, and Argentina over a long period sheds new light on well-known cases like the United States and France. This historicalcomparative approach exposes assumptions that lead analysts to overlook significant citizenship trends. For instance, despite the dominant myth about the completed and irreversible assimilation of past immigrants to the United States, a growing number of Americans of European descent have opted for an ancestral nationality. The substantial population of the United States with origins in Latin American countries has—and will continue to have—access to a second nationality because of the sending country’s laws and policies intended to foster enduring ties with citizens abroad (FitzGerald 2009). It stands to reason that Americans with the requisite social capital seek a second nationality when faced with the current global financial crisis and a persistent trend toward greater economic vulnerability. How, why, and with what consequences has this situation come to be? Students of the United States and other cases may divine contextually appropriate questions and possible answers from the citizenship dynamics examined in this book. Take, for instance, the case of France between 1920 and 1940, a strong state with an equally powerful nationalizing myth. In the following section, I examine two complementary readings: the first a conventional domestic story of unidirectional cultural

16

Introduction

integration and administrative penetration; the second, a relational reading that places the first in a broader defining context. How to Be French, and Italian, or Algerian: The Scramble for Mobile People One reading of Patrick Weil’s (2008) seminal How to Be French is as a story exclusively about French political membership and belonging in which the author shows the intricacies and contingency of nationality. He demonstrates that simple ideological narratives of blood and kinship or soil do not give a full account of nationality. Weil maintains that French nationality is both a matter of law and policy, defined as the implementation of legal criteria that involves a constant negotiation of the boundary between citizens and outsiders. France’s history of nationality is distinct because it has “changed its laws more often and more significantly than any other democratic nation,” and its policies have been the focus of considerable contention (Weil 2008, 3). It has rehearsed multiple ways of defining, attributing, and withdrawing nationality. In this view, France’s nationality law and practice strike the analyst as exceptional and idiosyncratic. When France during the 1920s worried about demographic decline, policy makers opted for the quickest palliative: immigration. Increasing the number of children to which each woman gave birth or reducing mortality were desirable but slow solutions. By contrast, signing labor agreements with Italy, Czechoslovakia, and Poland rapidly increased the number of foreign arrivals. Immigration flows increased by 60 percent between 1912 and 1926, and this increase generated pressures to change nationality law. It was foreseeable that, as newcomers settled and integrated, they would want to naturalize. French policy makers did not fully anticipate that bureaucratic procedures and delays would have a dampening effect on naturalizations, but they acted quickly to lower barriers even in the face of accusations from the right that they were creating “paper Frenchmen” (Weil 2008, 69). Reforms had a significant effect and doubled the rate of naturalizations between 1925–1926 and 1928–1929. French policy makers had also undertaken to reform provisions for the nationality of women and to change how it assessed male prospects for citizenship. These policies made the nationality of French women contingent on that of their husbands. Under this policy, France was losing more women than it was gaining, and with them it was losing the possibility of reproducing



Introduction

17

the “nation,” because these women had married the largely single men who had come in the previous half century. The negative balance of women lost (103,000) against women gained (53,000) between 1914 and 1924 under nationality provisions then in effect motivated a change that would allow French women to retain nationality when marrying a foreigner. A new administration in 1924 also shifted the privilege previously accorded to men of military service age to men with children or of an age to produce children. Attitudes toward naturalization soured after the economic downturn of the 1930s, when French politicians reviewed preceding efforts to increase immigration and naturalizations. They considered that these had been successful in numeric terms, but officials’ assessments also reflected an emerging selective impulse. The professional situation and national origin of the most successfully assimilated immigrants—Belgian workers—suggested that some criteria should be used more broadly. As the 1930s unfolded, populationist policies ran up against an increasing emphasis on selection by origin. A new “science” established hierarchies of immigrants by origin so as to distinguish the “assimilables” from the “unassimilables” (Weil 2008, 73). This science was a composite of eugenics, biology, anthropology, sociology, psychology, and associated disciplines. It was also influenced by the American Nationality Quotas Act of 1924 and its precursors. As in the United States, Argentina, and other American countries, two methods were used to distinguish among prospective immigrants. An individual approach selected immigrants on the basis of physical, mental, and moral characteristics as well as skills. An ethnic approach selected immigrants by perceived race, ethnicity, or national origin. These approaches could of course be combined to select the most desirable or assimilable immigrants, since good individual characteristics were attributed to individuals based on race, ethnicity, and national origins. As refugee flows increased and included Jews pushed out by the National Socialist regime, desirability and assimilability became important logics for distinguishing among refugees whom legislators had not mean to affect with immigration restrictions after 1934. Georges Mauco, the leading immigration expert of the period, suggested the distinction between desirable and imposed immigration. The former referred to workers and the latter to refugees; within both groups further distinctions were made among white-collar workers and agriculturalists. This last distinction benefited Spanish over Jewish refugees. Weil weaves a compelling account of the journey from a populationist concern with quantity to a eugenicist preoccupation with quality of origins in

18

Introduction

French nationality law between 1920 and 1940. It may be a sufficient warrant for study that France changed its laws more significantly and frequently than other democratic countries and that these changes have been contentious. The historical-relational perspective adopted in this book, however, suggests a complementary reading that would give analysts a metric to assess the exceptionality of the French case. Like some of Weil’s earlier work (Weil 2001), my approach puts the French case in comparative perspective but more importantly shifts the unit of analysis to the geopolitical field of which France has been a part and the dynamics of which have shaped nationality law. In this analytic strategy, I follow the leads and threads that link to other countries or regions to which France has been connected through migration and colonization. In either scenario, the affiliation and allegiance of a population is up for grabs; implicated states use laws and administrative practices to resolve these questions. The international political field in which France has been embedded comes into focus as the analyst looks outward from a country “hub” to a global system. In my alternative reading, France was one among many countries deeply concerned about population and what it meant for nation-state projects, and its policies were partly drafted in response to the strategic environment in which it and other states tried to control migration and membership. Great Britain, France, Germany, and Italy, among others, worried about the effects of an uninterrupted decline in birthrates since the late nineteenth century (Glass [1940] 1967, v). A rise in war casualties among men of an economically active age compounded these worries. For state makers, population was still the source of a country’s might and status. Emigration countries like Italy and Spain had the additional concern of how departures affected demography. Along with Poland, these countries contributed considerable migration to France and were among the top three nationalities to naturalize in France between 1927 and 1940 (Weil 2008, 114). These countries were as concerned about the pattern of immigration and nationality policies in France as they had been with those of Argentina and the other immigration countries. They viewed destination countries as trying to make and keep connections to “their” emigrants and children. Metaphors of hemorrhaging in policy discussions of these countries and worries about how emigrants would fuse into the national being of receiving countries indicate the organic importance of people to nationalist projects and imaginations. Immigration and nationality policies in receiving countries like France and Argentina competed with those of Italy, Spain, and Poland over three



Introduction

19

subsets of migrants. First, men of military service age, also in their productive peak as workers, were the immediate subjects of most immigration and emigration policy. Sending countries passed legislation that made it difficult for young men to leave without having rendered military service (Cook-Martín 2006). For those who had left as children or who were born abroad to citizens, parental countries reasserted their claims to service and did not exempt citizens simply because they were abroad. Mark Choate (2008) has documented the extent to which Italy was able to enlist this population during World War I. Second, women in their role as the biological and cultural reproducers of the nation were the subjects of legislation to carefully regulate their departure, maintain their moral purity, and control their political membership (CookMartín 2006; Virgilio 1868). France’s careful accounting of women “lost” through marriage to other nationalities and of their prospective offspring, as well as related changes to nationality law, demonstrate that the country was operating in a strategic environment where the policies of other countries mattered a great deal in how it fashioned its own. To the extent that other states like Italy and Spain maintained nationality policies in which women’s citizenship was contingent on that of the male head of household, France would keep its “own” women and gain those of other countries as well as their children. Finally, the generation of children with at least one nonnative parent constituted another population that could potentially contribute soldiers and mothers to the homeland. Concerns about their allegiance demonstrate the degree to which sending and receiving countries viewed “second-generation” children of immigrants as being up for grabs in the scramble among states to make and keep citizens. Sending and receiving countries scrambled to gain the affiliation and allegiance of men, women, and children in an environment that included not only their immediate competitors but also others in the international system of states. France’s struggle over jurisdictionally mobile people happened in a broader context where countries were posing questions about nationality in more than one country or about anomalous situations created by antiquated policies on women’s citizenship as well as by conflicting military service demands for men. The development of international law on dual nationality, statelessness, and the nationality of women reflected this wider political field in which countries vied over people. France’s contextualized emulation of U.S. immigration and citizenship policies becomes less remarkable if considered in a global network of

20

Introduction

migration countries. The turn to restriction and selectivity was common in the Americas, especially in the 1920s and 1930s as was a balancing of ascriptive and nonascriptive selection criteria, and the preference for eugenically inflected criteria. France, however, faced refugee flows induced by racialized Nazi policies earlier and in a more proximate way than American countries. The country was also overtaken by Germany early in the Second World War. This history may explain why it adopted ethnically selective immigration laws and nationality practices just as Latin American countries eschewed overtly ethnic policies, although regional factors also affected this last shift. The point remains that France’s immigration and nationality policy changed, not only because of domestic dynamics, but because of its location in an international strategic environment. Evidence Matters A historical-relational approach to explaining contemporary citizenship requires two kinds of evidence. On the one hand, official documentary sources reveal how state organizations have defined members over time and in competition with other such organizations. These sources include emigration, immigration, and nationality laws, associated legislative debates, regulations, period writings by political elites, diplomatic records, reports of international agreements and treaties, jurisprudence, official reports of organizational activities, internal memorandums and minutes, files on immigrants, publications of nonstate organizations, and, when available, evidence of migrant strategies to circumvent state regulatory efforts. I have compiled similar sources for each country and have tried to interpret them in a manner that does not assume the perspective of any particular national actor. The rationale for including emigration laws in an analysis of citizenship is that these texts say a great deal about how states view citizens who leave the national jurisdiction and the effects of departure on state membership. Immigration laws show whom state actors see as prospective members and who is to be excluded from membership though not necessarily from entry. States’ discursive claims on migrants are an important way of legitimating states’ control over membership, but official organizational efforts make these claims operative, and thus it is critical to consider them as well. Official data on migration and citizenship trends inform the analysis on contemporary developments in Italy, Spain, and Argentina as well as motivate historical inquiry.



Introduction

21

On the other hand, fieldwork and participant observation show the practical ways in which the past continues to impinge on the present and how people think of a second citizenship. By following people from embassy lines to publicly accessible archives where they find documents to support applications for ancestral homeland state nationality, I am able to expose the tangled thread that links the past and the present. The accounts of people who apply for a second nationality, as well as of those who could but do not, open a window into the affective dimension of citizenship. The perspectives of those who have a second nationality but stay in Argentina or migrate to Europe provide insight into the unexpected consequences of past citizenship law. Officials, expert observers, and members of cultural and national organizations give yet another perspective on political belonging, emerging identifications, and their complexities and ironies. The conversation between evidence gleaned from historical sources and that collected through fieldwork is not only a distinctive methodological feature of this study, but integral to its international political field approach. Absent firsthand observations, this book would offer an interesting historical perspective. Absent the study’s historical evidence, the book would contribute a quaint account of people “recovering” lost ties to an ancestral community. Together these sources allow us to make concrete processual links between past and present and to suggest ways in which history and ethnography can be brought into a fruitful conversation (Cook-Martín 2004). Concretely, sites where people look for papers produced by migrants and the bureaucracies who have tried to control them are fruitful fields in which to explore the nexus between past and present iterations of citizenship. What Lies Ahead The Scramble for Citizens consists of two historical and two contemporary chapters in addition to this introduction and a conclusion. The two historical chapters trace the legal and organizational factors and dynamics that shaped nationality in Argentina, Italy, and Spain and that inform the practices and consequences of these laws. In Chapter 1, I argue that Italy, Spain, and Argentina developed birthright and descent citizenship law and preferential immigration policies as a result of competing with each other over the same population of migrants during periods of state formation and consolidation. The competitive dynamic was driven by responses to the dilemmas posed

22

Introduction

by making nationals of mobile people before World War II. These responses included legal and organizational strategies used by these countries to gain the formal affiliation and affective allegiance of migrants and their children. In Chapter 2, I extend the argument with a focus on policies and organizational efforts to foster and maintain citizenship since World War II. In particular, I examine the reversal in political and economic fortunes that motivates the descendants of past European immigrants in Argentina to claim the nationality of their ancestors and show how former emigration countries like Italy and Spain revive dormant policies and institute new ones in line with prevailing political and economic conditions and their geopolitical standing. Former immigration countries like Argentina devise new policies to maintain links to their citizens abroad. I also explain how the paper trail left by past encounters between states and migrants makes these claims possible. Ironically, it is the very papers created by state bureaucrats in their efforts to control the affiliation and movement of past migrants that are the basis of new opportunities for mobility and identification (i.e., emigration and claims to dual nationality). The two contemporary chapters examine how and with what consequences citizenship changes when the tables are turned on former sending and receiving countries. In Chapter 3 I draw on an ethnography of people and archives to show how the descendants of past European migrants to Argentina go about getting an ancestral nationality and what this process implies for the value of citizenship. I argue that, when the evaluative point of reference is the state jurisdiction that defines it, citizenship has become less valuable, or lighter (Joppke 2010a). Citizenship increases in worth when the benchmark is the value added in status or opportunities by a second, European nationality. Extending current perspectives on the value of citizenship, I show that a “real law” perspective on how nationality works on the ground reveals why analysts can describe citizenship as both gaining and losing value.15 In Chapter 4, I show that recent migration and citizenship opportunities have significant consequences in new receiving and old sending countries. In Spain and Italy, putative ethnic “return” migrants meet cultural expectations of what newcomers should be, but do not match employers’ preference for submissive, tractable immigrant workers. Argentina’s powerful myth of a unidirectional, irreversible assimilation of European migrants begins to unravel as the descendants of these immigrants develop dual affiliations and loyalties. The possibility of dual national affiliations for a substantial number of



Introduction

23

Argentines generates a process of dissimilation and introduces to this population an unprecedented basis for distinction. Dissimilation in the areas of work and electoral politics have changed the quality of citizenship in the countries involved, making it more flexible, expansive, and differentially valued than in the past. Chapter 5 stresses the importance of an international political field framework for understanding citizenship in an increasingly integrated world. I consider how citizenship has played out globally to argue that a competitive dynamic has historically obtained in the formulation of citizenship. I also examine the promise of adopting the proposed framework for understanding citizenship and the challenges posed to this institution in the twenty-first century. Specifically, I show how the international political field framework is able to answer some of the challenges of plural citizenship by reformulating problems as they are currently conceived from nationalist, postnationalist, and transnationalist perspectives. I conclude with a review of the potential of adopting not only a long and comparative view but also of considering affective and legal citizenship at different political scales above and below that of traditional central states.

1

The Competitive Dynamics of Citizenship and Immigration Policy

V

erónica is a newly minted architect living in Mendoza, a city on Argentina’s Andean border with Chile. She is twenty-four years old at the time of our 2004 interview and married to Cacho, a technician in the oil industry. Verónica is more than a year into the process of applying for papers so that she and Cacho can emigrate in search of better opportunities. Possible destinations include Fort Lauderdale, where Verónica has an older sister married to an American, or Barcelona. Cacho has spent time in the United States and does not like the lifestyle there. Verónica thinks it more likely that she will be able to work in her chosen profession if she and her husband migrate to Spain, where they would encounter fewer linguistic and institutional barriers. An Italian or Spanish passport would allow the couple to move to Barcelona, and Verónica has decided to “get an Italian passport” in view of her ancestry and the nationality laws of that country. She smiles as she recalls how easy she had thought the application process would be, given the number of Italians in her family tree. However, getting an Italian passport has proved to be a complicated project. Verónica has spent a night outside the Italian consulate with her younger sister seeking to learn from consular officials what documents she needs to prove her grandparents’ citizenship, where she can find them, and how to translate and certify them. In line at the Italian consulate, she learns from other applicants about the obstacles to getting required papers from Argentine government offices and Italian comunas, as well as shortcuts in the 24



The Competitive Dynamics of Citizenship and Immigration Policy

25

bureaucratic procedure of applying for Italian citizenship. After months of speaking to her parents, her sole surviving Italian grandmother, and other relatives who might have relevant information or papers to support her application, she now sees clearly that the process will be convoluted. Her Italian grandmother cannot transmit her citizenship because she married a Spaniard in the early 1940s.1 No one seems to know the whereabouts of her deceased parental grandparents’ personal documents. Verónica thinks she has succeeded when she discovers that some cousins have visited her grandparents’ village in Italy and obtained birth certificates for them. The cousins, however, are unwilling to share these documents because they are involved in a legal battle over family property in Italy. A great aunt offers some family papers that turn out to be useful for the application procedure. Verónica writes her grandparents’ comuna and gets a missing birth certificate. Almost eight months after initial queries, she files a completed application. Six months later, she learns that the consular mail service has lost her application. Verónica is disheartened because a new submission will require another set of original documents. She decides to pursue another avenue to European citizenship when she learns that one of Cacho’s grandparents was a Spanish immigrant from Galicia. Cacho’s sister has collected the necessary papers and submitted an application for Spanish citizenship. Verónica plans to take advantage of this documentation and will have Cacho act as the main applicant. Verónica would then be eligible for Spanish nationality based on marriage. She would have preferred Italian citizenship because it can be held in Argentina and does not require travel within a year as the Spanish procedure does. In a follow-up contact several months later, I learn that Cacho’s sister and brother-in-law have received their resident’s permit and are already living and working in Valencia. Verónica and Cacho are scheduled for interviews at the consulate. I am struck by Verónica’s pragmatic and detached account. She makes no mention of affective ties to her ancestral homeland; she moves effortlessly between talk of Spanish, Italian, and European Union citizenship. Before this application procedure, neither she nor Cacho had ever shown interest in the homeland of their grandparents. They speak no Italian or Galician, have not participated in immigrant regional or cultural associations in Argentina, and until recently had only a vague sense of their grandparents as immigrants. Verónica’s narrative is primarily about gaining access to better opportunities in Spain or Italy. There is no indication in our conversation that her sense of being an Argentine is in any way threatened by having a second nationality.2

26

The Competitive Dynamics of Citizenship and Immigration Policy

Verónica’s story raises critical questions about the history and quality of citizenship in major countries of immigration and emigration. How is it possible that she has access to the citizenship of her ancestors from another country or even to that of her husband’s forebears? Why do these options not affect her sense of Argentine nationality? How is it that she can gain a legal tie to another country without having any affective links to it? More broadly, why do some countries attribute nationality based on where a person is born—like the jus soli policy of Argentina—while others do so according to the nationality of a person’s family, like the jus sanguinis policy of Italy? Scholars ask questions infrequently about the quality and history of legal citizenship, and yet answers to these questions suggest that this institution is not unchanging, as nationalists would have us believe, but rather the result of struggles within and among state actors to determine who can belong to their organizations. While states have changed citizenship for strategic reasons, subsequent changes are constrained by the manner of its institutionalization. In turn, this institutionalization can have repercussions for participatory and affective citizenship, as I show in Chapters 3 and 4. By historicizing citizenship, we learn a great deal about the state: as an organization it has had a variable and uneven capacity to control material and symbolic resources, to determine membership status, and to guarantee members’ access to these resources. In this book I argue that that the strategic forces that shape patterns of citizenship have had the secular effect of making variable the link between individuals and states, even as nationalists maintain that this link is unchanging and exclusive. Citizenship matters because changing the quality of people’s link to the state also modifies people’s relationship to the nation, civil society, and markets. In this chapter, an analysis of Argentina, Italy, and Spain’s scramble for migrants and citizens reveals the dynamics that have shaped nationality policy, facilitated plural memberships, and set the stage for a reconfiguration of citizenship. Drawing on historical materials, migration data, laws, and jurisprudence from each country, I argue that Italy, Spain, and Argentina have developed birthright and descent patterns of citizenship law and preferential immigration policies due to the forces at work in a political field in which they jockeyed to gain legitimate control over the same population of migrants and their children during periods of state formation and consolidation. The competitive dynamic is driven by responses to the dilemmas posed by making nationals in a context of highly mobile populations. To make this argument, this chapter examines (1) trends in this Atlantic



The Competitive Dynamics of Citizenship and Immigration Policy

27

migration system during critical periods of state formation and consolidation before and after the First World War, (2) the dilemmas these trends posed for nation-state makers, and (3) the legal and organizational strategies used by these countries in the scramble to gain the formal and affective allegiance of migrants and their children. Standard accounts of nation-state building in Argentina, Italy, and Spain generally focus on the domestic processes by which state agents make populations available for official administration and culturally integrate individuals into a national collective. The first process has focused on the legal definition of individuals’ status relative to the state and on their identification. The second process has entailed multiple organizational efforts to implement legal definitions of citizenship and to inculcate a sense of belonging to a nation. A relational reading of the evidence presented below demonstrates that these processes have happened in a field of politics that spans domestic and international arenas. State actors fashioned citizenship and migration policies anticipating and reacting to similar policies in other countries. Their awareness of others’ moves has translated into specific practices meant to challenge and assert legitimate control over migrants against other states’ claims. These legal-organizational practices constitute a dynamic of competition over jurisdictionally mobile people that shaped patterns of political membership and belonging. The citizenship alternatives of Verónica and Cacho exist, in other words, because Italy and Spain designed nationality laws and practices to keep ties to their grandparents and to them even as Argentina sought to call new arrivals their own. The emphasis on interstate dynamics may give the impression that migrants and their descendants have been passive subjects of top-down nationalizing initiatives and that they lack “agency.” They have not and they do not. Migrants have shown their agency as they have tried to circumvent, undermine, or subvert states’ efforts to control their movement and membership.3 New arrivals in Argentina regularly made fraudulent claims to gain citizenship, avoid military service, and access police or other government jobs reserved for Argentines (Álvarez 1912). Spanish and Italian migrants who returned to the homeland claimed to be Argentines to avoid legal obligations in their countries of birth. Migrants left from European ports that were likely to have laxer paper controls (Roudié 1985). Migrants used counterfeit papers or used real papers fraudulently. Two Spanish emigrants in the 1870s, for example, caused a flurry of official correspondence when they traded

28

The Competitive Dynamics of Citizenship and Immigration Policy

documents to travel between Buenos Aires and La Coruña (López Taboada 1993). The practice had become so common that Spanish theater mocked the ease with which a young man could use an older person’s paper (Moya 1998). Today, would-be Argentine emigrants like Verónica and Cacho push the limits of nationality and immigration procedures armed with higher social and human capital than was available to their Italian or Spanish forebears. The examples cited suggest a larger point about agency that, though obvious, is often lost in contrived debates about whether or not people “have” the ability to make choices. Agency is a complex concept and is constituted in particular sets of situated relations (Emirbayer and Mische 1998; Jasper 2006). It is not a discrete, unilateral characteristic of individuals, nor is it absolute. Migrants of the past had a range of options open to them, including the very act of emigrating, but economic, political, and cultural factors made and constrained these options. Once individuals decided to leave their country of origin, states had considerable influence on the conditions under which they could do so. Even when migrants circumvented state controls, they did so on terms set by official rules. They did not, for instance, shun documentation altogether, but rather they got fake documents or used somebody else’s papers. The state’s creation of legality—itself an organizational and ideological achievement—underlay the possibility of illegality (Cook-Martín 2008; cf. Noiriel 1996, 59). The upshot for my argument is that state and individual influence on citizenship and its implementation have been mutually constituted and that, even when a powerful organization like a national state sets the menu of options for persons under its influence, individuals find ways to advance their agendas. This mutual influence is the result of competing state efforts to control people; their efforts may, through conflicting demands, create spaces in which individuals have more citizenship options than they might otherwise. Dilemmas of Nation-State Making in an Atlantic Migration System Building nation-states has historically involved the construction of geographic, political, and symbolic borders to enclose a population of citizens. From the perspective of the architects and builders of a nation-state, populations should more or less coincide with these borders. In addition to the usual challenges of constituting national populations, Spain, Italy, and Argentina faced the dilemma of how to make nationals of people who moved among



The Competitive Dynamics of Citizenship and Immigration Policy

29

their territories.4 The migration of actual or potential nationals put states in the predicament of balancing the material and symbolic costs and benefits of migration. These dilemmas changed over time, but those confronted in the five decades preceding the First World War were especially significant because they shaped the institutions that subsequently regulated migration and nationality. The resolution of these dilemmas brought Argentina, Italy, and Spain into a competitive arena where they used legal and organizational tools to embrace as their own the same group of mobile people and their children. Emigration States: Italy and Spain Nation building in Italy and Spain was complicated by the substantial emigration that was occurring at the time. Shortly after Italy’s Unification in 1861, there were already statistical reports of Italians abroad. Argentine official statistics began tracking “Italians” in 1857, five years before Italy existed as an official political and unified entity.5 The 1861 Italian census reported four hundred thousand Italians outside the kingdom and a decade later census takers counted a million absent Italians (Gabaccia 2003). Between 1876 and 1914, 14 million Italians left for other European countries, North America, the River Plate region (Argentina, Southern Brazil, and Uruguay), Northern Africa, and a smattering of other places (Figure 1.1). While favored destinations included core European and North American countries, a significant proportion of Italian migration between 1876 and 1925 went to developing peripheral countries, primarily Argentina and Brazil. Italian political elites saw these countries not as peers in the periphery but as targets for commercial and demographic colonization and thus potentially part of a più grande Italia, or Greater Italy (Carpi 1874; Einaudi 1900; Sori 1979,127; Regno d’Italia 1926; Regno d’Italia, Direzione Generale della Statistica 1884; República Argentina 1925; Virgilio 1868). Mass emigration from Spain started later than in Italy, but for similar demographic, political, and economic reasons. Migrants from different regions showed preferences for specific destinations. Between 1885 and 1920, about 3.2 million Spaniards left for the Americas (75 percent), Africa (19 percent), Asia/Oceania, and the rest of Europe (a movement which even accelerated during the First World War) (Figure 1.2). Of those who migrated to the Americas, most went to Argentina, Cuba, and Brazil. Argentina was a preferred destination for early Basque and Catalan migrants and later Galicians, while Cuba was a destination favored by Canary Islanders. By the early 1920s, a well-established migration network linked Spain to main destination areas.

30

The Competitive Dynamics of Citizenship and Immigration Policy

45.00 40.00 Percent of Total

35.00 30.00 25.00 20.00 15.00 10.00 5.00 0.00 Africa

Argentina

Brazil

Europe

US and Canada

FI GU R E 1.1 Main Destinations by Percentage of Total Italian Emigration,

1876–1925 source: Regno d’Italia 1926 note: These destinations represent over 98 percent of all Italian emigration during this period (total emigration 16,629,879).

Despite their rural origins, Spaniards settled disproportionately in cities, where they worked in the growing service and merchandising sectors as well as in crafts. Spanish streams included more women than did the Italian flows and showed a greater propensity to settle abroad (Moya 2003; Sánchez Alonso 1995; Yáñez Gallardo 1994). Spanish and Italian migration patterns to Argentina differ in ways that may account for the intensity with which each country engaged Argentina’s nationalizing efforts. First, the absolute number of Italians migrating to Argentina was earlier and much greater than that of Spaniards. Argentina was one of several destinations for Italian emigrants, while it represented the main destination of Spanish emigration, followed by Cuba and Brazil. Second, available data suggest that on average Italians emigrated with the aim of return, while Spanish emigrants had more permanent objectives (see Table 1.1) (Gabaccia, Hoerder, and Walaszek 2007; Sánchez Alonso (1992); República Argentina 1925; Beyhaut 1961, 43–44; Nascimbene 1994). Immigration Nation: Argentina Beginning in the 1860s, Argentina experienced unprecedented economic and social transformations. This formerly “poor and forgotten” backwater of the Spanish Empire saw its per capita GDP increase by 64 percent between 1870 and 1890, and by 28 percent in the last decade of the nineteenth century



The Competitive Dynamics of Citizenship and Immigration Policy

31

40

Percent of Total

35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 Algeria

Argentina

Brazil

Cuba

Uruguay

FI GU R E 1. 2 Main Destinations by Percentage of Total Spanish Emigration,

1888–1968 sources: Sánchez Alonso 1995, 143; Vázquez-Presedo 1971, 39. note: These destinations represent over 90 percent of all Spanish Emigration during this period.

(Vázquez-Presedo 1974, 30; Maddison 2003). Between 1900 and 1912, per capita GDP grew by 70 percent (see Figure 1.3). The production of wool, a key commodity for the Argentine economy, underlay some of these changes: between 1850 and 1880 the ovine population rose from 7 million to 61 million, and wool exports from 7,681 to 92,112 metric tons. On the agricultural front, while in the early 1850s there was almost no cultivated land, almost six hundred thousand hectares were cultivated by 1872, and 2.5 million by 1888. Wheat, corn, linseed, barley, and oats were the main crops (Rock 1987, 133–38). What explains the Argentine economy’s take-off and Argentina’s emergence as a destination for many European migrants? Essentially, the country benefited from a confluence of political and economic factors.6 An important factor was relative political unification after 1860 and the military conquest of territories formerly controlled by Amerindians (Rock 1987). Military expropriation of these lands made them available for agricultural exploitation. Increased efficiency and productivity, lower costs, and the advent of cheap, relatively fast transportation and of refrigeration technologies made it possible for Argentine products to compete in the Atlantic economy, particularly in the British market. Improved transportation technologies, including port facilities, made it possible for the same vessels that carried products to Europe to return with the labor required to fuel

32

The Competitive Dynamics of Citizenship and Immigration Policy

TABLE 1.1  Italian and Spanish Migration to Argentina

with Rates of Return, 1861­–1920 Italians 1861–1870

Entries 113,554

Departures 63,916

Return Rate (%) 56

1871–1880

152,061

114,826

76

1881–1890

493,885

128,317

26

1891–1900

425,693

224,475

53

1901–1910

796,190

344,101

43

347,388

350,378

101

2,328,771

1,226,013

53

1911–1920 Total

Spaniards Entries

Departures

Return Rate (%)

1861–1870

22,627

7,060

31

1871–1880

44,526

19,820

45

1881–1890

158,764

24,272

15

1891–1900

131,714

58,163

44

1901–1910

652,658

164,484

25

1911–1920

589,093

407,615

69

1,599,382

681,414

43

Total

source: República Argentina, Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores y Culto, Dirección Nacional de Migración 1927. Also see Devoto 2003, 235.

increased production. Changes in agricultural production and industrialization in Europe had generated a large pool of surplus laborers, especially in countries like Italy, Spain, Ireland, Greece, and Portugal, which had experienced considerable demographic growth since the eighteenth century. Finally, the “exit revolution” (Zolberg 2007) played an important role by spreading the political ideal of the freedom to migrate. The liberal Kingdom of Italy allowed emigration from its inception, while Spain, a former empire become “modern nation-state,” liberalized emigration in 1853. Since its earliest days, Argentine immigration policy was designed to attract European newcomers, and its architects worked on the assumption that white immigrants would bring modernity with them. The coming together of these economic, technological, demographic, and political factors fostered Argentina’s growth, its insertion into the Atlantic economy, and its linkages to Spain and Italy as labor suppliers (Figure 1.4).



The Competitive Dynamics of Citizenship and Immigration Policy

33

5,000 4,500 4,000 3,500 3,000 2,500 2,000 1,500 1,000 500

19 0 19 2 0 19 4 0 19 6 0 19 8 10 19 1 19 2 14 19 1 19 6 1 19 8 20 19 22 19 24 19 26 19 28 19 30 19 32 19 34 19 36 19 3 19 8 40 19 42 19 44

0

FI GU R E 1.3 Per Capita GDP in Spain, Italy, and Argentina, 1900–1945 (1990 International Geary-Khamis dollars) source: Compiled from figures in Maddison 2003.

While early Argentine policy makers envisioned the arrival of migrants to colonize the country’s interior, after 1870 newcomers settled primarily in cities. Indeed, they made the cities. European migrants settled disproportionately in Buenos Aires, Rosario, and Santa Fe, and to a limited extent in Córdoba and Mendoza. By 1910, three-quarters of adults in Buenos Aires were European-born. The population of Buenos Aires multiplied twenty-six-fold in the eighty-year period between 1855 and 1936. In contrast, New York City, another major urban recipient of European migration, saw its population increase sevenfold in the sixty-year period between 1860 and 1920 (Baily 1999). In Argentina, economic growth and structural transformations went hand in hand with urbanization. Rates of urbanization and structural transformation between 1870 and 1913 far exceed those in other contemporary industrializing countries and approach rates seen in late-twentieth-century newly industrialized countries like South Korea (Taylor 1995, 24). Relative to an initial population of about 1.8 million at the time of the first census in 1869, Argentina received more European migrants by 1932 than did any other country (12 percent of the approximately 60 million who migrated to the Americas

34

The Competitive Dynamics of Citizenship and Immigration Policy

350,000

300,000

250,000

200,000

150,000

100,000

50,000

18

57 18 60 18 6 18 3 6 18 6 69 18 72 18 75 18 78 18 8 18 1 84 18 87 18 90 18 93 18 96 18 99 19 0 19 2 05 19 08 19 11 19 14 19 17 19 20 19 23 19 26 19 29 19 32 19 32 19 36

0

FI GU R E 1. 4 Italian and Spanish Immigration as a Proportion of Total Argentine

Immigration, 1857–1940 source: República Argentina, Dirección Nacional de Migraciones; Ferenczi 1929; Yáñez Gallardo 1994, 75; Sánchez Alonso 1995, 281.

beginning in the early nineteenth century), and it was second only to the United States in the absolute number of European arrivals (Table 1.2). To put these flows in perspective, consider that more Europeans disembarked in the port of Buenos Aires in the three years before the outbreak of World War I (1.1 million) than had arrived in Spanish America in three centuries of colonial rule (Moya 2006). Spanish Dilemmas: Exit and Loyalty The massive migration flows between Italy and Spain and Argentina posed dilemmas to nation builders in each country. Spain’s dilemma was how to make Spaniards, that is, how to consolidate allegiance in a context of internal political conflict, decolonization, and emigration. An established state compared to Italy and Argentina, Spain found itself divided by political struggles among Carlists, Republicans, and an emerging working class. The six years following the “Glorious Revolution” of September 1868 exposed deep fissures in the “national” facade (Carr 1980; Sahlins 1989). In particular, toward the close of the century, state-seeking nationalisms were at work in Catalonia and the Basque country. As if these travails were not enough, since the early nineteenth century Spain



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35

TABLE 1.2  Destinations of European Migrants, ca. 1820–1932 Country

Year Data Begins

Arrivals

Percent of Total

U.S.

1820

32,564,000

58

Argentina

1840

6,501,000

12

Canada

1821

5,073,000

9

Brazil

1821

4,361,000

8

Australia

1840

3,443,000

6

Cuba

1880

1,394,000

2.5

source: Moya 1998, 46

had experienced the loss of colonies, especially in Latin America. This process culminated in the “Disaster of ’98”: the loss of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines after the Spanish-American War. The loss of colonies also meant a loss of markets and of public revenues that resulted in public indebtedness (Balfour 1996; Carr 1980, 23, 26). In cases where former colonies became new nationstates, Spain and the new republics had to negotiate the formal membership status of people who had previously been Spanish subjects.7 Finally, Spain confronted the problem of rapid and uneven population growth combined with regionally specific landholding patterns—large, eliteowned estates in the south and very small family-owned plots in the northwest—and its peripheral role in the Atlantic economy, all of which made emigration a common, albeit relatively late, household strategy especially in Andalusia and Spanish Galicia (Álvarez Rodríguez 1990, 120; Carr 1980; CookMartín 2005, 40; Hatton and Williamson 1994; Moya 1998, 17ff.; Nadal 1984; Vilar and Vilar 1999a; Moreno Fraginals 1995). Spain’s military interventions in Morocco (1859, 1909, 1913, 1921) and Cuba—to quash the first rumblings of independence in 1868 and the final independence movement in 1895— required increased conscription, a very unpopular measure. Many Spanish men responded by leaving. During the period of massive migrations, liberal political elites and bureaucrats oscillated between affirming the freedom of movement and panicking at climbing emigration figures. In part, hispanidad, the discourse of Spain as a leader of a virtual community of Hispanic nations, may be understood as a strategy to reconcile Spain’s national prestige with its imperial demise, and with the massive departure of its citizens to former colonial

36

The Competitive Dynamics of Citizenship and Immigration Policy

holdings. From this perspective, emigrants were not being lost to the nation, but were its representatives among the extended Hispanic community. However, in the bureaucratic backstage it was clear that emigration was a zerosum game. A Spanish bureaucrat in 1916 lamented that, while there had been a two-year lull in emigration to Argentina, hundreds of thousands of Spaniards had forever been “lost to Spain and gained by Argentina” over a dozen years (Reino de España, Consejo Superior de Emigración 1916, 98). This view accounts for the development of emigration and citizenship laws and practices that attempted to dissuade would-be emigrants, especially at the federal level, regulate their flow at the local level, and “protect” and keep a hold on actual emigrants. The Italian Dilemma: A State Without a Nation From the outset, Italy faced the predicament of how to make Italians out of a politically, culturally, and linguistically diverse population and a highly mobile one to boot. What in 1859 had been seven distinct political entities had by 1861 been unified under the Victor Emanuel II’s Kingdom of Italy. By 1870, strategic alliances and good fortune had made possible the addition of Venetia and most of the Papal states. “Making Italy” entailed at least two interrelated tasks. The first was to integrate distinct state administrative systems under which people had lived prior to Unification.8 The second and arguably more difficult task was what Massimo d’Azeglio famously referred to in 1861 as “making Italians” of a population of about 26 million (see Hobsbawm 1990, 44; Beales and Biagini 2002, 3; and Bosworth 1996, 17). At that time, Italy was a “state without a nation,” a political organization without a clearly imagined community (Ciuffoleti 1993). The basis on which to build a common sense of belonging was not altogether clear. Linguistically, only 2.5 percent of the population at Unification spoke Italian, and most people in the now Italian territory often spoke languages unintelligible to their putative conationals (De Mauro 1976, 43). Ties to the family and to paesani were rather stronger than those to the “nation” or the state (Gabaccia 1999, 1116; 2000; Reeder 2003, 179). Further, there were significant divisions and antipathy between people of an increasingly prosperous North and those of a less developed South. In view of these factors, the massive emigration described presented a major barrier to the nationalizing process. The Italian state had to effectively make Italians of people at home and increasingly of those abroad. Especially in the period before 1914, it was all’estero, or abroad, that emigrants often became “Italians.”



The Competitive Dynamics of Citizenship and Immigration Policy

37

The Argentine Dilemma: A Nation Without Adherents By contrast to Spain and Italy, Argentina was a state without subjects, and, in the words of one Spanish bureaucrat, a nation without adherents (Reino de España, Consejo Superior de Emigración 1916, 100). Without a massive influx of migrants, Argentina could exist neither as an imagined political community nor as a market. And because Italian and Spanish migrants constituted the bulk of newcomers to the national territory, they would be the principal targets of Argentine nationalizing efforts, which Italy and Spain would contest. The South American republic faced a dual challenge beginning in the 1860s. First, since the country’s small population of creoles and Afro-Argentines could meet neither anticipated labor demand nor political elites’ expectations of Europeanness, the country faced the problem of how to attract large numbers of European immigrants. Juan Bautista Alberdi (1915), intellectual author of Argentina’s 1853 Constitution, expressed a common elite sentiment when he said that only massive European migration would transform the sparsely populated southern Republic into a modern and successful nation. The unassailable assumption that whiteness should distinguish Argentines and immigrants to their national territory is likely the reason why Argentina did not legally exclude immigrants on ethnic grounds, although immigration bureaucrats showed no compunction about excluding at the port of arrival. Second, it faced the problem of gaining the affiliation and allegiance of newcomers so central in elite understandings of the modernization of a backward “native” population (Andrews 1980; DeLaney 1996). The first challenge was addressed mostly by the confluence of political, demographic, technological, and economic transformations that led to the country’s “deep integration into the Atlantic economy” (Moya 2006, 8). It was very helpful that by 1880 the country had constructed a framework of immigration laws, recruiting mechanisms, and processing organizations to facilitate the arrival of immigrants from Atlantic sending countries. Gaining the allegiance of newcomers who had their own plans and agendas turned out to be the greater challenge, to which legislators sought long-term solutions. In view of low naturalization rates among European newcomers, Argentine politicians simply ascribed citizenship to the children of immigrants born in the national territory. The social fact of migration to Argentina from Europe, primarily Italy and Spain, and the nationalizing designs each country had on the same people generated a now waxing, now waning three-way competition to maintain

38

The Competitive Dynamics of Citizenship and Immigration Policy

or gain the allegiance of these individuals and to embrace them as subjects. While emigration was central to the nation-making experiences of Italy and Spain, it is hard to overstate the demographic and symbolic impact on Argentina of migration from these countries and others. The volume, rate, composition, and demographic and geographical concentration of migration to Argentina at the close of the nineteenth century and first decades of the twentieth century made this case unlike any other modern instance of a migrantreceiving context in the Americas (Germani 1970, 291; Solberg 1978). From the perspective of making nationals, newcomers to Argentina had no clearly identifiable mainstream to which they could or should adapt, as newcomers had in other major immigrant countries like the United States. Being a white immigrant or the child of an immigrant was the baseline experience with which nation builders had to work. The quality of being Argentine was an emergent notion. To be sure, political and cultural elites had their views on this quality, and by the 1910s these ideas were gaining currency among cultural nationalists like Ricardo Rojas (DeLaney 2002). However, those on the docks, streets, and marketplaces were still negotiating what it meant to be Argentine. To illustrate, in Alberto Ghiraldo’s ([1906] 1946) play La columna de fuego, the relevant and salient distinctions among Buenos Aires port inhabitants were drawn among union and nonunion workers rather than among people of different national origins. As early as the 1870s, political leaders like President Domingo Sarmiento recognized that, while rapid and, from their perspective, chaotic growth may have created a sense of “Babel,” the allegiances of migrants had yet to crystallize. Migrants often felt tied to a patria, or region, rather than to a modern nation-state, and this circumstance presented an opportunity for leaders to promote ties to the Argentine national project (Gandolfo 1991; República Argentina 1874; República Argentina, Congreso Nacional 1866). The emerging Argentine state fostered these links primarily through the educational system and military service, by limiting the influence of immigrant schools and associations, and by negotiating the claims of foreign governments on people living within national borders. Argentine political elites’ concerns about the prospects for assimilating immigrants were outweighed by the overriding imperative to populate a deserted homeland (to use Sarmiento’s imagery) and to secure the labor needed to integrate Argentina into the global economy. The unquestioned assumption was best captured in constitutional author Alberdi’s dictum:



The Competitive Dynamics of Citizenship and Immigration Policy

39

“to govern is to populate.” Indeed, in the Argentine case it was not war that made the state in the late nineteenth century, but governing to populate the national territory (cf. Centeno 2002; Tilly 1990). These ideological concerns and assumptions placed Argentine nation-state builders at odds with their Italian and Spanish counterparts. The next section examines how Argentina, Italy, and Spain competed over migrants by means of laws and associated organizations before and after World War I. The Legal and Organizational Competition for Members The migration flows described were part of a larger flow of 55 million Europeans and 2.5 million Asians who came to the Americas before 1930. This flow was of a piece with economic globalization and coincided with state formation and nation making. Globalization and the formation and consolidation of nation-states were at odds, however, in important respects: while labor migration met the needs of world-roaming capital, it undercut countries’ efforts to constitute a citizenry. The ideology of free exit prevalent in the liberalism of the nineteenth and early twentieth century reflects this contradiction. The economic tenets of free trade rubbed up against the ideology of an international system of independent states with legitimate authority over “their” populations. Migrants challenged states’ claims of control over populations whom the state presumed fell neatly within national borders. The dilemma faced by countries that experienced high rates of emigration was how to constitute a national population when migrants were not jurisdictionally present. Receiving countries often faced the challenge of numbers: too few people for such expansive territories. Efforts to resolve these dilemmas resulted in competition between sending and receiving countries to set the terms under which people could come and go and the consequences of migration for citizenship status. Italy, Spain, and Argentina faced these dilemmas, competed over migrants, and in so doing set the institutional rails along which subsequent citizenship policy would run. The Competition to Make Members of Migrants Before the First World War Institutional efforts to get or maintain the affiliation and allegiance of migrants were undertaken in competition with those of other states because each state had designs on the same population. Specifically, their efforts

40

The Competitive Dynamics of Citizenship and Immigration Policy

involved enumeration and identification practices, laws to define and regulate nationality and migration, and the work of official and semiofficial organizations with interests in migrants and their children. The interstate dynamics around matters of citizenship that resulted from this tension explain the pattern of state membership that congealed by the time of the First World War. This pattern in turn laid the tracks along which subsequent policies would run. The bureaucratic negotiation of competing claims subjected potential and actual citizens to encounters with states’ agents and rendered migrants and their descendants available for future administration by governments because these encounters left a paper trail in official files. The formation of a “system of files” allowed for the long-term transmission of information pertaining to individually identified citizens (Weber 1978, 988). Finally, the leverage states could exercise over the movement and membership of people varied significantly over time and often relied on soft means like associations and schools. States incrementally gained the capacity to legitimately control these areas of people’s lives by taking over functions from private and religious entities, by copying what other organizations had done with migrants, and by integrating different levels of administrative control (Cook-Martín 2008). The capacity of states to control migration and membership was important because it was these state organizations that guaranteed access to the tangible and symbolic benefits of citizenship. Acts of Possession: Enumeration and Identification Practices In the period before the First World War, Spain, Italy, and Argentina were engaged in efforts to delimit and maintain territorial borders and especially membership or the aggregate of individuals subject to legitimate state authority. These efforts were revealed in early attempts to count and identify people in states’ sphere of influence. Spain had the longest history as a politically unified state organization; not surprisingly, its efforts to enumerate individuals for fiscal and public health reasons dated to the sixteenth century (Nadal 1984). The use of documents to control departures was also a longstanding practice (Reino de España, Ministerio de Trabajo y Previsión 1930). However, the Spanish state had the ability to administratively manage people primarily at ports of departure and with respect to particular classes of people. Migrants’ ability to circumvent or evade government controls by means of counterfeit or fraudulently used documents showed the limits of official capacities.



The Competitive Dynamics of Citizenship and Immigration Policy

41

Its first modern census in 1857 enumerated the population of both Spain and its African possessions (Goyer and Draaijer 1992). The publication of official reports on emigration beginning in 1863 and concurrent diplomatic efforts to negotiate the citizenship status of Spaniards abroad underscored the concern caused by extraterritorial membership (Belgrano 1942; Nadal 1984). By 1882, a division of the National Geographic and Statistical Institute was tracking departures in earnest. By the early 1900s, bureaucrats in the business of counting departures decried the “hemorrhage” of the motherland’s people and their loss to receiving countries in the Americas (Reino de España 1905). When officials issued residence cards and passports, they demonstrated an interest in identifying citizens for the purpose of regulating departures (Cook-Martín 2008). Italian efforts to count the kingdom’s subjects were especially striking given that they were contemporaneous with a struggle for Italy’s very existence. As a fledgling nation-state, Italy faced domestic crime, Southern revolts, threats by more powerful states, and the postponement of attempts to annex territories considered national (Whyte 1965). And yet, one of the unified Italian state’s first measures was to take a census in 1861.9 This “first act of possession of its citizens,” as Donna Gabaccia, Dirk Hoerder, and Adam Walaszek (2007) have aptly described the census, was noteworthy in its efforts to measure the population of citizens “outside the kingdom,” which at that time numbered four hundred thousand. Other early censuses and studies showed a similar preoccupation (Carpi 1874; Goyer and Draaijer 1992; Virgilio 1868). The 1871 census dedicated a volume to accounting for “citizens outside the kingdom,” and beginning in 1876 a separate state organization took over the tracking of emigration figures from shipping lines. These censuses and emigration counts were concerned with the socioeconomic profile of Italians abroad and showed a concern similar to that of Spain for the loss they represented to the patria. Parliamentary surveys of the “agricultural class” in Italy (1877–1885) also suggest an interest in delimiting and knowing the national population (Paoloni and Ricci 1998). When officials issued nulla osta, a certificate attesting that potential emigrants maintained no outstanding fiscal, military, civil, or criminal obligations, they required identification of particular individuals, which represented an early effort by Italian state agents to regulate the extraterritorial movement of citizens.

42

The Competitive Dynamics of Citizenship and Immigration Policy

In Argentina, the Sarmiento administration carried out the first national census in 1869, but provincial governments had been counting the population and especially determining the number of newcomers since the 1850s (Alsina 1898; República Argentina 1872). “To govern is to populate” was no abstract dictum subscribed to by high-minded liberals like constitutional framer Alberdi, but rather a reflection of burning preoccupations and a guide for policy. While sending states sought to identify emigrants, Argentina made only minimal official efforts at identification for natives and newcomers until massive inflows and the arrival of ideologically suspect migrants drove the development of some of the most advanced identification technologies of the time (Cook-Martín 2005, 102). At mid-nineteenth century, however, policy makers carefully avoided any potential barriers to the entry of prospective members, especially from Europe. They were concerned with the frontier between the territory under the emerging state organization’s legitimate control and the “desert,” or area outside the pale of the state’s reach. The indio in the Argentine census was anyone who inhabited the desert; policy makers used that term as one against which they defined (white) European immigrants, presumed to be amenable to state control.10 Argentine efforts also included the survey and identification of potential migrants in Europe by a cohort of private businessmen who also served as official recruiters (Kleiner 1983). In brief, early efforts at enumeration and identification in each country often targeted the same migrant population and hence tried to anticipate and account for similar efforts by other states. The movement of people between Spain, Italy, and Argentina posed logistical challenges to enumerators and identifiers as well as questions about who belonged to which state and on what terms. These challenges and questions sparked a long-term competition to maintain or forge citizenship ties with the same group of migrants and their children. In the next section I examine the legal-administrative means by which these three states scrambled to get or keep affiliations with mobile citizens. The Legal Scramble: Laws as Practices to Define and Regulate Membership and Mobility Fashioning or maintaining a legal bond with migrants and the migrantdescended challenged sending and receiving countries in different ways. Migrants had removed themselves from sending states’ sphere of influence and were more directly exposed to receiving states’ authority. This scenario represented a potential violation of a central tenet of nationalist ideology,



The Competitive Dynamics of Citizenship and Immigration Policy

43

which held that individuals should have exclusive links to a particular state in an international system of such entities. Thus the League of Nations and international law societies agreed that states should subscribe to the notion that “every person should possess one and only one nationality” (American Society of International Law 1929). In the legal realm, this notion called for laws that recognized the mismatch between territory and community and the possibility of extraterritorial citizenship (Flournoy 1921; FitzGerald 2000). From a receiving state’s perspective, Argentine legislators recognized that desired prospective members came with affiliations to other states, but they saw an opportunity in migrants’ exposure to Argentina’s government. The challenge was for legislators to avoid appearing invasive or antagonistic as they wrote laws that made it easy to become a citizen and to settle. Migrants were often fleeing intrusive state practices like conscription and taxation, and sending states were very sensitive to advances the receiving state made toward “their” citizens. Sending and receiving states seemed to have as a goal “simply to gather into their citizenship [nationality] the greatest number of persons” (Flournoy 1921, 545) To this end, legislators tried to anticipate or respond to migration flows and proposed or actual measures in other countries with the object of forging or maintaining nationality ties to migrants. Passage of citizenship norms in Italy, Argentina, and Spain were preceded by what would have then been significant migration flows (see Figures 1.5 and 1.6). The Italian Parliament sanctioned the 1865 Civil Code containing provisions to define citizenship and the terms of its acquisition, transmission, and loss when Italian and Argentine figures showed rising emigration. In 1912, Italian legislators passed a new citizenship law after some of the highest levels of emigration for this and for subsequent periods. Argentina passed a citizenship law in 1869 after a period of marked growth in immigration and optimism/anticipation about future migration flows. Spain sanctioned twelve articles on nationality in its Civil Code of 1889 after a five-year period of migration unmatched in its history. Nationality and migration policies also tried to anticipate international population flows and the population measures of other countries. In anticipation of immigration, the Argentine Constitution of 1853 extended citizenship to foreigners after two years of residence and exempted them from military service for ten years after naturalization (República Argentina 1860). The intent of these measures was to foster citizenship ties to new arrivals. The first policy challenge in this arena was to sort out with Spain the affiliation of its subjects after Argentine independence in 1810. For Spain, “subjects”

44

The Competitive Dynamics of Citizenship and Immigration Policy

250,000

200,000

150,000

100,000

50,00

5 18 80 18 85 18 90 18 95 19 00 19 05 19 10 19 15 19 20 19 25 19 30 19 35 19 40

0

18 7

5

18 7

18 6

18 6

0

0

FI GU R E 1.5 Spanish Emigration to the Americas and Related Legal Measures,

1860–1940 source: Yáñez Gallardo 1994, 75; Sánchez Alonso 1995, 281. note: Vertical lines indicate passage of migration measures and are weighted to reflect number of laws sanctioned.

included both adult Spaniards and their children, even if these had been born in Argentina. For Argentine political elites, the affiliation of Spaniards might have been arguable, but that of their children was unambiguously to the new republic. Diplomats resolved this first round of contention over prospective members with an 1863 treaty stipulating that affected persons remained Argentine in Argentina and for that state’s purpose, but Spanish while in Spain and to that state’s ends (Álvarez Rodríguez 1990, 62; Belgrano 1942, 3–4, 10). Some analysts have concluded that this agreement implicitly accepted dual nationality (e.g., Moreno Fuentes 2001), but from these states’ respective standpoints, only one nationality was operative at any given time. Indeed, conflicting military service demands posed an enduring problem that was not officially resolved until the signing of bilateral agreements in the 1960s. In the interim, affected individuals had to negotiate a low-intensity bureaucratic battle between their country of birth and their parental homelands. The many resolutions of the Spanish Service of Registries and Notaries (DGRN, Dirección General de Registros y del Notariado) discussed in Chapter 2 attest



The Competitive Dynamics of Citizenship and Immigration Policy

45

180,000 160,000 140,000 120,000 100,000 80,000 60,000 40,000 20,000

6

19 31 19 36

19 2

19 21

19 16

19 11

19 01 19 06

6 18 9

18 91

18 7

6 18 81 18 86

0

FI GU R E 1. 6 Italian Emigration to the Americas and Related Legal Measures,

1876–1940 source: Regno d’Italia 1926 note: Vertical lines indicate passage of migration measures and are weighted to reflect number of laws sanctioned.

to this ongoing struggle. These had far-reaching consequences because claims on men contained an implicit demand on their wives and children, whose nationality was contingent on that of a male head of household (Cook-Martín 2006). In addition, loss of ancestral nationality could result in forfeiture of family property and future citizenship options. From Italy and Spain’s perspective, Argentina’s policy of jus soli, or right of birthplace, was of great concern because it designated as Argentines the children of migrants. Viewing the Argentine policy as assimilationist, Italy and Spain believed it required a response (Álvarez Rodríguez 1990). They countered these policies in broadly similar ways, but ways that reflected their respective histories and experiences with emigration. Although Italian liberal elites were in principle committed to free exit, they also saw that emigration and its implications for citizenship conflicted with projects of state making (cf. Noiriel 1996). This preoccupation is evident in the discussions leading up to the passage of the 1865 Civil Code citizenship provisions as well as in the text of the provisions themselves (Bussotti 2002; Regno d’Italia 1865).

46

The Competitive Dynamics of Citizenship and Immigration Policy

Jus sanguinis, or right of blood provisions, resolved some of the issues generated by the mismatch between national population and jurisdiction. Italians abroad and their descendants could maintain their original or ancestral citizenship potentially over many generations, or as Mussolini put it, up to the seventh generation (Discorso al Sinato del 5/6/1928, Opera Omnia XXII, p. 187). The Italian Code’s insistence on the exclusivity of citizenship, however, made it relatively easy to lose since naturalization in another country was tantamount to renouncing Italian citizenship. By contrast, Spanish law required a bureaucratic procedure in order to renounce citizenship. In addition, Italy had no dual nationality agreements with countries like Argentina. The anomalous citizenship status of many Italian emigrants prompted a debate that culminated in 1912 in the passage of a new Italian citizenship law. Policy makers uniformly viewed the irregular status of migrants who had lost their Italian citizenship but had not gained membership in their country of residence as requiring some legal remedy.11 However, they reached no such consensus about a second anomalous situation that affected many Italian migrants: dual citizenship. After an arduous debate that spanned the 1st and 2nd Congresses of Italians Abroad and several legislative sessions, lawmakers sanctioned a new law that relaxed some of the provisions that had made it easy to lose citizenship and left the door open to the possibility of dual nationality on a case-by-case basis without explicitly legitimating it (Álvarez Rodríguez 1990; Bussotti 2002; Istituto Coloniale Italiano 1911). Bilateral and international agreements would be a means to determine when de facto dual nationality applied. The controversy surrounding Brazil’s policy of automatic naturalization of European migrants illustrates the competitive dynamic characteristic of migration systems. In the 1880s, Brazilian proposals to automatically naturalize foreigners in the national territory had sparked strong reactions from European states that stood to “lose” a significant number of citizens. Numerically, the Italian and Spanish presence in Brazil was second only to that of Argentina in the Southern Cone. In view of Italy’s relatively strict provisions about dual nationality and loss of citizenship, its citizens would have been especially affected. Italian diplomats forged a European alliance with Portugal, Germany, Spain, and France to protest Brazilian proposals to automatically naturalize residents of Brazil at the founding of the new republic. The Brazilians softened some of the automatic naturalization provisions, but the



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“Great Naturalization” of the 1890s largely succeeded in its legal assimilatory goals (Rosoli 1986; 1987). In Argentina, these developments fueled local debates, inspired proposals for automatic naturalization, and generated grave concern among Italians (Carbone Oyarzun 1928; Durá 1911; Gandolfo 1991; Rock 1987; Sarmiento [1891] 1928, 273). Argentine legal experts argued for automatic naturalization well into the 1920s because it would have simplified a cumbersome bureaucratic procedure that undermined the assimilatory intent of Law 346 (1869; on nationality) (Jofré et al. 1931, 67). In the end, however, policy makers opted to make citizens of migrants’ children and to avoid fanning the flames of national identification as forced naturalizations had done in Brazil.12 This move was consistent with the effort not to be seen by immigrants as invasive sending states. After all, time and access were on the receiving states’ side: if parents did not naturalize, their children would be born into Argentine citizenship and be exposed to schools, military service, and jobs where they would be imperceptibly inducted into the nation. Winning people’s hearts to the nation was the other ambitious project undertaken by Argentina, Italy, and Spain. The Sacred Oil of Nationality: Organizational Efforts to Gain the Allegiance of Migrants Laws and the bureaucracies that implement them were heavy-handed ways of making claims on migrants who were often fleeing increased state encroachment in their everyday lives. Migrants therefore found ways to resist or to avoid official claims of membership. Sending and receiving countries, however, also used softer means to capture the hearts and minds of migrants. Schools, immigrant associations, and religious institutions have been among these less overtly coercive means state agents have used to embrace newcomers or citizens abroad. From an official perspective, the ultimate goal of this softer approach has been to name and claim migrants as formally belonging to the nation, but this end was not necessary in the strategic short and medium term. These means have been effective because they work, not through official bureaucratic rules but through practical solidarity, emotion, and a subjective sense of belonging to the family writ large. The following paragraphs show how states’ soft embrace constitutes another strategy in the scramble to gain migrants’ affiliation and allegiance.

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In Argentina, political elites perceived sending states’ laws and support of schools and immigrant associations as efforts to denationalize current and future citizens, especially the native born children of immigrants. Domingo Sarmiento, an influential liberal educator and president during passage of the 1869 citizenship law, best illustrates elite perceptions of sending states’ attempts to “make foreigners of citizens in their own land” (Sarmiento [1891] 1928, 506). In his extensive writings on foreigners in Argentina, Sarmiento highlights the role of schools run by immigrant associations with the support of foreign states. Almost half of a five-hundred-page tome on the “state of foreigners” examines immigrant schools as a threat to Argentina’s own national designs. Italian schools in Argentina are favored targets of his attacks. In an especially revealing passage, he indignantly cites Italian Minister Benedetto Cairòli’s report to the Italian Parliament and request for additional funds: Schools are among the most powerful means to extend our ideas and civilization, to disseminate the use of our language, to open and clear the way for our commerce, and to spread, affirm and maintain our justifiable political and moral influence. They are the most obvious element of cohesion in our colonies [referring to the River Plate region comprising major port cities of Argentina and Uruguay]. They maintain among emigrants the use of our language. . . . They revive feelings and strengthen moral ties that bind emigration to the motherland. They sustain the memory and the desire for the country of origin among those tempted to settle abroad permanently. (cited by Sarmiento [1891] 1928, 494)

Italian schools were a powerful, long-distance nationalizing tool: they taught the national vernacular, fostered an emotional attachment to the homeland, created memories and a longing for the ancestral patria, and made all of this seem naturally legitimate (Devoto 2008). In Argentina, Italian schools had considerable reach among school-age children, especially in Buenos Aires, where about a third of them attended such institutions; this widespread influence would explain Sarmiento’s concerns (Favero 1985). Fernando Devoto (2008), however, argues that over time the sway of Italian schools in Argentina—secular or religious—waned with the growth of free public education. Sarmiento, and especially the cultural nationalists who became influential in the early twentieth century, longed for schools to achieve much the same goals as Italian schools, but with Argentina as the object of people’s affections. Thus, these two educational projects had conflicting goals.



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Scholars disagree about the origins and modernity of nationalism, but they broadly concur that education has been an important institution for the creation and transmission of attachments to the nation.13 The question faced by Italy and other countries of emigration has been whether these ties can be forged and nurtured across political jurisdictions. Countries like Italy and Germany have made a concerted effort to achieve this end through schools abroad. Mexico—a country with one of the longest-standing migration flows—used other means than schools to nationalize Mexicans abroad (FitzGerald 2009). Factors that determine whether states used this reliable method of nurturing nationalism include the level of requisite resources, soft means of creating national loyalty in the absence of official infrastructural capacity abroad, a resonant cultural frame for making citizens abroad, perceived cultural and spatial distance from the society in which emigrants settled, and receiving-country constraints on sending-country educational projects. Since a sufficient number of these factors obtained for Italian governments during the period of massive emigration, schools played a significant role in their efforts to gain the hearts and minds of Italians abroad. The same is not true in the Spanish case, where regional associations played a more important role in making links to the homeland. Political, religious, and cultural elites in Italy mostly agreed that schools were an effective strategy to make Italians abroad; in addition, their cultural frame resonated with the targets of their efforts. In 1862 the Italian government launched the program of Italian Schools Abroad, initially to extend Italy’s influence in North Africa and the Middle East, but eventually to educate Italian emigrants and their children in the Americas (Choate 2008). The importance of the program is evident in the way successive administrations assiduously tracked its extension and effects and the support it received from the Emigration Fund established by Italy’s 1901 Emigration Law (Floriani 1974; Ipsen 1996). The Emigration Fund in particular made it possible for Italian governments to give to secular and parochial schools that taught Italian the money and curricular materials to support the effort. Language instruction and pedagogical materials advanced the cultural frame of a Greater Italy, which reflected the views of Italian liberal political elites and resonated with Italian emigrants. This clever framing made a positive attribute of large-scale emigration, which would have signaled weakness to nation makers in other contexts. Since many Italian leaders subscribed to the notion that size of its population reflects a nation’s strength and wealth, counting emigrants and

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their children as part of a transterritorial nation made Italy grand (Glass 1936; Hansen 1940; Ipsen 1996; Reino de España, Consejo Superior de Emigración 1916). “Strength in numbers,” to borrow Mussolini’s phrase, posed a challenge only if the nation of Italy was limited to its official geographical borders. By contrast, if Italians across the globe were cast as part of a nation that transcended narrow borders and had a mission to “advance a knowledge and appreciation of Italy in every corner of the globe,” then the architects of the nation-state could continue their work (Gribaudi, as cited in Choate 2008, 737). Textbooks like Pietro Gribaudi’s La più grande Italia spread this notion among Italians abroad. Italian state makers were not alone in seeing emigration as a challenge and schools as an important means to maintain ties with the departed. The Catholic Church saw many of its faithful leave to gain economic advantage, and while its transnational presence made it possible that migrants would find refuge in another parish, this outcome was by no means assured. Italian migrants had not been especially devoted to the Church in the homeland, and some were outright anticlerical (Baily 1999; Vecoli 1969). In predominantly Protestant countries like the United States, they would encounter more diverse religious markets and, more importantly, be removed from the normative regulatory structures with which they had been raised. These moral fears applied to migrants regardless of destination and especially because of their youth and gender. Pope Leo XIII’s 1888 letter to American bishops decrying the material and spiritual poverty of Italian migrants reflects these concerns. Secular observers had documented similar worries since the advent of migration flows: in a survey of municipal leaders in the 1870s, Leone Carpi captured a dramatic concern for the moral well-being of young emigrants and women, even if they were moving only to larger urban areas (Carpi 1874). In view of these preoccupations, it is not surprising that religious leaders made common cause with Italian state makers. Bishop Giovanni Battista Scalabrini of Piacenza was perhaps the most influential and well-known advocate of ministering to Italians in the Americas. Bishop Geremia Bonomelli of Cremona—a close friend of Scalabrini and director of a religious society that served Italian migrants in Europe—captured the spirit of Scalabrinian projects when he said that “language and religion are the two principal means for keeping alive and solid the ties between Mother Italy and her daughter Italy, which grows and prospers in the South American Continent” (D’Agostino 1997). Baron Tittoni, a strong proponent of funding Italian education abroad,



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concurred on the matter of language instruction when he argued that schools were “one of the most powerful means of maintaining alive and propagating ever more the language, the ideas and civilization of Italy in other States, of affirming her political and moral influence which would open the way to her commerce” (as cited in Choate 2008, 2). Italian church and state—often at odds in the early Italian republic—had overlapping interests when it came to maintaining national loyalty among Italian migrants in other countries. In Argentina, a small number of immigrant associations like Unione e Benevolenza played a leading role in Italian language education, with limited financial but significant curricular support from the Italian government. The Scalabrinians had a limited part in educating immigrant children, but the Salesians received subsidies from the Italian government for their educational efforts. This order, however, put a premium on integrating immigrants into Argentine society, and its leadership was self-conscious about appearing to represent a foreign potentate. In fact, all Italian educational institutions shared this caution, especially after the polemics fueled by Sarmiento and other nationalists in the 1880s. Whether religious or secular, schools subsidized by the Italian state waned in influence over time. While in 1882 Italian schools served 20 percent of the school-age population in Buenos Aires, by 1895 only 5 percent of the same population attended Italian schools. The availability of free education in a language that would facilitate integration into the Argentine workplace and market appears to have outweighed other considerations when parents made decisions about their children’s schooling. Still, a substantial number of parents participated in Italian educational efforts (through associations), and their children received instruction that exposed them to ideas about their parental nation.14 Argentine debates about Italian schools in the late 1930s indicate their enduring influence, both actual and perceived. Other organizations also made symbolic claims on migrants and their children in Argentina. Before the First World War, Italians were most active in promoting links to “l’emigrazione,” especially as the liberal brand of nationalism characteristic of the nineteenth century gave way to a more aggressive and conservative nationalism in the early twentieth century (Museo Social Argentino 1941). The Italian Colonial Institute exemplifies such efforts. Founded in 1906 as an outgrowth of a colonial conference, its purpose was to “enlighten the country concerning colonial action, whether of the state or private, [such that this] understanding will [help] develop the economic life of our Colonies

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and usefully direct our emigration” (Hobsbawm 1987; for a full account of the institute, see Bosworth 1979 and Choate 2008). It also sought to promote and encourage the diffusion of “colonial culture” through education, to become a permanent link between “conationals living abroad” and the motherland, and to develop Italian colonial action whether by legislative and government initiatives or timely private initiatives. Although a small organization, the Italian Colonial Institute had the adherence of prominent policy makers on the conservative and nationalist sides of the Italian parliamentary aisle (the most powerful of the groups pushing Italy “back” onto an imperial course). The organization of two Congresses of Italians Abroad (1908 and 1911), which played an important role in debates about citizenship law, and the publication of the Rivista Coloniale, a widely circulated magazine that promoted a transterritorial view of Italianness, were among the most significant initiatives of the institute.15 Argentine elites also had a nationalizing educational project couched in the idiom of fervor for the homeland, and they acted decisively to implement it and to take advantage of immediate access to migrants. Education was the means to set aside children as belonging to the nation and to counter the influence of foreign parents and communities: In the Argentine Republic more than in any other country on earth public education must have a national purpose. . . . Hence the need for school to be eminently Argentine . . . : teachers, books, maps and moral illustrations, and supplies must all be anointed with the sacred oil of nationality to neutralize the foreign atmosphere children breathe almost exclusively during their first years and that they continue to breathe every day before and after school. (“Patriotic Education” in La Prensa, May 15, 1893; cited in Bertoni 1992, 110)

The goal went beyond separating children from others by nationalist unction to prepare them for different careers. In the words of a participant in the 1882 Pedagogical Congress, which lead to passage of Argentina’s first education law, young citizens would be shaped “in the image and likeness of the republic” (Pierotti 1922, 8). The not-so-subtle biblical allusion functioned to legitimate and naturalize the nationalizing project: school-age Italians and the Argentine-born children of Italians would be remade to fit in the national family writ large. Argentine nationalizing philosophy took concrete form in law, curricula, and administrative practices. The 1884 Common Education Law (no. 1420)



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made primary education free, mandatory, and secular for children ages six through fourteen (Recalde 1987, 133; República Argentina, Ministerio de Cultura y Educación 1884). Religious instruction was specifically banned from public schools during regular hours (Article 8). An instructional foundation including “National Language,” “National History,” and “National Geography”—among other subjects—was mandatory even for private schools (Article 6). These provisions limited the ability of the Scalabrinians, Salesians, other religious groups, and immigrant associations to advance the Italian nationalizing agenda, although schools had a choice in how they prioritized curricular components. A perusal of textbooks commonly used after the passage of the Education Law shows that school curricula and materials were vessels of nationalist anointment. Reading books carried titles like Mi Patria (Ferreyra 1900) and gave idealized versions of the “British Invasions” of 1806– 1807 and the independence struggle against Spain through stories told by older family members to their young. Geography texts naturalized the borders of the national territory. Finally, policy makers and educators from Sarmiento’s day to Perón’s era carefully tracked the composition of the school population and attendance by migrants and the children of migrants (República Argentina [AIEN] 1948–1951; Romero and Privitellio 2004; Sarmiento [1891] 1928, 99). At the turn of the twentieth century, a third or more of students in a typical Buenos Aires classroom would have been newcomers. In this context, José María Ramos Mejía—director of the National Council of Education— devised a “civic liturgy” for use in primary schools to socialize immigrant children into Argentine national life. Children learned to recite patriotic rhymes, committing them to make the ultimate sacrifice for the flag “before an altar to the country which it was the duty of teachers to keep adorned with flowers at all times” (Halperin Donghi 1987, 226). Ramos Mejía describes the method and impact of this nationalist literature in sanguine terms: Systematically and with the required insistence [students] are told about the patria, the flag, about national glories and heroic episodes of history. They hear the [national] hymn, they sing it, and they recite it with the expression and zeal of a comical epic poem, they discuss it in their own terms with spellbinding innocence, and in their agitated speech demonstrate how propitious is their age to sow the seeds of such a noble sentiment. (Halperin Donghi 1987, 226)

School-age children were inducted into the national family through the symbolic labor of teachers, who were the secular priests of the young republic.

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This new secular faith and devotion to the patria required suitable temples. Argentine political elites not only advanced an agenda of secular education, but also developed a massive organizational and architectural infrastructure that figured prominently in efforts to attract migrants and ward off the advance of other states. The Ministry of Education and Culture, for instance, sent to the Universal Exposition held in Paris (1900) a selection of photographs by Samuel Boote. The subject of this carefully styled presentation of collective self were public schools built in the 1880s and 1890s primarily in the Federal Capital of Buenos Aires, where most immigrants arrived and many settled. The sheer size of buildings and classrooms, the imposing French architecture, the patriotic symbols on facades and classroom walls, and the civic rituals represented conveyed a message about the type of polity to which Argentine elites aspired: modern, progressive, and proud.16 Citizenship in the Interwar Period: Competition and Synchronization By the First World War, Argentina had received an enormous number of immigrants. Its elites were deeply concerned about the quality of arriving European immigrants. One cartoonist in the early 1900s showed an Argentine official, sieve in hand, telling a matronly keeper of European immigrants: “I need immigrants, but from now on they must be sifted, because I don’t want agitators, revolutionaries, strikers, communists, or socialists. To which the shopkeeper of European “emigrants” responded: “Enough, I know what you want: an immigration made up purely of bankers and archbishops” (Mayol 1903). The cartoonist mocks a long-standing belief among Argentine elites that immigration policy should select the right kind of European, a notion that dates to Alberdi’s preference for Northern Europeans. Europeanness was not under discussion from an ethnic perspective; it was taken for granted that Argentina had become a white nation. Debates between the wars and after the Second World War were about the quality of its whiteness, the ideological and moral features of newcomers from Southern Europe. A subset of Spaniards and Italians was especially suspect on ideological and moral grounds: anarchists and socialists, agnostics and atheists, and single, politically active women. Governing elites’ decision to extend the franchise to all men in 1911 as well as to institute free, mandatory public education compounded the concern of knowing who newcomers were, and what were their loyalties and political affiliations. It became imperative to Argentine



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political elites to track the origins and whereabouts of anarchists, socialists, and other rabble-rousers. A regulatory decree issued by President Victorino Plaza on April 26, 1916, aimed to accomplish greater documentary control over immigrants. The preamble to the decree stressed that the purpose of Article 25 of the 1853 Constitution—which expressed a preference for European immigration—was to foster the formation of a morally and physically healthy nation well suited to work. The immediate motivation for this regulation of the 1876 Law of Immigration and Colonization was that the law did not adequately address matters of passports and documentation, and in particular it did nothing to avoid “the substitution of persons as has been confirmed in practice” and to “effectively and without doubt attribute identity to the personhood of immigrants.” In addition to requiring photo-bearing passports and a higher standard for certification of foreign documents, the decree called for proof that the immigrant had not been under legal process for crimes against the social order in the previous ten years. The practical application of the decree caused administrative concern among consuls who had to decide which documents issued in the sending country met official Argentine standards. An important consequence of this strengthening of identification practices was that it subjected immigrants to Argentine and sending-state control and contributed to the documentary trail these migrants left behind. The resumption of flows from Italy and Spain to Argentina after the First World War renewed competition among these countries over potential and actual citizens. They competed through policy substantially altered by executive order and through administrative regulation rather than through changes to the letter of nationality law, a continuation of the practice initiated with the 1916 regulatory decree. This competitive dynamic is attributable to three factors that were worked out administratively and organizationally. First, conflicting legal-administrative claims on migrants and their descendants as well as legal gaps in nationality law called for some resolution. Argentines had a predominantly right-of-birthplace (jus soli) law that allowed them to “capture” as citizens the children of migrants. Spain and Italy had developed and tweaked a predominantly right-of-descent (jus sanguinis) law to maintain nationality links to migrants and their children abroad as well as to facilitate recovery of lost nationality. However, legal and administrative claims that either converged on the same class of individuals or did not account for them were yet to be fully reconciled. The first scenario involved

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sending and receiving governments that demanded military service from the same young men and draft-aged men who used conflicting demands to circumvent military service obligations. The second scenario involved women who lost their nationality when their relationship to a male head of household changed because both of the implicated states assumed the other would grant citizenship (Cook-Martín 2006). Argentine, Italian, and Spanish legislators struggled to reconcile these conflicting demands and gaps in ways they felt would benefit their own strategic positions the most. National courts were one arena in which conflicting demands were worked out. For instance, a series of decisions by Argentine courts tried to resolve situations of statelessness generated by existing law, especially for women, and to close loopholes used by naturalized men or even citizens to avoid military service. By the early 1920s Argentine courts had ruled on extending protection of the state to the stateless wives of Argentines. The courts also set a precedent for the granting of citizenship letters to foreign women, although this move did not imply full political privileges until 1947.17 The Argentine state could thus maintain links with Argentine women independently of their husbands’ nationality status. At the same time, the courts made strong claims on men who hoped to avoid military service obligations either by renouncing Argentine citizenship or claiming another citizenship. In the case of Juan Barrueta—a naturalized Argentine born in Italy who wanted to renounce his Argentine citizenship and who refused to enroll for military service— the courts affirmed the impossibility of avoiding military service by claiming allegiance to another state. The prosecutor in this case argued that nationality was a juridical condition inherent to human personality, like a name, and could disappear only with it. Jurists subsequently affirmed these principles and explicitly noted that states that are “weak in the material, must be strong in power of law” (Revista Juridica Argentina 1918). A second factor that contributed to competition among Italy, Spain, and Argentina was the consolidation of the international system of states evidenced in the growth of international law on nationality. States could have continued to address the effects of conflicting nationality norms unilaterally, and some did, but international law had been motivated by practical administrative and legal problems. To be sure, compliance with international norms was not mandatory but acted as a constraint and guide on these matters, just as it contributed to competition among states by legitimating the international system of states. The emergent consensus in international law was that



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people should be affiliated with only one state, that the ability to transmit this affiliation across generations should be limited, and that states should strive to avoid the twin “evils of double nationality and statelessness.” By realizing this norm, the international state system would presumably be able to maintain ordered relations, avoiding precisely the scenarios faced by Argentina, Italy, and Spain (see League of Nations Committee of Experts for the Progressive Codification of International Law 1929, 31, 119). The advent of conservative nationalism in Europe and in the Americas constituted a third factor that drove Italy, Spain, and Argentina to more forcefully assert their claims in policies that had a decidedly possessive tone. In Argentina, political elites renewed calls for automatic naturalization, insisted on a selective immigration more consonant with an emergent Argentine national archetype, and administratively regulated who could enter and become a citizen. The 1923 Regulation of Law 817, for instance, heightened restriction and selectivity. It specified the conditions of entry and documentation as well as twelve conditions that disqualified would-be immigrants from entry, including the physical and mental health, age, legal and marital status, and moral features of passengers. Article 13, however, gave the force of law to a set of special instructions authored by the director of the Dirección General de Inmigraciones, Juan P. Ramos, in which he spelled out documentary requirements and gave concrete examples of those who could not enter and therefore could not receive visas from Argentine consuls. This included a ban on “beggars, that is, gypsies, who have practiced begging and persons who can be presumed may come to rely on public welfare”; such people presumably fell into the category of “useless or defective immigration” specified in the main text of the decree (Regulation of Law 817 [1923], Special Instructions, paragraph 16). By codifying these administrative regulations concerning “gypsies,” Argentina formally implemented the closest thing to a formal ethnic exclusion in its immigration law.18 Like the 1916 decree, this regulation of Law 817 increased documentary requirements and the residue left by migrants in the official archives of Argentina and of sending countries. Argentine administrations passed a series of restrictive regulatory measures between 1930 and 1938 to raise documentary requirements and their cost, regulation that was possible thanks to a system of consular offices spanning Europe. A December 1930 military decree imposed a consular fee of ten pesos of gold for stamping required health, good conduct, and financial solvency certificates. A June 1931 decree exempted would-be settlers from the payment of consular fees. Citing

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as justification growing unemployment and the inefficacy of imposing higher consular fees, the Decree of 26 November 1932 suspended all visa authorizations at the point of departure for people who did not have a work contract in hand or support from an authorized and financially solvent family member. The eugenics movement of the 1920s and 1930s in Argentina purported to give scientific legitimacy to the selective impulse and informed policy discussions well into the 1940s, including those of the Peronist administrations. Proposals for automatic naturalization did not prosper until the late 1940s, but they were on the agenda of policy makers. Turning to Europe, Spanish politics oscillated wildly after World War I, but in matters of nationality the persistent trend was toward greater administrative and judicial regulation; that trend is understandable given the vagueness of Civil Code provisions on political membership. The Civil Code has remained the backbone of Spanish nationality law until today, except for a brief period during the Second Republic (1931). Like its Italian counterpart, it defined the principle ruling relations of individuals to the state as one of descent and hence created ongoing tension with Argentine jus soli law. To fill in the details, the Spanish Service of Registries and Notaries, or DGRN, took measures that made it very difficult to lose nationality. For instance, individuals were responsible after 1922 for registering the loss of nationality with the DGRN; thus it rarely happened. In practice, Spaniards rarely lost their nationality by having Argentine citizenship. This anomaly generated a range of situations in which the courts had to interpret nationality policy. Francisco Franco’s administration pressed these administrative procedures because it viewed the maintenance of nationality by dissidents abroad as a way to control them. The conservative flavor of nationalism sought control over its citizens and became manifest when, as I have argued elsewhere, these states had gained some capacity to regulate people’s movements (Cook-Martín 2008). The Italian fascist regime best illustrates the effect of conservative nationalism on migration and citizenship policy and its possessive tone. Whereas during the liberal era emigration was a problem to be managed, with fascism it became a front in a larger nationalist war. Rhetorically, Mussolini selected terms that more accurately expressed in nationalist idiom the role of extraterritorial Italians. He favored the term colonization over emigration and the term citizen over emigrant. The General Commissariat of Emigration became the General Office of Italians Abroad. In Mussolini’s view, emigration and the naturalization of migrants and their children constituted a net



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loss to the Italian nation and a gain for “demographically anemic countries” (Cannistraro and Rosoli 1979). To apply a tourniquet to the nation’s “hemorrhaging,” Mussolini attempted to foster ethnonational ties with people of Italian descent.19 By recasting emigration as colonization, or in a more negative assessment, as indicative of the nation’s demographic hemorrhaging of citizens, Mussolini went on the offensive in the “struggle for population” with countries like Argentina and France. Mussolini implemented a series of policies that left no doubt about Italy’s designs on Italian emigrants. He made it financially and administratively more difficult to leave the national territory and offered repatriation incentives after declaring a demographic war in 1927 to increase Italy’s population and secure its place among the great powers. Mussolini made three modest but significant adjustments to citizenship policy. According to Law 108 (January 31, 1926), a person could lose citizenship for committing an act against the interests and prestige of Italy or by upsetting public order. Italian citizenship could be reacquired by individuals who had naturalized abroad after six months of residence in Italy. Royal Decree No. 1997 (December 1, 1934) modified Article 4 of the 1912 citizenship law so that the government could confer citizenship at its own discretion under specified circumstances. These last two modifications are likely what Mussolini had in mind when in 1928 he referred to recognizing the citizenship of Italian-origin individuals over a long period of time or “up to the seventh generation” (Belleri Damiani 1980; Cozzani de Palmada 1997, 24). Finally, he tried to convince receiving countries to limit their claims on emigrants and their descendants. Mussolini asked Argentine representatives at the 1927 Inter-Parliamentary Conference in Paris to prevent Italian emigrants and their children from acquiring Argentine nationality. Keen to affiliate European newcomers and constrained by a jus soli nationality policy, the Argentines declined the request, and Mussolini retaliated by restricting migration to Argentina (De Felice and Belleri Damiani 1979). Eventually, the fascists took the first steps toward synchronizing policies with sending countries; thus in 1938 Italy and Argentina signed an agreement concerning military service.20 All of these measures constituted aggressive attempts by Italy to embrace Italians and their children abroad. The same organizations that had tried to embrace migrants before the First World War persisted in their efforts. However, by the second and third decades of the twentieth century, Argentine schools were rapidly gaining ground with the children of immigrants if for no other reason than that they

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were free and parents viewed them as a way for their children to integrate more easily. In the Spanish case, officials viewed the notion of hispanidad as a soft way to maintain ties to emigrants while not threatening ideas of Argentineness. Hispanidad was an ideology that emerged in the aftermath of the 1898 debacle and emphasized historical, cultural, and affective ties that linked the old colonial metropolis and young Latin American republics into a state-transcending community. The motherland, Spain, was at the head of this community, and the Catholic faith provided the crucial cohesive element. Francisco Franco gave concrete form to this ideology through the Council of Hispanicity (more on this in Chapter 2; cf. Gomez-Escalonilla 1991). Conclusion: The Effectiveness of Citizenship Policy and Its Legacies Attempts to legally and affectively embrace migrants as citizens were rarely effective in the short run and in the ways envisioned by policy makers. Argentine officials worried that, despite the generous membership provisions of the constitution and the 1869 citizenship law, few immigrants were naturalizing.21 Descent-based nationality policies of sending countries did not result in their ability to maintain links to conationals abroad. Italian policy makers recognized that an unanticipated consequence of 1865 Civil Code provisions was an all too easy loss of citizenship among (male) compatriots abroad, affecting both them and their dependent family members. Before the 1920s, Spanish officials noted with alarm how easily poor migrants could lose their citizenship. Finally, migrants and their children found spaces at the interstices of sending- and receiving-country laws to practice an elusive citizenship: they selected state affiliation in consideration of its costs and benefits. The children of immigrants born in Argentina were Argentines by virtue of birthplace nationality policy, but they could claim a parental citizenship to avoid a very onerous military service burden. In a parental homeland, they could avoid obligations by claiming Argentine citizenship. In the long run, however, descent-based policies combined with their documentary traces set the stage for persistent ties to ancestral homelands like Italy and Spain. In this sense, jus sanguinis policies achieved policy makers’ goal of maintaining ties to immigrants and their descendants. But again, this achievement is mitigated by the creation of citizenship options for thoroughly



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integrated Argentines of European origin, who at a time of changing economic tides have strategically adopted ancestral homeland nationalities. These moves have unforeseen implications for both politics and identity. The chapters that follow examine in greater detail the citizenship options available to Argentines because of the policies that emerged from the scramble for citizens described in this chapter as well as the unanticipated effects of these options. In the next chapter, I demonstrate how migration and citizenship policies in the aftermath of the Second World War set the stage for contemporary citizenship options, how a political and economic reversal of fortunes made these options relevant, and how this resulted in a reconfiguration of political membership.

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Citizenship Reconfigured

A

s states competed to make and keep citizens of the same people, the changes they made in immigration and nationality law as well as in administrative practices opened multiple pathways to citizenship. At the time of our interview, Adriana and Roque have an Argentine-born twomonth old daughter, but she already has Spanish citizenship thanks to her mother’s nationality. A child registered at the consulate by a Spanish parent is legally a “natural” Spaniard, notwithstanding birth abroad. Verónica, the architect whose story appears in the Introduction, goes through a drawn-out search for the elusive link to an ancestral homeland nationality only to find that, despite her many familial connections to Italy, her husband’s kinship ties to Galicia ultimately allow them to apply for Spanish citizenship. Domingo is a retiree and cab driver who reacquired his father’s Italian nationality as an adult. He now spends half the year in Buenos Aires and half in Milan. He maintains an address with a sister in Italy so that he can receive a modest pension from the Italian government. In these accounts, a verifiable kinship tie to a Spaniard or an Italian and a timely administrative procedure result in the acquisition or recognition of a second nationality. The more recent the emigration of ancestors from Spain or Italy, the more likely a person is to achieve a positive outcome to an application for these nationalities, mostly because more recent emigration generally means easier access to supporting papers. In this chapter, I examine the competition to make and keep citizens during and after the Second World War. In particular, I consider how immigration 62



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and nationality laws and practices that emerged in this competitive political environment have defined contemporary pathways to citizenship. The State’s Embrace and Its Blowback By the time Italian or Spanish migrants arrived in Argentina after the turn of the last century, they would have collected a number of documents from officials in their countries of origin: certificates of good conduct, proof that no debts or military service were owed, and travel documents like the Spanish cédula personal and the Italian passport. In Argentina, immigration officials demanding identity papers and health clearances would have met newcomers. Migrants’ names would have been entered in official arrival logs along with those of family members and information about the port of departure, steamship, and town and country of origin. When immigration officials had concerns about the health, morality, solvency, criminal history, or political allegiances of a new arrival, a substantial file would have been compiled. Immigrants would have been counted in Argentine censuses, and their Argentine-born children would have received birth certificates and military enrollment papers. Births, marriages, and deaths would have been registered by the Argentine Civil Registry, which gathered detailed information on parties to these life events. Keeping Spanish or Italian citizenship and any benefits for nationals abroad would have required additional contact with consular authorities. All of these encounters created a paper trail preserved in systems of files compiled and stored by bureaucrats. Official papers are a concrete expression of state efforts to make individuals their own. In this chapter I show how three states have made individuals available for official control, expose the assumption that official efforts to make individuals their own happen within discrete national containers, and examine the consequences of state efforts to make and manage citizens. Work by the late sociologist Charles Tilly (1990) has shown that a historically novel “direct rule” gave revolutionary leaders in France access to citizens’ lives through taxation, conscription, censuses, and police surveillance systems. Michael Mann (1993) has described citizenship as an aspect of the “caging” of people by national organizations, primarily through taxation and conscription. But how did individuals become available for conscription, taxation, and other forms of administration in the first place? What were the concrete mechanisms that made individuals available as citizens? Sociologist Anthony Giddens (1985) argues that states

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have made individuals available for administration through surveillance. The means of surveillance include the accumulation and storage of “coded information” that can be used to manage the individuals in question and the direct supervision of their activities by state agents. Surveillance, in the sense of collation, storage, and integration of information, has allowed state organizations to extend their reach around migrants and their children. French historian Gérard Noiriel (1996) has shown how “legal registration, identification documents, and laws” ultimately identify immigrants in France and make it possible for them to “become of the state” (Foucault 1982). Identification of individuals by a government has required both an organizational infrastructure (e.g., a national immigration service) to collect and store individuated information and specific techniques of identification like early forms of biometrics and fingerprinting.1 Historical sociologist John Torpey (2000) has argued that practices of identification expressed in official documents like the passport demonstrate how state organizations “embrace” individuals as their own. According to Torpey, states must first grasp or register individuals and their collectivities to penetrate them or lay hold of their resources. In embracing some individuals and shunning others, states also define who is and who is not a citizen. States’ selection of some individuals to the exclusion of others is a particularly important point in a world divided into nation-states. To make these distinctions states have used systems of files including passports and identity cards (see also Brubaker 1996, 30; and Garcelon 2001). The study of documents and associated procedures as well as of the laws that govern documentation and the organizations that put these laws into practice reveal the actual mechanisms by which state agents have defined and managed their citizens. It is especially fruitful to study migration laws, documentation, and procedures because migrants are often among the first to test the states’ embrace and frequently motivate further development of laws, identification practices, and related bureaucracies.2 Extending these arguments, I show in this chapter that while official efforts to embrace individuals have been largely successful from the vantage point of nation-state makers, they also constitute the basis of a nationality blowback. By this I mean that the very laws, papers, and practices that made it possible for states to legitimately control migrants and citizens in the past make it possible for their descendants to gain a second nationality and to elude states’ supposedly exclusive and enduring grasp. In the political and migratory field constituted by Italy, Spain, and Argentina, the descendants of past North-to-South migrants are able to make claims to European citizenship and potentially to reverse the



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ancestral migratory path. Applicants for a second citizenship are motivated by a reversal of the economic and political fortunes experienced by their forebears, but can only make claims to a second nationality because of the papers collected and stored by various agencies in Europe and in Argentina charged with controlling migration and nationality. Indeed, Adriana’s nationality status results from Spanish governments’ past efforts to maintain ties with her Galician parents, who migrated to Argentina in the 1940s and 1950s. Although born in Argentina, she is Spanish by birth because her parents registered her at the Spanish embassy when she was a newborn. Her daughter is Spanish by birth thanks to the same procedure. Domingo has been able to reacquire his father’s nationality because of records archived in Argentine and Italian official files. Verónica has pursued the European nationality for which she was able to find supporting documentation in official archives. Taking a long view of state efforts to nationalize and embrace individuals, I show that nationality can be reproduced as well as made among the descendants of migrants thanks to the archives that support their claims and to laws that have given these papers a central place as proof of ancestral state affiliations. From the perspective of historical receiving contexts like Argentina, nationality can also be reconfigured thanks to the gathering and storage of personal information over time. This range of possibilities is overlooked when the focus of sociological and policy analysis is short term and limited to countries of ongoing immigration with a tradition of jus soli membership policies. States’ efforts to identify and document the relationship with individuals have happened in a competitive context not unlike the one described in Chapter 1. Spanish, Argentine, and Italian officials carried out these efforts knowing that other states were similarly engaged. In the postwar period, the scramble to make citizens of migrants has been framed by new political, economic, and ideological interests that have had the practical effect of increasing encounters with state agents and the associated paper trail. In this chapter, I unfold my argument about the blowback of past migration and nationality laws and administrative practices by studying ideological, political, and economic factors at work immediately following World War II, a relatively brief but critical period of intense institutional competition; continuing the account of how policies and organizational efforts have fostered and maintained nationality since World War II; and examining a reversal of economic and political fortunes that has motivated new migration scenarios and policies that have fundamentally

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altered the quality of the tie between the countries studied in this book and their citizens. Determinants of Migration and Citizenship Immediately After World War II In the aftermath of World War II, Argentina, Italy, and Spain confronted challenges different from those of the nation-state formation period discussed in the previous chapter. The wartime roles of each country affected their place in the global system of states and, in the case of Italy and Spain, called into question their very survival as nation-states. Postwar challenges and some of the underlying economic and demographic developments called for considerable ideological work to legitimate, renew, and revive attachments to the nation in each setting. In view of the increase in postwar European migration levels (recall Figure 1.4; see Figure 2.1), political leaders had to grapple with and interpret its meaning, and state agents had to find a way to extend control over emigrants and immigrants. In this section, I give an account of each country’s migration history, ideological backdrop, and bureaucratic scenario to show how these contributed to an embrace by the state with far-reaching consequences. Argentina faced the challenge of meeting what its leaders considered an unrealized economic and political potential even as a policy of neutrality for most of World War II had made it suspect to the United States, Great Britain, and other Allies. 3 From the perspective of Juan Domingo Perón, who formally led the country between 1946 and 1955 but had been influential behind the scenes since the early 1940s, population growth was essential to the realization of Argentina’s economic and political potential. Policy makers and intellectuals had given careful thought to the possibility of postwar European migration. Debates that transpired during the First Population Congress in 1940 illustrate the ambivalence with which elites viewed postwar migration. On the one hand, they worried about low birthrates, an associated decline in demographic growth, a dearth of labor to fuel an anticipated industrial expansion, and Argentina’s ability to maintain sovereignty over its vast national territory (Museo Social Argentino 1941, 42; Solberg 1970; Zuloaga 1943, 311). On the other hand, a number of Argentine political and academic figures shared eugenic concerns about how a potential mass migration would affect the quality of the Argentine “race.” This framing of



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300,000

250,000

200,000

150,000

100,000

50,000

1938 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1948 1949 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975

0

FI GU R E 2 .1 Gross European Immigration to Argentina, 1938–1975 sources: República Argentina, Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores y Culto, Dirección Nacional de Migración 1998; Yáñez Gallardo 1994; Sánchez Alonso 1992; Ferenczi and Willcox 1929.

immigration’s effect on the Argentine population was challenged by another group of scholars at the conference who questioned the scientific legitimacy of what they viewed as antiquated eugenic notions. Still, conference participants mostly agreed that “Mediterranean” migration would make it easier to integrate newcomers. The immediate postwar period turned out to be relatively prosperous in Argentina and a time of renewed migration flows. In the five years after the war, per capita GDP rose steadily (Figure 2.2) (Barbero and Rocchi 2003, 265; Dorfman 1983, 60; Maddison 2003). Economic growth was based on an expansion of labor-intensive light industry. Government policies, exchange rates, full utilization of productive capacities, and the availability of resources to fuel growth in manufacturing created jobs and an economic conjuncture favorable to migration. The Argentine government hoped to attract 4 million foreigners between 1947 and 1951, preferably a “selective immigration, culturally assimilable and physically sound, rationally distributed and economically useful” (Perón 1947). Immigrant communities in Argentina reactivated migration chains by sending for their relatives in war-torn Europe, primarily Italy and Spain, who, not surprisingly, matched the preference for a migration

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20,000 18,000 16,000 14,000 12,000 10,000 8,000 6,000 4,000 2,000

19 46 19 4 19 8 50 19 52 19 54 19 56 19 58 19 60 19 62 19 64 19 6 19 6 6 19 8 70 19 72 19 74 19 76 19 78 19 80 19 82 19 84 19 86 19 8 19 8 90 19 92 19 94 19 96 19 98 20 00

0

FI GU R E 2 . 2 Per Capita GDP in Italy, Spain, and Argentina, 1946–2001 (1990

International Geary-Khamis dollars) source: Compiled with figures from Maddison 2003.

of “Latin” extraction. Argentines were so optimistic about the prospects for new migration that they made plans to purchase a fleet of ships to transport prospective Italian immigrants.4 During Perón’s tenure, 1.6 million Europeans arrived in Argentina, including just over six hundred thousand Italians and four hundred thousand Spaniards (see Figure 2.1). (República Argentina, Oficina Sectorial de Recursos Humanos 1974). Italy and Spain confronted challenges to the very viability of their respective national projects. The war against the Allies had decimated Italy’s infrastructure and economy. Its territorial integrity was threatened with the loss of holdings in the North (Trieste) and in Africa (Albónico 1992). Moreover, Italy held a tenuous position in the international community of nations due to its wartime role as an Axis country during Benito Mussolini’s disastrous regime. The country urgently needed jobs, capital, and trade, but its precarious geopolitical position made it difficult to reinstate past policies of commerce, colonization, and migration. Latin America, particularly Argentina, played an important role as a potential destination for desperate workers, a source of diplomatic support, and a prospective trade partner. Italians discussed emigration alternatively as a safety valve to relieve socioeconomic pressures at home (center and



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right-of-center political actors), and as a selfish abandonment of class struggle to pursue American wealth (actors on the left, particularly the General Italian Labor Confederation). Official entities were convinced that the emigration of 4 million people was needed to address national economic problems, including 2 million unemployed (Albónico 1992, 55; and Rosoli 1993, 343). Emigration would act to relieve socioeconomic pressures by matching people to jobs and would generate desperately needed remittances. Spain had been devastated by its Civil War (1936–1939), and in the postwar era it found itself isolated from the international community as a result of reactions to the Civil War, its alignment with fascist Italy, and its calculated resistance to joining the Allies. Spain’s postwar malaise served only to exacerbate previous blows to national pride and imaginings. In the span of a century, it had experienced the loss of colonies in a wave of revolutionary movements in Latin America, the devastating loss of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines, as well as the Civil War. In the 1940s, the country had scarce currency reserves, limited credit, and a dwindling number of willing trade partners. Throughout the 1940s, Spaniards periodically suffered the effects of food shortages, and political leaders worried about possible insurgency. Spain’s critical political and economic situation led many Spaniards to leave in search of work and daily sustenance, a practice that dictator Francisco Franco eyed with suspicion but also some resignation. Thus, while some Spanish nationalists may still have subscribed to notions of emigration as a hemorrhage of the national body, they also viewed it practically as a means of alleviating popular discontent. The presence of a large contingent of compatriots abroad—many of whom had the skills required of workers in Franco’s self-sufficient development scheme—was an affront to Spanish prestige. The loss of Spanish brawn and brain could, however, be ideologically reframed, and this is what Franco’s regime did by cultivating the ideology of hispanidad. The Ideological and International Relations Scramble In the postwar context, migration revived and intensified Italy, Spain, and Argentina’s struggle to control and affiliate the people who moved across their borders. This scramble is evident in migration-related treaties and in the ideological framing of departures and arrivals. As I noted earlier, Argentina favored Spanish and Italian immigrants because that country saw them as easily assimilable to the emergent Argentine nation and because it needed them as workers in the postwar boom. In contrast, Argentina did not favor

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immigration by other Europeans of the period (Central European Jews and “Russians”) nor migrants from neighboring Southern Cone countries. The country demonstrated its preferences in several ways. Diplomatically, Argentina maintained relations and signed treaties with these favored countries despite international opposition. Despite Italy’s postwar stigma, Argentina entered into commercial and emigration accords with this country in 1947 and 1948.5 Postwar Republican Italy found itself in a difficult position in the international arena and particularly in its ability to negotiate emigration and nationality policies with Latin American countries. It had to tread lightly in diplomatic exchanges with Latin America lest the North Americans think it still harbored expansionist ambitions or was forging new alliances. On the other hand, Italy needed and received Latin American support in the United Nations to avoid losing territorial holdings in Trieste and in Africa. Two distinctive features of postfascist Italian policy toward Latin America were a renunciation of imperial aspirations and framings of emigration, and a favorable stance toward labor migration. The emigration accords signed with Argentina in 1947, 1948, and 1957 attest to Italy’s difficult negotiating position and to a particular political and institutional domestic conjuncture. Although there was considerable posturing on both sides of the negotiating table, Italian negotiators, aware of high unemployment rates and a potentially conflictive political and social situation, wanted to reach an agreement. One dispute centered on the “interventionist” cast of an Argentine state delegation that came with a mandate to select a certain type of emigrant. According to the Italian delegation, the selection of potential emigrants should be the responsibility of competent Italian organizations (Rosoli 1993, 364). Negotiators also debated applicable work contracts and whose shipping industry would benefit from the business of transporting migrants. The terms and nature of these negotiations reflect the advantage Argentine negotiators held in framing discussions of migration. Spanish negotiators, taking note of Argentina’s strategic advantage over Italy, were able to use this knowledge to gain more beneficial terms. In 1946, the Argentines signed a bilateral trade agreement with Franco’s unpopular regime despite objections from the United Nations. Juan Bramuglia, the Argentine foreign minister, pleaded Spain’s case before other countries mostly on pragmatic grounds (República Argentina, Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores y Culto 1947). In the 1946 Convenio Comercial y de Pagos, Argentina committed to exporting a minimum of four hundred thousand



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metric tons of wheat in 1947, and three hundred thousand in 1948, as well as large quantities of corn and edible oils (see Banco Central de la República Argentina 1945; Rein 1990; Schwarzstein 2001, 185). For Spain, the terms of trade were very generous and would not require it to draw on scarce foreign currency reserves to pay for cereals. Its exhausted credit line was extended from 350 million to 1,750 million pesos. In turn, Spain committed to exporting iron, sheet metal, lead, cork, other railroad and shipyard materials, and ship-building contracts and to begin payment on four years of accumulated debts with Argentina. Spain ceded rights for the establishment of a free trade zone in Cádiz, where Argentine products could be stored and distributed to Western European clients. Under the terms of this agreement, Spain became Argentina’s fourth-largest trading partner by 1948. The arrangement with Spain dovetailed with Perón’s plans to industrialize Argentina, foster greater economic independence from Britain and the United States, and to assume a leadership role in Latin America. In addition, Spanish workers contemplated in the agreement were precisely the type of immigrant the Argentines envisioned could help with the country’s economic modernization plan (AIEN 1948–1951). Discursive struggles to define migrants and their relationship to their countries of origin and destination seethed behind these commercial and immigration agreements. Franco’s regime cultivated the ideology of hispanidad (Hispanicity), which portrayed Spain as leader of a territorially transcendent community of nations linked by language, religion, history, and culture.6 Hispanicity tried to reconcile threats to Spain’s prestige in the international community with nationalist aspirations and tenets. In particular, Hispanicity challenged the United States’ hegemony in Ibero-America and the existence of large anti-Falangist emigrant communities in Argentina, Brazil, and Cuba (Gomez-Escalonilla 1991, 8). The agenda of Hispanicity was directed not only against the claims of receiving countries like Argentina, but also against the perceived usurper of Spain’s rightful place in Latin America, the United States. The Hispanic-American Cultural Association and then the Council of Hispanicity became Franco’s organizational instruments in the promotion of hispanidad. These organizations initiated overt cultural strategies to claim members for a virtual political community. A destination of millions of Spanish emigrants and among the few countries that did not sever diplomatic ties with Francoist Spain, Argentina was the focus of particularly strenuous efforts at community building. From the perspective of Hispanicity, the departure of Spaniards to

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“Ibero-America” was no longer a threat to Spain’s nationness since emigrants were settling within the territorially transcendent community. Perón’s understanding and deployment of hispanidad was no less tactical. He used distinct framings to alternatively stress closeness to Spain and Italy and Italians depending on the state of relations with each country. The rhetoric of hispanidad underscored points of coincidence with Spain and especially Franco’s particular version of cultural community. Latinidad (Latinness) was a broader term that encompassed Italians and hence promoted the prevailing Argentine notion of a nation formed from Southern European stock. Perón embarked on a project to foster political-economic independence through industrial development and to modernize Argentina by breaking with liberalism (too oriented toward Britain and France as far as Perón was concerned), without succumbing to American hegemony. He had a limited repertoire of nationalist frames with which to legitimize this effort. There was no glorious indigenous past to lay hold of, as in Peru and Mexico, although anthropologists at the National Ethnographic Institute tried to provide materials for the construction of such a history. On the contrary, a central feature of nation making in the 1870s and 1880s had been to define Argentines as those under the state’s purview, the “civilized,” and against those outside the frontier of state control, “los indios,” or the “uncivilized.”7 European immigrants fit the bill as “civilized” in the particular sense used by political elites and had come in large numbers. Perón opted to emphasize hispanidad as a sense of linguistic, biological, and cultural origins held in common by Argentines and their ancestral, primarily European homelands. Whereas Spanish discourse on hispanidad predated Franco but continued to be deployed for decades (and in modified form is still used today), Perón’s use of the notion was short-lived. A generalized antipathy toward Franco’s Spain across various broad sectors of Argentine society, including official circles, meant that hispanidad did not have the resonance Perón expected. Further, the Spanish deployment of this notion often rankled Latin American sensibilities. Perón offered various justifications for the special relationship with Spain, including a distinction between the Spanish people and their government. Spanish diplomats were painfully aware of the general dislike for the Franco regime and warned Madrid about the disjuncture between Perón’s position and that of most other sectors of Argentine society.8 Shortly after the Peronist triumph in 1946, the Spanish ambassador in Argentina warned his superiors about a widespread animosity toward Spain:



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Neither the intellectual, shaped by French influences, nor the professional trained in North America or Paris, nor the rancher (rich owners of Spanish and primarily Basque origin, with long years of residence in Paris or London), nor Radical politicians (from the league of men’s rights), nor the conservative (although with rare exceptions) . . . , or much less the socialist, communist or progressive democrats are Spanish lovers. (Rein 1990, 6)

Raanan Rein (1990, 7) cites a high-ranking diplomat who conveyed this situation to Madrid: Even within this nation’s regime, those who view Spain sympathetically are a small fraction of the dominant party . . . the great mass of the Peronist party in its diverse hues and factions is, if not the enemy of, at least completely indifferent to the “Cause of Spain,” and to its plight as a world problem . . . and the clearest proof is in the tone of the official press of the party, very hostile in its information and editorial about us.

Cordial relations among heads of state were short-lived in the postwar period. Spain’s efforts to establish ties with the United States in 1949 initiated a process that would strain relations between Buenos Aires and Madrid. By the time Spanish debts were coming due, a low-intensity conflict had erupted in relations between the two countries.9 On the symbolic front, the Peronist administration and the Argentine press complained that Spaniards did not respect central historical figures like Jose de San Martín, whose death was commemorated in 1950. For their part, Spanish authorities conceded that it was difficult to honor a man responsible for the loss of many Spanish colonies. In another instance, the Argentine press reacted strongly to comments made by Spanish diplomats in Washington about the historical role of Spain in the development of American republics. Such comments were routinely made in Spanish conferences and publications, but the Argentine press was apparently primed for this confrontation and exposed Spain’s “hidden ambitions of tutelage in Latin America.” The Argentine press admonished Spain to remember its debt to Argentina for food shipments during and after the war, rather than the period of colonialism. Further, Argentine commentators rejected Spain’s use of terms like “Spanish America” or “Ibero-America” in favor of “Latin America.” The Spanish press reacted strongly in an article entitled “Nationalist hypertrophy in Argentina.” The writer roundly criticized excessive nationalism in Argentina and defended claims about the role of Spain in Latin America’s development as a simple matter of fact. This

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was the first overt criticism by the Franco-controlled press of Argentina and Peronism. The publication of the Peronist administration’s Second Five-Year Plan also became an occasion for conflict. In a section on culture, the plan promoted the creation of an “essentially national culture,” and in particular called for the development of an Argentine literature with its distinctive linguistic guidelines. To this end, the plan proposed the creation of the National Academy of Language, an entity that would draft a national dictionary that included words from various regions of Argentina and Latin America. In his explanation of the plan to Congress, Minister Raúl Mendé underscored that language was the cornerstone of efforts to integrate national culture (see Rein 1991, 9). His thinking was that the Dictionary of the Royal Academy—the “official” dictionary of the Spanish-speaking world—did not reflect common Argentine usages. Just as the Central Bank, a Peronist creation, supervised the country’s currency, so would the National Academy supervise the Republic’s conventional language. The emphasis on a national culture and especially the creation of a language academy enraged Spanish elites, and the press reacted with a series of articles strongly criticizing Argentina’s cultural nationalism. Peronist historiography also reflected a shift away from hispanidad. In the party manual edited in 1948 at the height of cordial relations between Spain and Argentina, the term Spanish period was recommended over colonial period. By 1952, the Peronist party manual described the violence, exploitation, and abuse of Spanish colonial conquests (indeed, it was a revival of the Black Legend), but made no explicit mention of Spain as the motherland and provider of civilization, language, religion, and traditions (as had been common in the past). As I suggested earlier, the ease and speed with which Perón moved away from hispanidad as an ideological support for a nationalizing project may be explained by disillusionment with Spain’s overtures toward the United States. Such a relationship threatened economic and political ties as expressed in the 1946 commercial agreement and the 1948 Perón-Franco Accord. The relationship between the United States and Spain also threatened Perón’s ambitions to establish a “nonaligned” movement of nations. When Spain signed an agreement with the United States and Spanish diplomats issued a statement condemning nonaligned, or “third position,” countries, Peron’s anger erupted. He allowed a media attack on Franco toward the end of 1954, took on the Catholic Church, and fielded a new concept around which to build Argentineness. These moves



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represented the unceremonious jettisoning of hispanidad and were perhaps the best indicator of the tenor of Argentine-Spanish relations. Beginning in 1954, Perón decided that latinidad would be at the core of his national homogenizing project. Latinidad, a much broader notion than hispanidad, could appeal to Spanish and Italian immigrants in Argentina. It could also highlight cultural ties to Europe without being identified with a particular regime (i.e., Franco’s). Research by anthropologists of the Argentine National Ethnic Institute and the proceedings of the First Population Conference suggested that latinidad resonated with elites as well. The appeal of latinidad across Latin America could serve Argentine ambitions to become a leader in the region. At this point, the Peronist administration began to cultivate its relationship with Italy and the Italian community in Argentina. In speeches and public acts, Perón extolled Italy’s place in Argentine history and a common latinidad. In several speeches he infuriated the Spaniards by praising Italy’s generous assistance during the mid-1940s and contrasting it to the ungrateful behavior of “other” allies who had received so much more from Argentina. For instance, in a speech before Italian emigrants, Perón introduced himself as an Argentine citizen whose remote origins were to be found in Italy and touted strong bonds with Italy: “Italy represents for us the only heir to the only civilization that currently guides our lives. To renounce latinidad in favor of any other label would be to betray ourselves. I will spare no effort to make our unity with Italy stronger and deeper because I know this is to obey the mandate of History.”10 Local Italian organizations were content to receive this sort of official acknowledgment, though Italian diplomats were very ambivalent about Perón: they could not precisely identify his political leanings, and they suspected him because of his alleged fascist inclinations. In addition, although Republican Italy had benefited from Perón’s support and recognition, it had to tread lightly in the domain of international relations lest its alliances be construed as betraying colonial aspirations or as questioning the role of the United States in world politics. Latinidad had considerable resonance and popularity by the early 1940s, although it receded as a cultural frame with the fall of Perón in 1955.11 The Peronist educational agenda included latinidad from early on and impressed it on a generation of Argentines who came to see Italy and Spain as relatives in the community of nations. In addition, the organizational working out of these notions impacted migration and nationality law, as I show below.

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Competition over migrants’ membership persisted and carried over into the immediate postwar period, albeit with a different rhetoric. Franco’s government astutely used a cultural-ideological strategy to maintain and extend ties to Spaniards abroad and their children from a relatively weak position. This cultural campaign allowed Spain to reconcile its nationalist project and belief in population as strength with the hard realities of emigration and international isolation. In addition, it responded to what in Franco’s view were overt challenges to Spain’s claims on Spaniards abroad. Italians acquiesced to Perón’s framing of latinidad as the basis for close bilateral relations and migration but with great caution. These discursive definitions of the relationship among countries were often about the membership of the people who moved among them and were worked out organizationally and in law. Legal and Organizational Competition over Citizens In the immediate aftermath of World War II, the scramble to control and to affiliate people who migrated from Italy and Spain to Argentina is also evident in the legal and organizational regulation of migration. The starting point for migration laws and implementing bureaucracies was not the same in the postwar period as it was at the start of flows in the mid-nineteenth century or on their resumption after World War I. By the time of World War I, Argentina, Italy, and Spain had largely established migration as a legitimate domain of governmental control.12 Between the wars, Italy and Argentina especially had increased administrative control over migrants and citizens, while Spain had done the same until its Civil War. While the global conflagration had obviously affected the geopolitical status of these countries and their control of migration and nationality, some practices persisted. In this section, I examine how in the postwar years these countries continued to exert control over migrants and nationals abroad by means of laws and regulations, as well as through governmental organizations. I also show how encounters with these bureaucracies left a paper trail that, when the fortunes of these countries reversed, allowed the children of migrants to ask for the recognition of Spanish and Italian citizenship. Argentina Argentina maintained its regulatory structure and increased its organizational one especially after failed efforts to reform immigration law. During Perón’s first term, officials in the relevant ministries maintained the view that Law 817/1876 was outdated. It failed to consider new means of transportation and



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communication, and it did not account for forms of travel previously not distinguished from immigration (e.g., tourism). More importantly, its authors could not have foreseen a situation in which what contemporary leaders viewed as a demographic desert had been populated with newcomers of such diverse origins that a new “race” had emerged in the Argentine “crucible of nations.” Nor could they have foreseen the new world created by two world wars: unspeakable horrors in Europe, and a wave of newcomers who could potentially destabilize the synthesis of difference they thought they had achieved. For these reasons, policy makers agreed it was necessary to foster a spontaneous but selective migration. Debates revolved around acceptable criteria for these selections, especially in the wake of Nazism. Positions ranged from outright racist exclusions to cultural assimilationist and skill-based criteria for immigrant selection. At the racist end of the spectrum, Study Committee No. 6, which met in 1946 to discuss proposed changes to immigration policy, advised that “the entry of immigrants of color should be prohibited, in particular blacks from Africa and Asiatics of the yellow race.”13 The committee represented military positions on immigration and included influential members such as high-ranking military officials and Santiago Peralta Ramos, director of the National Immigration Service (November 1945–June 1947) and the Instituto Étnico Nacional (National Ethnic Institute, or IEN). Perón’s first administration had charged the IEN with determining the character of “Argentine,” which had emerged from the fusion of previous immigrant flows with natives and Afro-Argentines, as well as the corresponding “best” postwar immigrant. The committee also maintained that Argentina should restrict the entry of nationals and “collectivities” that had demonstrated poor adaptability or assimilability, like the English and especially Jews. Peralta (1943) had indeed written a book on the “negative effects” of the “Jewish People” on Argentina. His extreme views had become known globally, and so the Chicago Defender reported that Peralta hoped to select the “best racial types” from “technically superior people of the world” to shape the “superior Argentine of tomorrow” (August 24, 1946, p. 13, col. 3). The Argentine public disapproved of Peralta’s racist views, although the average person continued to think of the typical Argentine as unquestionably white.14 A confluence of domestic interagency politics left Peralta without allies and at the head of a relatively powerless organization, and Perón’s postwar efforts to improve Argentina’s international image made Peralta vulnerable to widespread criticisms and dismissal in 1947 (for a full account, see Biernat and Ramacciotti 2011, 5–6).

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The Study Committee thought preference should instead be for Europeans, and particularly Spaniards and Italians, who because they had already come in great numbers had demonstrated their ability to assimilate. Preferably immigrants would also be Roman Catholic and literate; in addition, they would possess skills necessary for the Argentine labor market. The committee proposed quotas to capture their preferences and dislikes, but its recommendations came to naught with the departure of Peralta in 1947. Peralta’s removal cleared the way for a more universalist tone in policy discussions in preparation for a new constitutional framework, although Argentine elites clearly continued to assume the desirability of whiteness among prospective immigrants. Records of the 1950 Drafting Committee and the text of the 1951 immigration reform bill show a shift away from particularistic criteria like those proposed by Peralta but a continued emphasis on cultural affinity and assimilability, an attitude common in immigration legislation in the Americas at the time (FitzGerald and Cook-Martín, in preparation).15 These would-be reformers stressed suitability to perform particular work and assimilability, but they did not specify preferred origins of would-be immigrants.16 Inés Valeira, representing the executive, cited the Peronist Ley de Bases (section 2) and its reference to the desired characteristics of immigration: spontaneous (rather than state-driven), selected, and directed to meet national needs. She noted that, since these criteria conflict, a new immigration law should not mention them but should seek to fulfill them through administrative discretion. It is clear from the Annals of the IEN, however, that the government preferred migration of a “Mediterranean” type, primarily Italians and Spaniards. Bureaucratic Discretion: Immigration Policy by Decree and Resolution Debates to reform the 1876 Law of Immigration and Colonization (Law 817) had come to nothing by 1950, and immigration policy lapsed into the bureaucratic discretionary mode that had been the practice since 1916 and that Valeira’s comments recognized. The archives of the Secretaria Técnica de la Nación (Technical Secretariat of the Nation, STN) attest to how the Peronist administrations continued a long-standing practice of policy by decree and administrative resolution, one that arguably continued until the military reformed immigration law in the early 1980s. The STN was an office that counseled the president, made final decisions on all migration-related appeals, and could



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intervene in routine administrative decisions at the executive’s will. The significance of this policy by decree and resolution becomes clear in an analysis of STN records, which reveal important shifts not readily apparent at the level of formal legislation and the loose interpretation of existing norms like Law 817 and its regulatory decrees. As discussed earlier, Law 817 charged the Argentine government with promoting European immigration but contained no formal exclusions based on racial or ethnic criteria. Immigration officials in the immediate aftermath of World War II took great pains to show they did not select immigrants based on racial-ethnic considerations but rather on profession, health, education, and customs: “It is true that in principle there is no limit on the number of immigrants that can enter our country, and much less so in consideration of their race, religion or nationality. In this respect, Argentina has preferred a system of selection premised on the characteristics of each immigrant, which are always determined by the greater or lesser aptitude for assimilation into our context and customs” (AGN Boxes 548–49). Since officially Argentina disavowed ethnicity as a means of determining immigrant entry, officials would have to explain the exclusion of individuals based on regional origins. One such instance happened in 1952, when the legal counsel to the STN denied the appeal for reconsideration of a Romani family that had been barred from entry. In his resolution, the STN attorney mistakenly cited the 1916 Regulatory Decree discussed earlier to justify this exclusion but again focused on the lifestyle of panhandling and likelihood that the family would become wards of the state (Resolution 552/1952; AGN Box 543). In another case, nationals from Soviet bloc countries were excluded along with “Israelites” who did not fall into existing agreements with the Argentine Jewish Society. A number of individual files show that, while the officials cited ideological grounds in many cases, many of those excluded were of Jewish origin. In all instances, officials referred not to the ethnicity of appellants but rather to existing agreements and former policies. Officials and policy makers showed a clear preference, however, for Italians and Spaniards in contrast to other prospective immigrants, who were thought to be less likely to assimilate. This preference issued from Perón’s sponsoring of efforts to determine the “real ethnic state of the state” (AGN Box 547, Part 1, p. 34). To this end he proposed the founding of the Instituto Étnico Nacional, which happened in early 1947, initially under the direction of German-trained Santiago Peralta Ramos. The overarching goal of the IEN was to understand the “human type” that had emerged from eighty years of large-scale European

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immigration. Its objective was the “holistic study of the Republic’s population, and of the bases on which it rests” (AGN Box 547, “Antecedentes para la Política Inmigratoria, Comisión de Estudios No. 6”). Collectively, the studies reported in the Annals of the IEN recommended that immigration recruitment efforts should target the “Mediterranean racial type” prevalent in earlier migrations. This language referred directly to Italians and Spaniards, who in the view of editors and contributors showed the greatest potential for assimilation (AIEN 1949, 21). Perón had no doubt that new waves of immigrants would be fused into the new “Argentine race” through the crucible of races (crisol de razas) that the country had become (Perón 1952). This framing of desired migration was informed by eugenicist notions of improving the country’s stock but was vague enough to fit nicely with notions of cultural assimilability that were by then part of the new hemispheric consensus. Several organizations founded by Perón’s administration sought to put this vision of Argentina into practice. The Argentine Immigration Delegation in Europe (DAIE) was to receive applications from potential migrants, select appropriate candidates, and issue the relevant entry permits. The DAIE’s first office was established in Rome, where most of its work took place (República Argentina 1955). Its success in selecting and directing immigrants is arguable, since most of those who migrated did so in response to “call letters,” a longstanding mechanism in Argentine immigration policy that allowed for family members in Argentina to bring relatives from their homeland. The agency may have been more important in facilitating transportation and providing information to immigrants who otherwise would still have come. It also served as a first “filter” against unwanted immigrants, since it vetted applicants who had no close family relations in Argentina. In its later years, the DAIE worked with the Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration to place refugees whom the Argentines viewed as immigrants. The National Reception and Placement Committee placed migrants in the Argentine labor market after they were selected by the DAIE. The DAIE and the Reception and Placement Committee were organizationally a part of the Argentine Institute for the Promotion of Trade, which was in turn a part of the Argentine Central Bank, but both answered directly to the National Technical Secretariat through the National Migration Service. This last organization (formerly the Dirección General de Inmigración) thus reported directly to the president, and during the Peronist years, often to First Lady Eva Perón (AGN Box 543). The centralization of migrant selection and admission functions shows the



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importance assigned them by the executive. The expansion of organizations also meant that there were more points of contact with immigrants, which in turn generated more residual paperwork. Citizenship law was an important second dimension in Argentina’s stateand nation-building project that would capitalize on the arrivals of the “right kind” of immigrant. To this end, the Constitution of 1949 introduced a significant change in naturalization. It essentially instituted a policy of automatic naturalization similar to that which the Italians and Spaniards had vehemently opposed in the Brazilian case of the late nineteenth century. According to Article 31, “foreigners will automatically acquire nationality after 5 continuous years of residence barring a willful expression to the contrary.” This policy confirmed in Italian and Spanish eyes the predatory intent of Argentine immigration measures, leading to resentment and countermeasures. Spain In the Spanish case, the administration of citizenship during and after the Civil War became a means to control exiled dissenters, but also other Spaniards abroad. The Service of Registries and Notaries, or DGRN, a governmental agency with broad administrative discretion in matters of nationality, issued resolutions that were an important tool in regulating citizenship. Vague provisions of the 1889 Spanish Civil Code concerning Spaniards abroad and their nationality created the space for administrative discretion. Building on a 1922 Royal Order that required an explicit and officially registered renunciation of nationality abroad from emigrants who took on another nationality, DGRN resolutions in the 1940s made it difficult for emigrants to lose Spanish nationality.17 Franco’s regime used this as a strategy to keep close tabs on the opposition that had settled primarily in Latin American countries. The DGRN resolution of February 15, 1944, maintained that “now that a political emigration has joined a natural emigration, it does not seem fitting that the Spanish state should allow or authorize the loss of nationality among those politicians since by doing so it would exempt them from obligations to the Patria and it would lose its rightful prerogative to demand responsibilities when circumstances so merit.” However, the administration of citizenship did not distinguish “natural” from “political” emigrants, and thus the strategy effectively controlled all Spaniards abroad. Since the international state system required that all individuals belong to a state, the membership laws of which were to be respected by other states or some resolution found regarding

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cases of statelessness or dual nationality, Spaniards abroad would have to subject themselves to the Spanish state and its consular representatives especially when host countries did not easily grant citizenship. Even when Spaniards abroad made application for another citizenship, the procedure would have required paperwork that only the Spanish consular officials could issue, and it disproportionately affected poor young men. The Spanish Civil Code required all Spanish emigrants who wanted to maintain their nationality to register at the Spanish consulate in their host country (Reino de España 1962, Article 25). A regulation of this article states that “consuls will strive to provide probative documents to emigrants who arrive in foreign countries and who wish to conserve their nationality” (Martínez Alcubilla 1892, 42–43). While these measures were in force, emigrants needed certificates of nationality to assert their rights or to receive consular services. These certificates cost money and required yearly renewal (Article 57 in Consular Tariffs of May 16, 1929; Martínez Alcubilla 1929, 382). Also, these certificates required registration with the DGRN. While the impact of these administrative practices on Spaniards abroad varied significantly by class and gender (Cook-Martín 2006), what is critical for this discussion is that these requirements created the paper trail in both Argentine and Spanish bureaucracies that contemporary applicants can pick up. Spanish policy after 1922 required that the interested male party register the loss of nationality with the DGRN; for women, marriage was an expression of will that entailed acceptance of loss of citizenship and acquisition of a husband’s nationality. An informant discussed in Chapter 3, who complains that his grandfather became an Argentine citizen and thus precluded the recovery of Spanish nationality for relatives, knows that this is the case only because of the paper trail left by the grandfather with the Argentine Civil Registry and the Spanish DGRN. Italy Formally, Italian emigration and nationality policy did not change much in the postwar period, but as noted earlier, political leaders forfeited imperial aspirations implicit in the view of emigration as colonization and took a pragmatic view of labor emigration so long as Italian workers’ rights were protected. On the nationality front, Italian politicians reexamined and condemned fascist policy toward communities of Italians abroad but proposed no formal changes even though many Italians in Argentina and elsewhere had expressed an interest in naturalizing without losing Italian citizenship



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(Albónico 1992, 7). The Citizenship Law of 1912 was still in effect and precluded the possibility of dual nationality. High-level Italian diplomats pondered two possibilities: to change the law through parliamentary procedures they thought inopportune or to ignore the problem. They considered not opposing Perón’s assimilatory advances, since Italy’s national interests would be better served by having highly placed Argentines of Italian descent than by having disempowered Italians abroad. Proposed Argentine provisions for automatic naturalization would need to be studied so that an expedited administrative procedure could ease the reacquisition of Italian citizenship. Italian emigration and nationality policy was, in brief, a faithful reflection of Italy’s precarious postwar status. This may explain why the final resolution of conflicting nationality demands on Italian Argentines did not happen until 1971 (see República Argentina, Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores y Culto 1971). It was then that Argentina and Italy signed an agreement maintaining that their citizens by birth could acquire the other country’s citizenship without losing birth nationality. Italian and Argentine laws would never apply to these dual-nationals simultaneously, and their political rights would apply only in the country of residence (Repubblica Italiana 1973). The long-standing problem of women’s dependent nationality was not resolved until 1975 (Repubblica Italiana 1975). Reversed Fortunes, New Migrations, and Changing Laws The fortunes of Argentina, Italy, and Spain changed dramatically beginning in the 1950s and altered subsequent dynamics of membership. Indeed, their positions in the international economy and state system were reversed. Following World War II and with considerable help from its post-1943 allies, Italy set off on a remarkable journey of industrial transformation that led to its current position among the top economies of the West. In 1959, Italy’s per capita GDP surpassed that of Argentina for the first time since 1918, and these countries’ industrial growth paths have not crossed since then (see Figure 2.2). Spain’s reinsertion into the U.S.-led community of nation-states after 1951 was reflected in its own economic miracle. In 1974, it too surpassed Argentina’s production levels, and the gap has not been closed since then. By the mid-1980s, Italy and Spain were among the most vibrant economies of an energized European Union, and for the first time became countries of positive net migration. Newcomers from

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Northern Africa, Eastern Europe, and Latin America have added a degree of heterogeneity formerly unknown in these countries. Despite various crises, Italy has remained a democratic republic since 1946, and Spain a parliamentary monarchy since shortly after Francisco Franco’s death in 1975. In contrast to this political-economic trajectory, Argentina experienced democratic administrations and political stability intermittently after Domingo Perón’s 1955 removal by the military. Economically, its fortunes declined significantly between 1969 and the early 1990s. Argentina became a debtor to, among others, Italy and Spain (República Argentina 2005; Siegrist de Gentile and Argentina, Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores y Culto, Archivo 1997). After a period of growth between 1991 and 1997, the country experienced a severe economic and political crisis beginning in December 2001. Since the late 1950s, many Argentines have decided to vote with their feet by leaving in search of better opportunities in Spain, Italy, and the United States (Lattes, Comelatto, and Levit 2003). Notwithstanding the exodus especially after 2001, a significant number of Spanish and Italian citizens remain in Argentina, and the country has also become a destination for migrants from countries that neighbor it. The changes in the international economic pecking order and related migration flows have been accompanied by laws and administrative practices through which each country has sought to maintain or recover ties with its putative members and their children. In this section, I examine recent migratory flows from Argentina and to Spain and Italy, as well as changes in migration and nationality law. The competitive dynamics described in earlier chapters are still operative, but countries face the dilemma of writing laws in a migratory context at odds with past conceptions of nationhood. A “Nation of [European] Immigration” Becomes an Emigration State In both popular and scholarly imaginings Argentina has been a nation of European immigration. This Argentine myth has long obscured the reality of an immigrant presence from neighboring countries that has consistently hovered between 2 and 3 percent of the total population (Benencia 2003). More recently, migration from bordering countries has gained greater social visibility due to its growth as a proportion of all foreigners, even as the stock of Europeans has declined, the nationalities represented have changed, and migrants have moved from border areas to urban centers. Whereas Uruguayan migrants historically dominated these flows, Paraguayans have constituted the main group since the



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middle of the twentieth century, followed by Bolivians since the 1990s. These last two groups occupy the lowest rungs in Argentina’s ethnoracial hierarchy, and their increased visibility has shaken the ideal of Argentina as an unquestionably white European enclave in Latin America, which underlies the hegemonic national myth. Alejandro Grimson (2006, 70) argues that these shifts are also linked to a key sociocultural change: the ethnic visibility regime in Argentina is altered from one in which diversity had been hidden to one in which difference is hypervisible. The global context for this change is one of greater debates about multiculturalism and “minority” recognition. In Argentina, this debate has resulted in, among other developments, a mobilization of indigenous, black, and European-origin identifications. Like other countries in Latin America, Argentina has also become a source of migration to more developed countries like the United States and, more recently, to Europe. In a Latin American migratory context of low transatlantic and intraregional migration, as well as declining fertility, scholars and policy makers have worried about a loss of human capital with attendant negative consequences for economic and social development (Bajraj 2003). Brain drain, political exile, and economic crisis have played critical motivating roles in the departure of Argentines for several decades and have been scholarly concerns since the 1960s, although there has been significant Argentine emigration—primarily wives and children of foreign immigrants—since the early twentieth century (Lattes, Comelatto, and Levit 2003). The first wave of postwar emigrants comprised primarily highly skilled and trained intellectuals or professionals, and migration was a strategy carried out with considerable planning and organization (Schneider 2000; Zuccotti 1987, 33–40). Beginning in the 1960s, emigration had its origins in traumatic political events like military coups and the ensuing repression. Since the return of democracy in 1983, migration has been linked to slow economic growth and falling wages. Over time, Argentine flows have become more diverse in their human capital profile. Migration networks have likely lowered the cost for less skilled workers, and economic woes have motivated the departure of workers who otherwise would have received a greater payoff for their human capital in their home country. The precise scope of emigration is difficult to estimate because the Argentine state, like other states, has kept limited data on departures and destinations as well as on the stock of Argentines abroad. Net migration figures show a growing number of departures that peaked in the first six years of the new millennium (Table 2.1) with the highest number of departures in 2005 (Table 2.2), four

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TABLE 2.1  Net Migrations of Argentines to International Destinations, 1950–2006 1950–1959

–75,543

1960–1969

–102,161

1970–1979

–198,308

1980–1989

–172,109

1990–1999

–203,309

2000–2006

–450,225

1950–2006

–1,201,655

source: Cook-Martín, Novick, and Mera, forthcoming.

years after the financial debacle of December 2001 and likely as a result of lagged visa emigration procedures. The negative migration balance between 2000 and 2006 is the largest in absolute numbers since the mid-twentieth century. However, these figures suggest a trend and do not speak to the actual number of Argentines abroad. The two main destinations of Argentine emigration—the United States and Spain—account for a half million Argentines, by a conservative estimate. The U.S. Census estimates that about two hundred thousand Argentines were in the United States in 2008 (American Factfinder), a number that likely underestimates a population that increased significantly in the aftermath of Argentina’s economic crisis and after its loss of favored-nation status in the U.S. visa waiver program, a situation that led many Argentines simply to overstay their existing visas. Argentines in Spain number about 270,000, according to municipal registration figures (INE 2006).18 The Argentine Ministry of Foreign Affairs calculates the number of Argentines living abroad in 2008 at 1.35 million, up from 960,000 in 2002. The socioeconomic profile of Argentine emigrants has changed significantly over the last few decades but primarily remains of a higher human capital than immigrants to Argentina and to other receiving countries. Especially in the wake of the political turmoil of the 1960s and 1970s, Argentine emigrants were highly educated and skilled relative to compatriots and to immigrants in receiving countries. Argentines in the United States are well educated relative to the general population: 32 percent have college or graduate degrees relative to 26 percent of natives (U.S. Census Bureau 2008). Walter Actis and Fernando Esteban (2006) note that Argentine migrants to Spain, until the recent crisisdriven emigration, have had higher-than-average educational attainment.



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TABLE 2.2  Arrivals and Departures of

Argentine Travelers via Ezeiza International Airport, Buenos Aires, 1999–2006 Year

Arrivals

Departures

Net

1999

1,539,077

1,540,390

–1313

2000

1,670,485

1,745,295

–74,810

2001

1,481,717

1,546,591

–64,874

2002

859,640

946,852

–87,212

2003

976,782

997,368

–20,586

2004

1,066,398

1,096,219

–29,821

2005

1,234,639

1,394,334

–159,695

2006

1,336,231

1,349,458

–13,227

source: Cook-Martín, Novick, and Mera forthcoming.

Recent migrants have lower levels of education than their European counterparts but are also below Brazilian, Cuban, and Chilean migrants to Spain. Preferential migration and nationality policies for the descendants of Spaniards in Argentina likely explain lower educational capital requirements. Still, procedures to obtain Spanish immigration or citizenship papers require considerable cultural capital and indicate middle-class backgrounds. Young professionals and students represent a sizable portion of potential emigrants to Spain still in Argentina (Novick 2007). In brief, while early Argentine flows to other countries have historically been associated with national and political events (military repression) and have comprised primarily scientists, intellectuals, and professionals, recent economically induced migration shows a greater diversity in human capital and the presence of tradespeople, technicians, and students. Concerns remain that the departure of this still self-selected population means that Argentina is losing to wealthier countries the resources it has invested in via its public education system. The most significant migration policy development in over a century has been the passage of the New Law of Migrations (No. 25,871/January 2004). This new law superseded the military era Law of Migrations and Immigration Promotion (No. 22439/1981), or Videla Law, named after the infamous head of the repressive junta and in effect since repealing the 1876 Law of Immigration and Colonization (No. 817/1876). The New Law marks a shift in the political conception of Argentina from a nation of immigration to a nation

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of migrations. In stark contrast with past laws that focused almost exclusively on transatlantic immigration, this shift recognizes actual flows to and from Argentina. The New Law even contains a section on Argentines abroad and has prompted Province 25, an initiative for Argentines “in the world” run by the Ministry of the Interior. The program name is in reference to Argentina’s twenty-four official provinces, or states, and the constitution of a twenty-fifth province by its citizens abroad. According to the ministry, the program has been conceived so that Argentines who reside abroad can fulfill their status as citizens, including participating in the democracy and exercising the right to vote.19 In addition, the program offers information on how Argentines abroad can access citizenship, and incentives for return to Argentina. These programs are more similar to those of emigration countries like Italy and Spain than to anything Argentina had previously attempted. Even the language of a district of Argentines abroad is reminiscent of Spanish and Italian policies. The New Law also adopts the language of universal and equal rights. Article 4 guarantees the right to migrate, which is “essential and inalienable . . . on the basis of the principles of equality and universalism.” This provision departs significantly from Law No. 817 (1876), which took as its starting point an 1853 constitutional mandate to foster European immigration and the so-called Videla Law, which put a premium on control of new immigrants. While Argentine immigration law never had formal exclusions against particular racial or ethnic groups, it has historically favored European immigrants. The New Law is consistent with past immigration policy in its strategic decision to be widely inclusive in furtherance of national demographic policies (Article 3). Inclusion in the past has meant not adopting formal exclusions based on racial-ethnic criteria when most countries in the Americas were doing the contrary. Today it means extending to immigrants a full complement of rights, including access to social services, education, justice, work, and social security on the same conditions as natives (Article 6). Most of these rights are guaranteed regardless of legal status (Articles 7 and 8). Article 11 even hints at the possibility that foreigners can vote at the local level. Article 13 proscribes discrimination against immigrants on the basis of ethnicity, religion, nationality, ideology, political opinions, sex, gender, class, or abilities. A gap remains between the law on the books and praxis concerning the rights of immigrants, although it is unclear if this gap is attributable to the vulnerabilities of the poor or to their immigrant status. Nevertheless, the strategy of legally welcoming immigrants and maintaining links to Argentines abroad is a radical departure from precedent (Giustiniani 2004). It is also an



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indication of the importance of universal human rights and treaties discourse to a country that has experienced a substantial reversal of fortunes in the postwar era and an accommodation to Argentina’s status as a developing country. This shift in migration law has also translated into concrete practices. In its implementation of the New Law, the National Migration Service (Dirección Nacional de Migraciones) designed a plan to bring unauthorized immigrants into status and to integrate them (Decree 836/2004). Another administrative measure (Decree 578/2005) provided for the regularization of foreigners from Mercosur member countries.20 These residents have privileged temporary residential status according to Article 23 (Section L) of the New Law. This last decree launched is referred to as the Patria Grande (Great Nation) Program. It has provided expedited two-year temporary residence to citizens from the expanded Mercosur. Eligible individuals can then apply for permanent residence after two years, provided they can verify they have “lawful means of work” (CELS 2007). These measures may be seen as constituting a population strategy that aligns with an emergent perception of Argentina as a destination for migrants from neighboring countries and a source of high human capital emigration to more developed countries. In this view, Argentina faces the challenges of legally and effectively integrating newcomers and keeping links to Argentines abroad. The former are a source of relatively inexpensive labor, a consumer base, and a source of younger-age cohorts, while the latter represent a source of remittances.21 In addition, new migration policies represent an adoption at the national level of regional and global discourse on human rights. These shifts in Argentine migration and population policy may seem incomprehensible in light of its recent social, political, and economic experiences. Latin America’s sociopolitical outlook at the turn of the twenty-first century would suggest, after all, the relegation of population concerns to a secondary plane, especially in consideration of high levels of foreign debt, political instability, and high unemployment rates. Washington Consensus neoliberal prescriptions have widened the gap between countries and exacerbated inequalities among social classes, regions, and even neighborhoods in the same city. In Argentina—arguably the Washington Consensus’s most zealous adherent during the 1990s—the implementation of neoliberal policies wreaked havoc on its economy and sent many scurrying abroad. The growth rate of Latin America’s and Argentina’s populations may have slowed but its poverty rate has not (Benitez Centeno 1999; Macció 1993; Villa 1995). And yet,

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it is precisely the dire economic, political, and demographic outlook that has motivated such a drastic change in Argentina’s migration policies. It remains to be seen how this change will impact demographic indicators and the ways in which Argentines conceptualize the kinds of people that count and that it counts. In view of the significant number of European-descended Argentines with a citizenship option for an ancestral European homeland and of increasing numbers of “new” Argentines from countries with larger indigenous populations, what cleavages will emerge in the discourse and practice of social classification remains an open question. Nations of Emigrants Become Immigration States Italy and Spain continued to be emigration states into the late 1970s. After the economic transformations outlined earlier and on their accession to European Union membership in the 1970s and 1980s, both became countries of immigration. Migratory flows toward Italy and Spain were led by returning nationals and their families. They were followed by immigrant flows. In Italy, new immigrants came from Albania and Eastern Europe, North Africa, Latin America, the Philippines, and other Asian countries. Immigration to Spain came disproportionately from the Maghreb region of North Africa and Latin America with smaller flows from Eastern Europe, the Philippines, and Southeast Asia. In both cases, how states define an immigrant understates flows from former colonies and destination countries like Argentina. Spain and Italy’s national self-perceptions as emigration nations has lagged behind their status as immigration receiving states, a delay that may explain ethnic affinity provisions in early immigration laws. Institutionally, these countries had legislation that as I have shown aimed primarily to manage and maintain links to nationals abroad. After a century of emigration, the institutional adjustment has not always been smooth. Spain still has a Department of Emigration (BOE 4/12/2006) and Italy a bureau for Italians Abroad. To further complicate matters, membership in the European Union and specifically in the Schengen area of free movement has put considerable pressure on Italy and Spain to close their “porous” borders to migratory flows that EU partners like Germany and France feared would end up in their territories. As noted, both countries have also become destinations rather than thoroughfares. In this section I briefly outline migration to each country as well as patterns of immigration and nationality law shaped by new geopolitical imperatives and a present-oriented accommodation to older policy patterns.



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After its break with Argentina and realignment in the Cold War, Spain under Franco developed a very detailed policy toward emigrants that aimed to capture remittances from its nationals in Latin America, France, Germany, and Switzerland, as well as to maintain links with emigrants. The body of written emigration policy was so extensive as to merit several compilations commissioned by the Consejo Superior de Emigración (Bayon Marine 1975). Policy toward foreigners in Spain between 1950 and 1985 had to do primarily with police control under the Franco regime. Immigration was an issue that was far removed from the national experience and in fact did not become a noticeable phenomenon until the early 1990s. It is telling that early discussions of immigration used the term emigration, which had been so common in Spanish discourse. The story of Spanish immigration policy patterns since 1985 has three switch points. The first is a move from well-developed emigration policies to a pro forma immigration policy, or a switch from an implicit to a more explicit immigration policy. It is represented by the passage of the 1985 Ley de Extranjería (Foreigners’ Act), noteworthy for at least two reasons. First, it regulated what had previously been a relatively unrestricted entry and permanence of former colonials and nationals from countries linked to Spain by migration and trade. In terms of the latter, the passage of legislation limiting the entry and permanence of Latin Americans was a significant departure from past policy. Second, the 1985 act preceded any significant surge in immigration. There is little evidence that immigration concerned either policy makers or citizens. If anything, the concerns of the early 1980s had to do with “return migration” of Spaniards who had gone abroad since the mid-1950s (Kubat 1984; Rogers 1985). Why then would Spain pass an immigration law in 1985? The emergence of the Foreigners’ Act can largely be explained by the dynamics of entry into the European Community (Arango 2000; Calavita 1998; Cornelius 1994; Jones 2000). After decades of isolation, Franco began making overtures to the West in the mid-1950s. In 1956 he signed an agreement with NATO, then Spain applied for membership in the European Community (EC) in 1962, but given the Iberian state’s illiberal tenor, it was able to achieve only a limited preferential agreement. Following Franco’s death in November 1975, Spanish elites began to pursue membership in the EC more intently and submitted an application in July 1977. Spain had both economic and political reasons for joining the EC. Economically, it had strong links to other EC members: in 1976, for instance, almost half of Spain’s exports went to community countries and a third of

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imports originated in these countries (Jones 2000). Spain’s most recent emigrants had worked primarily in Germany, France, and Switzerland, where many settled and continued to send remittances. Politically, democratically inclined elites viewed EC membership as a way to consolidate a fledgling democracy still under threat from the Spanish armed forces. In fact, greater participation in Europe was viewed as a way to make economic gains and thus avert political instability. Spanish politicians were genuinely concerned about the economic and political costs of not joining the EC. However, joining required convergence with members’ policies on the movement of people across European borders, since Spain, along with Portugal, would become Europe’s southernmost “border.” Concretely, achieving membership meant laying the groundwork to sign the Schengen Agreement on the Free Movement of Community Nationals. Spain was clearly intent on aligning itself with Europe for strategic and probably also for ideological reasons. “The idea of Europe,” said King Juan Carlos I shortly after Franco’s death, “would be incomplete without a reference to the presence of the Spaniard” (cited in Jones 2001, 26). The 1985 Foreigners’ Act was signed into law after little debate and not much fanfare. European Union accession politics can explain the timing of the 1985 Foreigners’ Act but not its preference for “Ibero-Americans.” These preferences are attributable to the effects of concrete financial, kinship, and organizational ties maintained by Spain with Latin American countries and the persistence of the ideology of hispanidad described earlier (i.e., notions of nationhood emphasizing Spain’s role as the leader of a cultural and moral empire that included Latin American countries). Caught between aspirations for entrance into the EC and the obligations imposed by historical ties to Latin America, Spanish state elites authored a policy that would minimally meet EC expectations and preserve good relations with Latin American states. After all, formal preferential treatment could be counteracted by restrictive regulation of immigration law and by the implementation of regulatory bilateral agreements (Calavita 1998). State elites developed an immigration policy in keeping with historical and contemporary geopolitical constraints in a manner that made the Spanish state an even more important actor in the regulation of mobility within and at its borders. A second switch point was from a formal immigration policy represented by the 1985 act to one reflecting a relatively more developed framework with liberal-democratic underpinnings. This policy shift began to take concrete shape in 1998, when reform of the 1985 Foreigners’ Act became part of the



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legislative agenda. A relatively intense public debate about immigration preceded and accompanied the legislative process.22 By the time of this shift, immigration had become a salient matter for public and political debate and a noticeable demographic trend. Political actors were keenly aware of this new public issue and of the constraints imposed by public perceptions as well as increased participation in the European Union. The shift from the 1985 to 2000 legislation can be described as one from a formal immigration policy to one reflecting a relatively more developed philosophical framework with liberal-democratic underpinnings. Indeed, Spanish immigration categories became more politically liberal and categorically exclusive of extra-European Union nationals. The resulting scheme is more liberal in that it uses criteria commonly accepted by liberal democratic states.23 Legislative debate and a comparison of the preamble to the 1985 act and the text of the 2000 law confirm this trend. While the resulting categories are more “equal” and “neutral,” they formally exclude most noncommunitarians, including many who previously had relatively privileged access, primarily Latin Americans. In brief, the 2000 Foreigners’ Act equally excludes noncommunitarians. This switch can be attributed to demographic, political-economic, and historical ties with Latin America as factors that shape and explain the outcomes of this debate. Further, this switch point must be understood with reference to significant changes in the context of policy debate. First, “immigration” is a major issue of public debate by the late 1990s, whereas it had received little attention in the period of the 1985 debate. Second, by the late 1990s, the 1985 policy and its underlying framework were widely viewed as being inadequate in critical ways. Third, the range of actors concerned about immigration policy was much broader by the late 1990s (cf. Subirats Humet 1992). A third switch point in Spanish immigration policy patterns is the movement of ethnic preferences from immigration law to administrative practices and to nationality law, likely due to a right-to-left political shift, where the left supported universalist immigration rules (cf. Joppke 2003). Spanish immigration law has since its inception included preferences for “Ibero-Americans,” other former colonials, historically wronged communities, and citizens of strategic regions (Reino de España 1985). Some of these preferences, while they persisted in the 2003 iteration of Spanish immigration law, were minor, consisting of administrative exemptions from work-permit fees (Reino de España 2003). The overall trend has been toward immigration law that reflects universalist selection criteria like those used by other European countries.

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Largely in deference to European Union pressures, ethnic preferences in Spanish policy have shifted from the domain of immigration policy to nationality law. As noted in an earlier chapter, the Spanish Civil Code has conferred citizenship on the children of Spaniards, regardless of birthplace, provided that administrative requirements are met. Modifications to the Civil Code introduced in 2002 have made nationality provisions even more expansive toward the descendants of Spaniards (Reino de España 2002). The Law of Historical Memory, passed in 2007, also opened possibilities for the children of Spanish Civil War and Franco dictatorship exiles who had lost their citizenship (Boletín Oficial Español, no. 310, Law 52/2007). In addition, ethnic affinity nationality provisions have been used to recruit “desirable” migration from former receiving countries like Argentina (see Chapter 5). At the subnational level, Spanish autonomous regions have their own migration policies oriented to former emigrants and their descendants (Cook-Martín and Viladrich 2009). More recently, Spanish immigration policy has reflected European concerns with maintaining security and with externalizing the costs of reproducing labor; ethnonational preferences persist as a way to select immigrants who are presumed to be safe and tractable workers. Italian immigration policy also consisted largely of border policing measures until the mid-1980s. Statutes 943 (1986) and 39 (1990) addressed, respectively, access to employment, and the initial reception of immigrants, integration, arrests, and deportations (this overview draws on Pastore 2004 and Zincone 2006). According to Giovanna Zincone (2006, 371), the first measure failed to understand that immigrants are not merely workers, while the second demonstrated an understanding of integration and unauthorized entry but did not offer appropriate measures. The Turco-Napolitano Act (1998) was the first systematic immigration law and aimed to address unauthorized migration and residence as well as integration (Law no. 40, 1998, later Consolidated Act no. 286, 1998). Zincone’s account of why the law was passed echoes the types of dynamics observed in Spain. Italy experienced pressure to tighten up its borders, especially as it entered the Schengen Agreement, which provided for the free movement of people among European member states. Italy signed the agreement in November 1990 and ratified it in September 1993, but entry into the free-movement area depended on compliance with criteria that were not met until October 1997. Germany in particular demonstrated the same concern about porous borders as it had with Spain. Zincone also points to political actors and their professional agendas, but such features



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affect most policy making including that in Spain. Turco-Napolitano came from a committee named by left-leaning Romano Prodi and received input from policy experts as well as legislators. As in Spain, immigration had not become a salient public issue at the time of passing this act, although the Lega Nord had already begun a xenophobic campaign against immigration. Italian nationality law has made it easier for foreigners of Italian descent to gain Italian citizenship. Statute No. 91 of 1992 amended the Nationality Law of 1912 (Statute No. 555) so that Italians abroad could more easily reacquire their nationality and the descendants of Italians could become Italian. As Zincone points out, the 1992 statute passed unanimously and with little debate. Even the left apparently took no issue with the soft identitarian claim implicit in this law. It is also noteworthy that during the discussion of the Turco-Napolitano Act, an agreement between all parties promised to extend the franchise to Italians living abroad and to create a voting district even for those who had recently acquired or reacquired nationality. These changes eventually occurred and, as I discuss in Chapter 4, have had significant political consequences. A second key moment in the history of Italian immigration policy is the passage of the Bossi-Fini Act (2002; law no. 189, which was regulated by Presidential Decree no. 223, 2004). The process that led to this act was less open to expert policy advice and much more contested by Italian political parties. In contrast to the Spanish case, the second iteration of immigration policy in Italy did not move in a more universalistic direction. The Bossi-Fini Act modified previous immigration law by giving a “reserved quota” to workers of Italian descent up to the third generation who were not living in EU countries (Article 17, section 1.b). The presidential decree regulating Bossi-Fini also established conditions under which Italians of the world could gain entry and employment (Articles 27 and 28).24 In Italy immigration policy has assimilated the ethnic preferences of nationality law in contrast to the Spanish case, where ethnic preferences have shifted from one domain to another. As in Spain and other European countries, Italian immigration policy has recently taken a decidedly punitive direction. Law 94 (2009), for instance, hands out a prison term of six months to three years for immigrants without proper permanence or residency papers (legge 15 luglio 2009, no. 94). A person who enters Italian territory without proper authorization may be punished with a fine of five thousand to ten thousand Euros. Still, ethnic affinity preferences in Italian immigration and

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nationality policy remain and constitute a privileged class of new and prospective citizens. Citizenship Reconf igured The competitive drive to make citizens of migrants and their descendants continued in the post–World War II period. The reversal of fortunes experienced by Italy, Spain, and Argentina has been accompanied by a change in the direction of migratory flows and a delayed adaptation by the legal institutions and organizations that deal with newcomers and citizens. Argentine lawmakers have only recently conceptualized the country as one of migration. The recent Law of Migrations and Province 25 program are ways to make institutional adjustments to a new reality and in particular to maintain ties to Argentines abroad. The Argentine government now has an explicit policy of allowing dual nationality and “renewing” lapsed memberships through bureaucratic facilitation of passport renewals and of voting abroad. It also does not discourage dual nationality applications or emigration and, as I show in Chapter 4, receives an increasing amount of remittances. Italy and Spain have hardened immigration laws since the mid-1980s but have maintained ethnic preferences that favor the Argentine descendants of past Italian and Spanish emigrants. In the Italian case, these preferences appear in immigration and citizenship law, while in Spanish law the preference has moved to nationality law. Both countries prefer European-descended Argentines as citizens over immigrants from North Africa and Eastern Europe. A different pattern of citizenship for European-descended Argentines has emerged in the spaces delimited by these new realities. As a result of past competitive efforts among institutions in the three countries, actual or potential citizens have liminal spaces that offer them more alternatives than they had in the past, more than their Argentine conationals have, and more than Spaniards and Italians who hold only one citizenship. In the next chapter I examine this reconfiguration of citizenship alternatives and its significance by studying how people go about getting it.

3

The Quest for Grandma’s Passport How and Why Argentines Get a Second Nationality

A

rgentines who have or aspire to have a second nationality have stressed a number of advantages to a plural membership status. A second “passport”—my informants’ shorthand for nationality—offered the convenience of quick entry into the European Union or the United States. It facilitated travel to new labor markets or to professional development opportunities. It strengthened a sense of connection to an ancestral homeland while at the same time affirming a number of rights. Despite these advantages, the people I spoke to in Buenos Aires and Europe often stressed that the second nationality was “just a paper.” And yet, they had often gone to tremendous lengths to get an ancestral nationality: they wrote to municipalities in Spain and Italy asking for birth records, spent hours waiting outside embassies, took time off work to track down required papers, interviewed older relatives, and paid people to assist them in the search for documents to support their applications. An exploration of the mismatch between the stated value of a second nationality and the effort expended in obtaining it offers an opportunity to explore questions about the value and nature of citizenship. Scholars of citizenship have argued both that citizenship is very valuable and that it is losing value. On the one hand, citizenship matters a great deal. The state to which an individual belongs by birthplace or kinship determines access to and extent of health care, education, jobs, and retirement benefits. Citizenship affects one’s political voice. A blue, green, or red passport with the corresponding

97

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national emblem also has an effect on where an individual can move in search of safety, new horizons, or greener pastures. Citizenship affects identity and the status derived from the place occupied by one’s country in a global hierarchy of nation-states (see Takeyuki Tsuda’s [2001] argument to this effect). Hannah Arendt (1973) has famously argued that persons unaffiliated to a state in the modern international system are beyond the pale of humanity, completely exposed to the vagaries of geopolitics. More recently, Ayelet Shachar (2009) has argued that citizenship is randomly assigned by birthplace and as such is one of a few enduring ascribed statuses in a world that claims to value achievement and meritocracy. “Membership in a particular state,” she notes, “(with its specific level of wealth, degree of stability, and human rights record) has a significant impact on our identity, security, well-being, and on the range of opportunities realistically available to us” (Shachar 2009, 5). Citizenship in affluent nation-states is a legal mechanism of wealth transmission and reproduction, a form of property inheritance.1 A very small percentage of the world’s population—around 3 percent—are naturalized citizens. Therefore, people rarely acquire nationalities that improve their life chances and status. If, as Shachar argues, nationality is a mechanism of property inheritance, its value increases in a world of growing socioeconomic and political inequalities. Those who do not have a passport into the halls of privilege place a rising value on it. On the other hand, Peter Spiro (2008) has argued that citizenship matters less when a growing number of people have it or can get it, when plural citizenship has become a commonplace, or when a permanent legal status is virtually identical in rights to full citizenship. As state and territorial boundaries decline in importance, so does the state itself, the territorial and membership organization that has been the main referent of citizenship and guarantor of the rights and privileges it entails. If the success of countries like the United States has been rooted in the marriage of identity to place, so too may its decline. Against a backdrop of globalization, especially increased migration, the existence of jus sanguinis policies in sending countries, and greater acceptance of plural citizenships, citizenship has become devalued: “It becomes cheaper, in effect, for the would-be member to acquire one tie where she doesn’t have to give up another. The end result . . . is an increasing disconnect between the legal definition of the citizenry and strong community on the ground.” (Spiro 2008, 60) Given this trend, the payoff to members decreases as the number of citizens or persons with similar rights and privileges increases.



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The value of a particular citizenship can also decrease if the same people have access to a shrinking pie of material or symbolic resources. Spiro’s analysis prescribes the need for tighter control over who becomes a permanent resident or citizen to preserve the value of political membership. Sociologist Christian Joppke (2010) describes these contradictory trends in the contemporary state of citizenship as a paradox: on the one hand, membership in wealthy nation-states is highly consequential and valued, but on the other hand, it is becoming less valuable and meaningful. Drawing on an analysis of the European Union, Joppke argues that the resolution to this paradox is in the perspective assumed and in understanding applicable immigration policies. Spiro’s story is told from the perspective of the winners of Shachar’s global birthright lottery or those who have a stake in the world’s wealthiest countries; while Shachar’s analysis takes the perspective of the less fortunate or members of the globe’s poorer countries. From the perspective of the winners, citizenship is becoming lighter as the bar for membership goes down. At the same time, however, exclusive immigration policies raise the bar for entry and thus elevate the value of legal residency. This is the status that Joppke and others have argued is highly significant because it is a door into the foyer of citizenship or what legal scholar Hiroshi Motomura (2006) has referred to as citizens “in waiting.” What remains unspecified in current explanations of multiple standpoints on citizenship is the relationship among them, partly because existing studies tend to center on policy analyses removed from the experience of key actors. In this chapter, I rely on the perspectives of aspiring and actual dual nationals to study how they assess the value of citizenship in word and deed. My analysis here centers on what happens at the level of nationality law on the ground, or what sociologist Kitty Calavita (2010, 3, 113) has called “real law.” In this sense it is distinct from the work of other experts on citizenship, who generally focus on the level of formal laws. The case of Argentines with a second nationality option is especially apt because it captures in a single trajectory privileged and less privileged perspectives on citizenship. It suggests that the paradox of citizenship described by Joppke is determined by the relational nature of political membership and belonging. As I argued in the Introduction, citizenship is internally inclusive but exclusive at its boundaries. Domestically, citizenship in developed countries has been an attempt to resolve internal inequalities. Countries are part of an international web of similar political entities, however, and to the extent that they have relaxed

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rules against plural citizenship, individuals are free to address perceived domestic inequalities or to pursue aspirations in the international domain. Thanks to the policies and improved fortunes of Europe described in Chapter 2, Argentines eligible for a European nationality are part of select group whose members have the prospect of improved opportunities and status, sometimes without having to emigrate. Moreover, successful applicants have access to a European Union citizenship, which makes very few demands and has substantial privileges attached. The realization that being an Argentine in Argentina does not offer the expected payoff drives some to seek a second, from their standpoint, more valuable nationality. Arguably, the value of Argentine citizenship has decreased as immigrants to Argentina have much the same rights and privileges as citizens under the New Law of Migrations described in the previous chapter, and as privatization of state welfare organizations undercuts the value of being a citizen. Internally, then, citizenship matters little to those who have it or only to the extent that it has lost value. The combination of both nationalities is an ideal strategy to hedge against the prospect of stagnation or decline in the value of a single nationality. Ironically, this second nationality may lose value as more people hold it or as the share of resources it commands shrinks, but from the perspective of someone who wants it, it continues to matter a great deal. It is also true that it may not fetch the anticipated benefits. Argentines with a second nationality who migrate to Europe find that they cannot actualize the expected value of Spanish, Italian, and other European Union citizenships. Legal status in a new country does not mean full insider status in important areas like the labor market (see Chapter 4). Still, legal citizenship represents an improvement from the perspective of someone with only an Argentine passport, no work, and limited prospects. Changes in the contemporary value attributed to citizenship can be glimpsed, then, by connecting domestic and global/comparative perspectives. In particular, the study of a privileged category of people with citizenship options is of broader import because it opens a window onto citizenship for those with no such alternatives. The significance of being born with Moroccan or Albanian nationality with few alternatives for upgrading citizenship even after emigration to Spain or Italy, for instance, comes into focus through comparison with privileged Argentine dual nationals. The level of privilege is such that Argentine dual nationals appear in Spanish social statistics as Spaniards, and thus full insiders, while Moroccans and North Africans appear as



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large foreign minorities, even though the Argentine-born surpass any other national group except Ecuadorians in size. From this comparative perspective, Spanish citizenship is clearly valuable to Moroccans and others who want but do not have it, while it is of stable value for Argentines with dual nationality living in Spain. A comparative frame also shows what it means to be an Argentine with no citizenship options. Argentines not eligible for a second nationality can do little to change the devaluation of Argentine citizenship. The combination of a citizenship law that at least formally had few requirements and a relatively expansive immigration law has resulted in an Argentine citizenship that is relatively easy to get, draws no sharp distinctions between the rights of immigrants and those of citizens, and defines Argentineness very broadly. It is a good example of what Joppke (2010, 147) calls “citizenship light.” European Union, Spanish, and Italian citizenships are also light from the perspective of those who hold these memberships, but their worth is higher for aspiring members because they open doors to labor markets, welfare resources, personal security, and political stability that are currently not available to them. Moreover, to Argentines eligible for a second nationality, the combination of a light and lighter citizenship is preferable to a single nationality. Finally, the study of Argentines with a second nationality option is of broader significance because it potentially applies to a large number of individuals of European descent in the Americas and elsewhere. This chapter examines the ways citizenship matters and the value attributed to it by people from different standpoints. I explore these questions qualitatively through the Argentine case but in the context set by previous chapters. First I make a case for a combination of qualitative methods, including an ethnography of individuals eligible for a second nationality and their quest for supporting documentation in public and private archives. An overview of the legal-historical context reveals a gap between nationality laws and their implementation. This gap explains why individuals go on a quest for documentation and why a “paper industry” has emerged to assist people in this search. A second section discusses evidence of the actual procedures and pathways followed by would-be second nationals, offers a profile of applicants, and examines how they interface with a network of individuals and businesses that benefit from applicants’ perceived need for documents. Finally, I probe the implications of findings for the meaning and value of a second nationality from the perspective of eligible individuals.

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Where Past Meets Present: An Ethnography of People and Archives This chapter draws more heavily than any of the preceding ones on fieldwork and participant observation to show how past policies and documentary practices determine nationality options for potential applicants, and how would-be second nationals fill in gaps in procedural knowledge. My approach was to ask people about the paths they have followed to find supporting evidence for their applications. The goal was to map the various sites visited physically or virtually by individuals in the search for papers and to see how they gathered, created, and distributed information about nationality procedures at various stages of an application process. I interviewed and observed over sixty people in Argentina and in Europe. I formally interviewed twenty-five people about application procedures, the meaning of a second nationality, and the ways in which it might change their identifications. I spoke to people who, while eligible to apply, chose not to do so, and to community leaders and bureaucrats. The database consultants at the Center for Latin American Migration Studies (CEMLA) were very helpful informants. I also spoke to consular personnel, immigrant association leaders, leaders of organizations for a second nationality, and Argentines who migrated to Spain and Italy. The overriding methodological strategy was to seek maximum variation in sociodemographic characteristics, as well as in the understandings and practices relayed in individual accounts. My findings could be attributed to the particular historical conjuncture of Argentina, Italy, and Spain at the turn of the twenty-first century, and so I have drawn on other studies and put initial observations into a longer observational context. I build on these diverse sources to explain citizenship in the particular case examined here and to throw light on the quality of citizenship in the contemporary world. A growing number of Argentines have sought the nationality of an ancestral homeland state, particularly of Italy and Spain. The massive emigration of Italians through the mid-1960s, the presence of communities of Italian descent in the countries where they settled, and the jus sanguinis logic of Italian nationality and immigration policies described in earlier chapters make the Italian case especially illustrative although by no means exceptional.2 The number of Italians registered abroad increased by 20 percent in the five-year period between 2005 and 2009 (Table 3.1).3 In Argentina, the number of Italians registered increased by 53 percent during this period, the largest proportional increase of Italians in any country or region except for Spain. This



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made Argentina home to the largest community of Italians abroad, surpassing that of Germany in 2009. What factors have driven this increase? Demographic factors have not contributed to this increase. The population of Italians in Argentina had been elderly until recently, and there had been no substantial southbound flows of Italians since the early 1960s. The growth has been attributable to an increase in the acquisition of Italian nationality abroad. Argentines, Belgians, Germans, and Americans of Italian descent have been acquiring an ancestral nationality, increasing their membership options, and because of Italian voting laws, forming new political constituencies in their countries of residence. The trend in Argentina is the result of a large Italian-origin population affected by descent-based Italian nationality and immigration policies, Argentine dual-nationality policies, and structural motivators like the sharp economic decline experienced by Argentina beginning in late 2000. Even the increase in Italian migration to Spain is largely attributable to Argentines migrating there with an Italian passport.4 What has made this state of affairs possible? Chapters 1 and 2 have demonstrated how states in the migratory network comprising Italy, Spain, and Argentina competed to forge legal ties to migrants and to their children and created a contemporary legacy of dual nationality options and privileged migratory status. These chapters have also shown how past bureaucratic efforts to manage migrants left a documentary residue that has become a valuable commodity in individuals’ contemporary search for papers to support their applications for Italian or Spanish citizenship. In the next section I explore in depth how nationality and immigration laws generate options for Argentines and how they navigate procedural gaps in the law. Descent-Based Nationality Law, Preferential Immigration Status, and Procedural Gaps Migrations from Italy and Spain to Argentina coincided with nation-building efforts by each state. Sending countries had to reconcile nationalist notions of a fixed, territorially based population with the social fact of nationals leaving to other jurisdictions primarily in the Americas. Italy in particular faced the dilemma of how to make Italians of a population that was unified on paper but diverse and mobile in practice. Argentina had a very small population of Spanish and Amerindian descent relative to its territory. Its liberal elites aspired to attract European migration on the assumption that this type of

698,799

601,658

525,383

379,749

300,413

281,027

213,634

36,898

3,990,295

Germany

Argentina

Switzerland

France

Brazil

Belgium

United States

Spain

All Italians abroad

4,080,264

43,327

215,481

285,460

301,401

381,001

534,108

611,707

720,482

2001

3,964,586

48,118

191,773

282,568

284,136

361,988

521,146

587,434

718,563

2002

3,985,040

53,697

188,328

282,825

285,725

358,030

514,468

610,794

716,215

2003

source: Il Ministero degli Affari Esteri in Cifre, 2001-2009

2000

Country

4,026,425

61,683

188,996

281,674

292,519

358,603

520,550

618,443

708,019

2004

3,508,330

61,171

177,890

216,008

294,363

331,340

500,636

460,668

594,073

2005

3,702,997

76,200

187,875

234,445

259,174

324,713

511,190

534,670

626,078

2006

3,876,967

89,148

191,804

243,280

274,766

334,180

520,122

592,065

638,314

2007

4,073,910

104,637

199,284

251,466

297,137

343,197

533,821

614,848

648,453

2008

TABLE 3.1  Number of Registered Italians by Year in Countries with the Largest Italian Communities, 2000–2009

4,249,716

113,010

205,866

263,012

315,751

345,598

543,102

704,515

652,127

2009

20

85

16

22

7

4

8

53

10

Percent change 2005–2009



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flow would modernize the nation. When migration began in earnest, Argentina faced the challenge of making Argentines of individuals from different countries and diverse regions within them. Sending and receiving countries made nationality and migration law a key element in a contest to affiliate, maintain control over, and affectively embrace the same population of mobile people and their children. An outcome of this competition over migrants was a pattern of migration and nationality law that suited each country’s objectives. Sending countries fashioned emigration laws to regulate the departure of its citizens, especially young men, children, and unmarried women; to offer protections from the risks of the migratory sojourn like financial exploitation by unscrupulous travel agents; and to control the identification and documentation of prospective migrants. In the domain of citizenship, countries like Italy and Spain resisted dual legal affiliations but tried to make policies that allowed migrants to keep their nationality, recover it easily, and critical for our purposes, extend nationality to the foreign-born children of nationals abroad. Although the ability to transmit nationality from one generation to the next depended on various regulations, it was possible in the Italian case to pass on nationality across several generations under some circumstances. Affectively, sending states, especially Italy, made efforts to foster a sense of national belonging among its citizens abroad through schools, migrant associations, and the Catholic Church. Receiving countries like Argentina wrote nationality laws that made it easy to acquire full political membership and offered exemptions from onerous obligations like military service. More importantly, these laws presumed that anyone born in the national territory was a citizen. Thus, sending and receiving nationality laws competed for the continued affiliation of migrants themselves but also for their offspring. A second outcome of this competition over migrants and their descendants was administrative individuation by bureaucracies in the sending and receiving countries. A trail of papers formed in official files as governments in the past tried to identify individuals for the purposes of establishing a relationship with them, extracting taxes and military service, and controlling their movement as individuals reacted to these efforts.5 This residue of documents settled in local civil registries in sending countries and in receiving countries’ civil and immigration bureaucracies. In Italy and Spain, the departed left documentary traces in local municipalities as well as with port authorities. In Argentina, migrants left a paper trail in places like the

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Argentine National Migration Service and the civil registry. Contemporary applicants for a second nationality rely on this archival paper residue to support their claims on ancestral homeland states. Argentina has not taken measures to preclude plural citizenship among Argentines and has in fact made it an acceptable status as evidenced by easy access to documentation available in Argentine official repositories and by programs to reach out to Argentines abroad. What patterns of nationality have emerged from how these countries competed over nationals in the past? Argentina defines citizenship much as it did during the era of substantial European migration, as attributable through birth on Argentine soil or a relationship that can be acquired through naturalization and a brief period of residence. A more recent development is that Argentina allows for dual nationality with many countries, including major destinations of Argentine migrants like Spain, Italy, and the United States. The children of Argentines abroad may acquire citizenship with relative ease if they request it before their eighteenth birthday. Adjustments to Argentina’s relatively recent status as a migrant sending country make it easier for the state to maintain relations to Argentines abroad, which are now viewed as a twenty-fifth province, in addition to the twenty-four mainland provinces. Citizens in the Province 25 have become an increasingly important source of remittances.6 Spanish nationality law is constituted by Articles 18–28 of the Spanish Civil Code as modified by Law 36/2002. The code defines a Spaniard by origin (español de origen) as the child of another Spaniard by origin. Law 36 modifies Articles 20–26 regarding who may opt for Spanish nationality; the length of residence required to obtain nationality in Spain; requirements for the acquisition of nationality by choice; letter of naturalization (naturaleza), or residence; and the circumstances under which nationality may be lost or recovered. These modifications made it easier for the descendants of Spaniards abroad to make claims to Spanish nationality, it reduced time of residence requirements for Latin Americans and other former colonials applying for nationality by residence, and it allowed dual nationality for applicants from Latin America, Andorra, the Philippines, Equatorial Guinea, and Portugal. The Law of Historical Memory (2007) is an effort to right legal and administrative wrongs against individuals as a result of the Spanish Civil War and the ensuing dictatorship. The law extends the option of nationality to the volunteers of the International Brigades that fought in the Civil War, and to the



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descendants up to the first degree of Spaniards by origin. A proposal of a law like this was heavily lobbied for by Spanish-descended Argentines during the course of my fieldwork but had not yet gone into effect.7 Italian citizenship is defined by Law No. 91 of 1992 and is regulated by two presidential decrees.8 Law No. 91 in turn amended the Nationality Law No. 555 of 1912. The 1912 and 1992 laws are both rooted in the principle of jus sanguinis. The transmission of citizenship to minor children through their mothers applied after January 1, 1948, when the Constitutional Courts of the postwar republic corrected this gender bias (although it still affects children whose mothers were born before 1948). The 1992 law amended that of 1912 so that Italians abroad could more easily reacquire their nationality, so that the descendants of Italians could more easily become Italian, and so that Italians could hold a second citizenship. The 1992 law defines Italian citizens by birth as those born of an Italian mother or father. Like the Spanish code, Italian citizenship law exceptionally appeals to jus soli, as in the case of children of unknown parents or who have been deprived of nationality. Italian citizenship may also be acquired or conceded by choice, residence, or executive decree. As Giovanna Zincone points out, the 1992 statute passed unanimously and with little debate. Even the left apparently took no issue with the soft identitarian claim implicit in this law. It is also noteworthy that during the discussion of the Turco-Napolitano Act, an agreement between all parties promised to extend the franchise to Italians living abroad and create a voting district even for those who had recently acquired or reacquired nationality. This eventually happened and has affected the outcome of the 2006 parliamentary elections. It is clear from these laws how the child of an Italian or Spanish citizen could become Italian or Spanish. It is less clear how subsequent generations might accede to their ancestral homeland state nationalities. The logic of intergenerational transmission of citizenship options is hinted at in laws, regulations, and administrative implementation; but the actual procedures and to whom applications are made are elusive. For instance, the citizenship web page for the Italian Embassy in Buenos Aires notes that there are two ways to acquire Italian citizenship.9 Individuals may acquire Italian citizenship automatically through filiation (having Italian parents), birth in Italy in cases where the parents are stateless or do not transmit their citizenship, or when the citizenship of a child cannot be ascertained. Citizenship may also be obtained automatically if Italian parents recognize a child as their own or through adoption by Italian parents. A second modality for Italian citizenship acquisition is through a request

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and application process similar to naturalization procedures in other countries. This pathway to Italian citizenship requires some form of residency during or after application that the automatic pathway does not. This is similarly the case for the reacquisition of previously lost Italian citizenship. The embassy website lists the documents required for the citizenship acquisition request, but the procedural pathways are not specified. Argentines of Italian descent have inferred that attaining Italian citizenship automatically is possible because they know of other people who have done this. They have filled the gap in procedural knowledge by pounding the pavement from one repository of official documents to another in search of relevant knowledge and papers. Applicants for Spanish citizenship have also made the rounds in the wake of economic and political turmoil in Argentina. The Social Organization of Second Nationality Acquisition Applicants for a second nationality must follow officially established pathways if they are to succeed in efforts to obtain Italian or Spanish nationality. Nationality law and related administrative regulations define general eligibility criteria and prescribe formal procedures. The interplay of bureaucratic discretion and limits on administrative infrastructural capacity, however, complicate the application considerably. In addition, the search for acceptable supporting paperwork has given rise to an everyday knowledge of how the application process works and to a paper industry that purports to grease the bureaucratic machinery that produces the much-coveted nationality certificate or a passport. Everyday knowledge here refers to the production, accumulation, and transmission of information by participants about how application procedures work. This knowledge may not be accurate with respect to official requirements, but it is important because it often guides applicants’ actions and strategies. By “paper industry” I mean a network of individuals and businesses that profit from getting the documents required by official procedures, telling people how to get them, or expediting the search for supporting documentation. If law formally delimits the universe of Argentines eligible for a second nationality, the complexity of application procedures described in broad strokes, their duration, and limited organizational resources dedicated to processing applications shape the actual applicant queue. It also takes cultural,



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social, and economic capital—or the ability to convert one into another—to complete a process that can take anywhere from three months to five years. The number of departures from Argentina in 2005 rose to the highest levels of the decade most likely due to the lag between application during the financial crisis and final adjudication of nationality at a time when the economy had improved dramatically.10 To ride out this process, people require not only connections and financial resources, but also the know-how to find information in multiple sites and by asking questions that presuppose a sophisticated understanding of records, bureaucracy, and search strategies. It is not surprising, then, that most applicants have been members of Argentina’s fraying middle class. All of my interviewees in Argentina had at least a secondary degree, three-quarters had at least some tertiary education, and the remainder had a completed university degree. The profile among Argentines I interviewed in Europe was more diverse, since many had their parents to thank for having expedited a second nationality and did not endure the process described here. This meant that the Argentines I interviewed in Europe had left because they were either so vulnerable to the economic debacle that they could not but emigrate or they experienced a sense of diminishing class and status hierarchy relative to the past. Other studies have found a similar middle-class profile among Argentines with options to obtain a second nationality. In his study of Italian-Argentines of the late 1980s and early 1990s, Arnd Schneider (2000) described Italian citizenship as a form of symbolic ethnicity among upperclass descendants of Italian emigrants and as a form of social capital among working and middle-class Italian-Argentines. While a number of people to whom I spoke view second nationality as a form of symbolic ethnicity, these relatively privileged dual nationals were less common among my interviews.11 I suspect that some of Schneider’s upper-class informants who viewed a second nationality as a matter of symbolic ethnicity in 1990 would now view it more strategically. Since then Washington Consensus policies have severely eroded the position of Argentina’s middle and upper middle class. When the policy of pegging the peso to the dollar collapsed and the Argentine government froze bank deposits in late 2001, many middle-class depositors saw the value of their savings halved. In the early 1990s, María Cristina Cacopardo (1992) cited the example of highly educated applicants who saw Italian citizenship as a credit card to be used only in the event of economic instability or declining possibilities for personal and economic

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growth. In their study of Italian-descended Argentines consulting immigration arrival archives, Graciela Bramuglia and Mario Santillo (2002) reported that almost 60 percent had a postsecondary, university, or postgraduate degree. A survey of Galician dual nationals commissioned by the government of that autonomous Spanish region showed that 64 percent were middle class and over a quarter had at least postsecondary studies completed (Heguy 2003). In a more recent study, Marta Palomares et al. (2007) found that one-third of their respondents with a second passport were young and well educated (half had university studies). In sum, Argentines with the option to obtain a second nationality are well endowed with material and symbolic capital. The ways in which this matters become clearer with an understanding of second nationality acquisition processes and the tactics people use in their quest for European citizenship. The organizational ability to implement laws under prevailing circumstances and bureaucratic discretion also shape the nationality application processes. Consulates have limited personnel and budgets and work cultures that affect the number of files and the rate at which they are processed.12 In the early 2000s, people complained that they were being told that they would have to wait five years for an appointment or a passport, that they were being put off and asked to return because of minor procedural points, or that their files had been lost. Italian consular service statistics show a sharp increase in passports, civil status documents, and nationality certificates issued between 2000 and 2010 (see Table 3.1), but these were not accompanied by a corresponding change in consular personnel. The number of consulates also remained stable, and a small number of consulates handled the bulk of services abroad.13 All of these structural conditions constitute a motivation for consular personnel to reject an application file for the slightest shortcoming. Applicants compared consular personnel to Argentine government bureaucrats and for the most part thought the process was much more professional than a similar procedure would be in an Argentine government office. The surge in applications generated pressures not only on Italian and Spanish entities but also on Argentine government offices that held documents to support applications. The DNM holds official ship manifests from the 1880s through 1929. According to informants at CEMLA, and my own observations at the DNM, both organizations experienced a sharp increase in requests for historical records beginning in early 2000 without a comparable increase in resources.



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The documents and information required to submit an application for an ancestral nationality are scattered across a range of sites: municipal registries in Argentina and Europe, official and semiprivate migration archives primarily in Argentina, and relatives’ private files. This configuration of sites constitutes a field that applicants roam in search of paperwork and where they negotiate with keepers of files and entrepreneurs who commodify access to information and procedural knowledge and networks. The path followed by an applicant between two sites varies depending on procedural knowledge, in turn constituted by exchanges with other individuals encountered during the quest. Whatever the formal meaning of an application for a second nationality as an adult, it is empirically defined by this quest for papers and information. A first stage in the quest for papers is fact-finding. Verónica, a young architect who has Spanish and Italian ancestors, and whom I introduced in Chapter 1, begins her search by talking to other friends and relatives who have applied or are considering doing so. She also checks online but decides to visit the Italian consulate in her hometown of Mendoza. This happens at the height of interest in getting an ancestral nationality in 2001, and thus she spends a good part of a night waiting in line with her sister. They learn a great deal about the complexities of the process from others in line: the types of documents required, translations and certifications, and costs associated with the process. Most of the people I interview in Buenos Aires outside the Spanish embassy who are also at the early fact-finding stage follow a similar strategy. They all wait in line for hours thinking that they get the most reliable information from consular officials or from others in line who have more information. Other fact-finders have returned from Europe where they have overstayed their visas and have been informed that they need to contact the Spanish or Italian consulates for more information about getting an ancestral nationality. Consular officials treat them as new applicants, but they have much more information than others in the general inquiries line. They also serve as a source of information about life in Spain and Italy. An exchange I hear in the general information queue at the Spanish consulate illustrates this last point. Christian, an industrial design student in his early twenties, tells me that he is applying for Spanish nationality because he had already started the process as the grandson of Spanish emigrants when he found out that “the Italian citizenship is easier.” By that time he had already invested a great deal of effort and decided to continue with what he had started.

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His sister and brother-in-law live in Valencia, and this will make things easier should he decide to leave. He does not want to leave but has to be prepared for the possibility. As Christian talks about his situation, Ernesto interjects his own story. He is in his mid-forties and dressed in hip European fashion. He has just returned from Barcelona, where he is a tarjetero (publicity postcard designer) for discos and restaurants. He shows us an official work contract from his employer, which will allow him to return to Spain legally. “This is worth gold,” he says as he describes the procedure he needs to follow in Buenos Aires to have it approved by the Spanish consulate. Fabian, also a graphic designer in Barcelona, interrupts to show Ernesto samples of his own work and to discuss the process by which he hopes his own residency papers will turn into nationality ones. They begin a discussion about what documents need to be legalized by Argentine authorities and the best place to do this. Christian follows the conversation attentively. It becomes very animated when Diego, a colero, or paid placeholder, argues that it is faster to get documents certified at the Federal Police rather than at the Tribunales (courts complex). Fabian and Ernesto dismissively maintain that they were able to do this quickly at the Tribunales. Christian, the most novice of the people in this exchange, is left to decide for himself about the best course of action based on an idiosyncratic assessment of his peers in line. In comments after the exchange, he weighs the travel experience of Fabian and Ernesto and their professional middle-class demeanor against Diego’s street wisdom and local knowledge. He decides to reserve judgment until hearing from consular officials. An applicant who has determined the documentation available to support a nationality claim often weighs which nationality to pursue based on the perceived ease of the process or migration plans. Applicants who express an intention to migrate in the short run prefer Spanish nationality since procedures are perceived as simpler and the process requires residency abroad in any event. Spain is a preferred destination regardless of the nationality sought because applicants think it is easier to communicate and because professional and trades equivalencies are more likely than in Italy. Verónica’s deliberative process (discussed in Chapter 1) shows that decisions on which nationality to pursue are often tactical. Having attempted the application for Italian citizenship, and after the loss of her file by consular personnel, she applies for Spanish citizenship through her husband’s family connections. This is the quickest and most effective route to entering Europe and to an eventual EU citizenship.



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Applicants consistently reconsider their strategy after an initial fact-finding foray. Like Verónica, they decide to limit the number of visits to various sites by drawing on familial social capital or information about the application procedure available through a kinship network. In Verónica’s case, Italian family ties lead mostly to dead ends, but eventually she capitalizes on her sister-in-law’s application for Spanish nationality. Familial ties allow her to avoid a resource-intensive quest across a series of other documentary sites. Most of the applicants interviewed formally about procedures benefited from the work of a pioneering family member who collected necessary documentation. One woman boasted that from her mother’s application for Italian citizenship in Tandil, Province of Buenos Aires, thirty-five family members had become Italian citizens. However, unless they were children at the time of application, they would at least have had to submit the final application. Others had a parent initiate and carry out most of the process, saving them from having to take time off from work or study to stand in line and chase down papers. Parents of adult children sometimes take it on themselves to initiate an application that if successful would keep nationality in reserve for their children. Rodolfo, a civil servant in his early sixties, consulted the ship manifests at CEMLA in search of documents to claim Italian citizenship. He would love to visit his ancestral homeland of Northern Italy and has been corresponding for years with the local comuna, or municipality, about the history and landscape of the region. His main motivation, however, is to keep alive the prospect of Italian nationality for his children, since he has no interest in moving at this stage in his life. Sites visited by applicants in their quest for supporting paperwork constitute a search field. In the early stages of fact-finding, these individuals visit consular offices to get information. The busiest consulates and embassies are in the federal capital of Buenos Aires, but others have visited offices in La Plata (Province of Buenos Aires), Santa Fe, Cordoba, and Mendoza, all former destinations of European migration. My observations happened primarily at the Spanish embassy in Buenos Aires, since by the time I reached the field in 2003, the Italian embassy had changed procedures so that information could be retrieved online or by phone. Accounts from individuals who applied for Italian citizenship suggest that other people in lines outside consular offices have been a common source of information. Consular offices were important throughout the process as places to validate each stage of the application from initial questions to retrieving permits and passports.

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Other important stops on an applicant’s rounds are governmental and private archives that keep old official documents. Governmental archives primarily include the DNM and municipal civil registries in Argentina and in Europe; although in some cases, the Archivo General de la Nación (General National Archive, or AGN) and the small archive at the Museo del Inmigrante (Immigrant Museum) can yield useful information to the seasoned researcher.14 The DNM is the site where people consult ship manifests or passenger lists for arrivals after 1929 or after the latest year entered into the privately managed CEMLA database described below. Whereas consultations at CEMLA are based on a nominal and standard fee, my observation of interactions between officials at the DNM office in Buenos Aires and members of the public suggests that money may change hands to grease the wheels of bureaucracy. I did not have access to the administrative backstage at the DNM, but informants tell me that the old records under the DNM’s control are not digitized and hence are not accessible to the public. In some instances the DNM may have also kept a dossier on particular immigrants. All of these records require the assistance of a bureaucrat for consultation and present an opportunity for file keepers to benefit from their control over records. These passenger lists and dossiers are the documentary residue resulting from Argentine immigration laws and administrative regulations and circulars. They constitute the concrete link between past immigrants and, ironically, their descendants and ancestral homeland states. Municipal civil registries in Argentina and Europe contain documents that list birthplace, birth date, nationality, and changes in civil or citizenship status. Federico, a twenty-year-old political science student, recalls with some humor that his family was upset at his Spanish grandfather for closing off their prospects for Spanish citizenship. Federico’s grandfather lost Spanish nationality because he naturalized to vote for Juan Perón, whom he supported avidly. The naturalization procedure left a trail in the Argentine Civil Registry that made Federico’s family ineligible to apply for Spanish nationality. Family members applied for Italian citizenship instead. Rodolfo, like several informants, told of writing to Italian comunas, or municipal offices, with questions about ancestors only to receive copies of these records weeks later. These records allowed Rodolfo to claim Italian citizenship although it was a procedure complicated by the geopolitical history of his ancestral region of Trieste.



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Private archives include CEMLA as well as the Mormon Family History Centers located throughout Buenos Aires.15 CEMLA in particular has become an important stop for people seeking a second nationality. The organization was founded in 1985 by Scalabrinian priest and migration scholar Luigi Favero and is part of the G. B. Scalabrini Federation of Centers for Migration Studies, along with its better-known peer institution the Center for Migration Studies in New York.16 The center publishes the Estudios Migratorios Latinoamericanos, one of the premier Latin American journals on migration. It has been dedicated to the preservation of migration records since its inception, primarily for the purpose of scholarly research. Public demand for these records, however, has also been a key feature of its history. The secretary general of the center related that its records first became an object of public interest in the early 1990s, when then Argentine finance minister Domingo Cavallo decided to require a national identity document from anyone receiving retirement benefits. The aim was to reduce fraudulent claims by relatives of deceased beneficiaries. However, this requirement posed a serious problem for a large number of immigrant retirees. Many had not applied for national identity documents that required original proof of birth date and place rather than another Argentine-issued document. This sent many retirees, including Cavallo’s grandmother, scurrying for proof of identity in official immigration archives, which by then CEMLA had started to preserve.17 As the economic crisis worsened at the turn of the twenty-first century, more and more people applied. Graciela Bramuglia and Mario Santillo (2002) document a phenomenal increase in genealogical consultations at CEMLA from about 120 per month in early 2000 to over 1,200 in early 2002. CEMLA has digitized passenger lists with information on transatlantic arrivals for the periods 1882–1932, 1938–1945, 1947, 1948, 1949 (partial), and 1950.18 The center’s migration database includes information about the arrival to Buenos Aires of passengers and immigrants, including name, nationality, marital status, age at arrival, occupation, religion, port of departure, name of ship, and date of arrival. The names of accompanying family members appear in some cases. Place of birth appears in passenger lists in partial form beginning in 1923, and the province or municipality of origin is not available for arrivals before 1922 except for some instances in 1910. Some passenger list books had been destroyed by the time the center began its preservation work. Given the limits of data in the CEMLA database, would-be applicants must

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often look for information elsewhere but not without first receiving substantial guidance from center staff. What happens at this site? To answer this question I rely on interviews with the center’s database consultants who field public questions and on observation of approximately sixty consultations. At the time of my fieldwork in 2003, CEMLA is still busy answering public consultations of its database set off by the economic crisis of 2001. A typical “client” comes with a notebook or folder containing snatches of information on immigrant forebears. The center has two database consultants who meet with clients during public service hours and do prearranged searches when clients are not around. The center offices are relatively accessible by bus, taxi, and subway and are housed in the beautiful renovated “Victoria’s Sailor’s Home” near the now trendy Puerto Madero section of the port of Buenos Aires. Even on a couple of cold and dreary days people show up at the center with great resolve. On entering the building, which CEMLA shares with two other organizations, people take a wide old-fashioned staircase that leads up to a large reading room with wood floors and shelves of books and journals. A librarian’s desk is in the far left corner, and a long wide table that seats twelve is at the room’s center. When people first enter this area, they are asked to fill out a consultation sheet with any pertinent information they have. A consultant between clients may answer more detailed questions. A hallway to a second room where database consultants Adriana and Eli have their respective desks and computer terminals connects to the reading room. The desks are very close and each has a chair where a client sits during consultations. A person at one desk can hear most of what another person says at the other desk. In fact, talks between the consultants and their clients can easily be heard in the reading and waiting area. Thus there is really no privacy in the consultations, but no one seems to mind. Clients in the waiting room regularly share information as they fill out forms or wait their turn. They talk about the information they have and try to get a sense from others about how useful it will be as they consult the database. Newcomers ask about fees for the consultation. They pass along information of different places where information can be found depending on the date of entry of the ancestor in question. On finding out that CEMLA has limited years for which records available, people ask others in the room where they might find information about arrivals for dates outside the current limit. Sometimes, in response to information they receive from others



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in the room, they leave to go to the DNM or some other site even before their turn comes. Adriana and Eli take clients in turn and as they complete information forms. Once the forms are completed, the consultant quickly reviews the information and begins to ask a series of questions to help with the database search. If the client does not have any type of official document—which is often the case—Adriana or Eli asks about the reliability of names and dates. Frequently the source of the information is an elderly family member and communications may have been difficult. They try different spellings of a last name with the knowledge they have accumulated about how names were “Spanishized” by immigration officials at the port of entry. If a name is common, they try to narrow the range of information by looking at a birth date, a birthplace, or an approximate age. Clients are often distraught if they do not have enough or accurate information, but Adriana and Eli calmly explain that finding a name in the passenger lists is not a hard science but an art form that they have successfully developed. As practical historians they teach clients about the customs and habits of officials and immigrants that complicate a modern-day search. I am struck by the pedagogical nature of their work. Clients are emotionally overcome when a search is “successful.”19 Those who seek a second nationality are thrilled to receive a certificate with the information validated by CEMLA, which Adriana understands the consulates are accepting in lieu of other documentation or as an indication of a link to the ancestral country that merits further research. At a database satellite housed by the Immigrant Museum, Fernando tells me that these certificates must be authorized before Argentine authorities, another stop on an applicant’s quest.20 Adriana relates that as she interviews people over one or more sessions, she often observes a transformation in their focus. They come with a fixed idea of an ancestor whose arrival they want to find documentation about, but surprised by new information noted in the database, they alter their search strategies in ways that do not necessarily help their application objectives. For instance, people discover that their ancestors came with other close relatives of whom they were not aware, that ancestors’ names were changed at entry in significant ways, that elderly relatives were actually born abroad rather than in Argentina, or that ancestors traveled back and forth to the old country more often than they knew. While in some instances additional knowledge could help the application procedure, people often pursue information with no discernible benefit other than increasing their

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knowledge of family history. A commonly expressed sentiment is a lament for not knowing or asking more about a relative’s story. Some people will take the information gleaned from the database and compare it to other information at home, returning with new ideas about what to ask. They talk to elderly relatives whose memories may be prompted by new information or who can provide important context with which to pursue further research. When a search yields no names, the person consulting the database may have to do additional research with family members before a second visit, or they may have to go to some other site. Adriana and Eli share their knowledge freely. They point applicants to other archives with information and indeed have prepared a handout for this purpose. They also inform applicants of why information may not be available. For instance, records are scarce for immigrants who entered through La Boca (“la piojera”) rather than the main port of entry. Some are disheartened when their search uncovers no information. Elisa, a woman in her early fifties, with her teenage son, Favio, are trying to find information about her grandmother for whom she only had a first initial and last name as well as some documents in what looked to be Hungarian (they show these to the consultant and me). Elisa’s grandmother died when her father was six, and he would like to know more about her. The family has already been able to find information about Elisa’s grandfather by corresponding with a priest in Vigo, Spain. Elisa and her family have been able to secure Italian passports through her husband, but she would like to find out more about her father’s family. Other clients are discouraged because they have appointments at the Italian or Spanish consulates but no supporting documentation to bring with them. In addition to people looking for documents to support a nationality application and those with genealogical interests, CEMLA also serves a number of people who are gestores, or expediters. Buenos Aires is full of colorful banners and pamphlets advertising the services of firms that expedite paperwork and moves for the descendants of Spaniards, Italians, and other past European immigrants to Argentina. They send administrative assistants to search the database for clients. Database consultants are not very fond of these clients, since they often bring a stack of search forms and are very impatient. An expediter’s administrative assistant tells me that she works for her uncle, an attorney who charges people a substantial fee to find information on their ancestors for the purposes of nationality applications. Interestingly, she is also getting information for him, since he wants to get Italian citizenship and leave



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the country. She herself has Polish ancestors and is thinking of claiming citizenship in Poland, a country that was on the verge of full EU membership at the time I spoke with her. She cringes to think of her parents’ reaction, since her grandparents are Polish Jews who came to Argentina fleeing the Nazis. In the meantime, this administrative assistant continues to visit CEMLA in search of information for paying clients. Once applications for an ancestral nationality are complete, people enter a period of waiting which can last months or years. The sharp increase in Italians registered abroad between 2005 and 2009 (see Table 3.1), for instance, reflects the time it takes applications to work through the system. As they wait, many of my informants are affirmed in their view that a second nationality offers a way to hedge against bad prospects in the mid to long term, but that it is not a quick fix to pressing economic circumstances. Many of my informants think of a second nationality in this way and have found ways to remain in Argentina despite having emigration options. Others lack the economic and social capital to wait out the financial crisis in Argentina, or they simply grow impatient and decide to try their luck in Europe. This involves overstaying visas and being ready to return at a moment’s notice for an appointment at the consulate. Informants interviewed in Europe and in Buenos Aires who decide to “try their luck” experience many of the vulnerabilities of other unauthorized migrants. They are not, however, willing in the same degree to judge their hardships in Spain by the yardstick of the homeland. Applicants who decided to try their luck in Europe often return jaded at the prospects that await them across the Atlantic and also appreciative of the importance of a second nationality. The disillusionment of Argentines who moved to Europe without legal authorization is reflected in the number of returns registered within five years of the financial collapse that prompted many to leave (Cook-Martín, Novick, and Mera forthcoming). In brief, the range of responses to waiting attests to different assessments of risks and returns to alternative strategies like emigrating without authorization from the receiving country. Those whose applications have been approved have two main courses of action open to them, depending on the nationality in question. Successful applicants for Italian citizenship may hold their citizenship or passport in reserve until such time as it becomes of interest or use. As Italian law stands, this period could continue indefinitely depending on whether citizenship is reacquired or by filiation. Some older applicants have chosen to emigrate and

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establish citizenship in Italy so as to be eligible for social welfare benefits. A Buenos Aires cabbie that drove me to the train station had just arrived the day before from Italy, where he is listed as living with his sister near Milan. This allows him to receive a small pension for which he is supposed to reside full time in Italy. In reality he spends most of his time in Buenos Aires. Young professionals use their nationality to attend trainings or visit countries that would otherwise not grant them entry. Applicants for Spanish citizenship must travel to Spain and reside there for a period of six months to complete the application process. Juan, whose story I relay more of below, accedes to Spanish citizenship through marriage. The issuance of a Spanish visa is one step in the process of citizenship acquisition, which is not completed up to thirteen months after receiving the initial residence permit. The applicant must live in Spain to complete the process. These two paths to citizenship entail very different calculations by prospective applicants. As I have mentioned, the grandchildren of Spanish emigrants are more likely to emigrate once their special residency status is approved than are applicants for Italian citizenship, which has no immediate residency requirement. Argentines with options for applying to either citizenship will weigh the options accordingly. Bridging Formal Gaps: The Paper Industry Gaps in law and administrative instructions offer an entrepreneurial opportunity to people with control over files desired by individuals looking for supporting documentation. As noted earlier, these files are the surviving evidence of a link between a contemporary would-be applicant for European nationality and an ancestor, who in turn was connected to a particular homeland state. As such, the papers in these files are invaluable to applicants. Private and public entrepreneurs have recognized this value and have benefited from their privileged access to these papers. This network of people who profit from getting the documents required by official procedures, telling people how to get them, or expediting the search for supporting documentation is what I call the paper industry.21 The industry can drive demand for a second nationality by recruiting potential applicants even if their claims are weak or spurious. It is perhaps the most concrete expression of the paper trail that connects past and present. The number of flyers I receive during my visits to consulates and archives is an indication of the network of entrepreneurs that has developed around the business of getting papers to support nationality applications. Expediters



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are ubiquitous entrepreneurs that offer services ranging from the location of documents in Argentina or abroad to moving services once nationality papers have been obtained. They also translate documents and have them certified as required by Italian and Spanish officials. Services for “European nationalities” can include relocation information. They can also facilitate access to Argentine government offices that authorize or certify documents. They generally have an arrangement with a low or mid-level bureaucrat or police officer. For instance, I observe at the DNM office a succession of middle- to upper middle-class individuals who skip the main line and knock on a door with a sign that says “no service to the public.” An official comes out, hands them a large envelope and receives a letter size envelope in return. Expediters often employ individuals to distribute flyers advertising their services. They claim to know the latest immigration law in countries like Spain and offer alternatives to people who do not have a European citizenship option or who have become impatient with the application process. Coleros like Diego hold a spot in long consular lines and maintain cell phone contact with clients for whom they are saving a place. Past experience enables them to accurately estimate the time when the client should arrive. This allows applicants to work or get their kids to school before a consular appointment. Coleros are generally well informed, since they frequent the same cafés as consular personnel, and know a great deal about procedures and organizational gossip and developments. At the time of my fieldwork, they offered all of these services for a modest fee of about four dollars (U.S.) per turn. Other participants in an emerging paper industry are the authors of genealogical search guides and pamphlets. Beatriz Olga Allocati (2001) has produced a very detailed guide to finding information about ancestors regardless of transatlantic origin and has a chapter dedicated to “the second nationality.” Fabian Zamboni (2002), a university professor and industrial engineer, has written a guide to finding Italian documentation and in which the author uses his own family as an example. In good engineering style, the slim volume even contains a flow chart for the search process. The Allocati and Zamboni guides have enjoyed brisk sales among applicants, and indeed CEMLA recommends them. In a personal interview, Zamboni reports that sales and interest in his book exceeded all expectations. CEMLA is itself part of the broader paper industry by virtue of its participation in a network that rests on the ability to control ancestral information. The work of CEMLA’s personnel, their educational work, their referrals, and the information they convey

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is crucial to the paper industry even if the organization itself does not profit and only charges a nominal fee that barely covers the costs of building and running the database. The Meaning of a Second Citizenship The motivation to seek a second nationality and its meaning are intimately linked in the minds of applicants. Economic crisis can inform a person’s decision to apply for a second nationality and also frame what it means: if the motivation is strategic, then there is no necessary affective or identificational dimension to the decision, although it may develop, sometimes to the surprise of the applicant. An exploration of these motivations and meanings gives a fresh view of the value attributed to people’s birth and acquired citizenships and how they can mean everything and yet nothing. In turn, these understandings offer a glimpse into the changing quality of citizenship in the contemporary world. In this section, I rely on people’s accounts of their motivations and of the meaning of a second citizenship to show how they assess the value of citizenship and its quality. The Argentine economic meltdown of 2001–2002 is the most cited immediate motivation for getting a second nationality among those who make a deliberate decision. Gustavo, a forty-four-year-old journalist, speaks of applying because “you had to run to some life raft” at the time of the financial debacle.22 Convenience is a second major motivation for applicants. Ignacio (a twenty-eight-year-old title company employee studying to be an auctioneer) refers to the door-opening potential of a second nationality. Oscar (a fortyyear-old high school graduate and book salesman) notes that if you travel to Europe, you get to go in the EU line at customs and receive different treatment any time nationality papers are checked. Most applicants mention the practical benefits of having Spanish, Italian, or EU citizenships. Paula, an office worker with a university degree whose mother helped her apply for Italian citizenship in the early 1980s, recounts that her human rights and political activism made her parents fearful for her safety in Argentina. A second nationality would have afforded some protection under the Italian government. Older respondents emphasize the benefits that a second nationality can bring to their children whether an improvement in occupational prospects or guarding them from potentially dangerous changes in the political climate. Other individuals simply note that someone else had already done the research for a second nationality and it seemed smart to capitalize on it.



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Available surveys concerning Argentines with dual nationality or those who are eligible to apply for it also confirm that tactical reasons are paramount in these decisions and part of the calculus of citizenship’s value. According to an unpublished survey carried out by an Argentine university on behalf of the Galician government, 35 percent of potential migrants/citizens want to migrate to Spain (n=3,750).23 Of these, 60 percent would settle in Galicia, which is not surprising since 83 percent of potential migrants claim to have relatives or friends there to assist in the process. A significant number consider Barcelona as a possible destination and refer to the city’s large Argentine population. The reasons for migrating to Spain include a better quality of life (44 percent), ease of finding employment (31 percent), and better opportunities for progress (20 percent). The survey also determined that the average Galician immigrant or descendant is in a better economic situation than the average Argentine, but the expectations of many are not satisfied and they are willing to try their luck in Spain as a result of the Argentine crisis. A study carried out by CEMLA among descendants of Italian immigrants shows that among those who seek a second nationality a range of instrumental reasons underlie this process: migration in the short term to access EU labor markets, negative work prospects in Argentina rather than positive attraction from Europe, a higher standard of living (including access to social and health services in Europe), a second nationality as an insurance policy or a diversification of people’s membership portfolios (for the sake of self or family), and greater possibilities for professional development and realization.24 The meanings of a second nationality conveyed by applicants range from the practical and strategic to the affective and symbolic. A second nationality can be a matter of convenience in mundane matters like getting in the EU line at customs or in more weighty matters like having access to the EU labor market and being able to advance professionally by attending conferences or events in Europe. It may also allow one to avoid the stigma of an Argentine passport at a foreign port of entry. For others it is a tool or weapon to escape injustice or the fallout of an economic crisis. On the symbolic and affective end of the range, some respondents maintain that a second nationality is a way to gain knowledge and a connection to an ancestral homeland. Rodolfo, a public functionary near retirement, wants to visit his ancestral home in Northern Italy. He has been corresponding with the township for years and receiving information about the region. Gustavo maintains that his Spanish citizenship “upholds a feeling of being rooted in Spain. It’s a completely

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subjective and symbolic thing, but, well, it’s affirmed in a number of rights.” In this last case, Gustavo connects the symbolic to concrete rights of access to the EU and its benefits as well as to escape from a bad economic situation. Regardless of a person’s motivations, a frequent refrain is that Spanish or Italian citizenship is “just a paper” with no necessary affective or identity correlates: “I don’t care much about the [nationality] paper itself; at least for me, I don’t care about having the paper on a sentimental level. Sure, there’s a link with Italy . . . and with Spain too not only because of my family but also for many cultural reasons of our [Argentine] society” (Federico, eighteen-year-old political science student). Juan Manuel, a thirty-five-yearold teacher, similarly holds that “[a second nationality] means nothing to me . . . because I never went to that place . . . so for the moment it means nothing.” And yet, applicants for a second nationality and their families go to tremendous lengths in their navigation of the sites and the industry outlined earlier. In what sense, then, does a second nationality mean “nothing”? Federico goes on to say that “from a utilitarian perspective, it’s important to have it [a second nationality] to travel to Europe. . . . It opens, it makes it possible to have work abroad, a scholarship.” Juan Manuel says it means knowing “that if one needs to leave at some point for whatever reasons, one has an advantage that others don’t have, nothing more: peace of mind in case you have to leave, no more.” “Nothing,” it turns out, means a great deal relative to the opportunities available to Argentines with a single nationality: free passage through borders, access to jobs and welfare benefits but few obligations and, especially, no expectation that affective links to Argentina have to be severed or that allegiances to a new homeland state have to be contrived. Paula captures the sentiment of many second-nationality applicants when she says, “I am still the same, but [Italian] citizenship allows me to [overcome bureaucratic obstacles, to travel and to study].” Even individuals who are emotionally invested in an ancestral citizenship view this as independent from their Argentine identities. The value of a second nationality, then, resides in its greater potential to open doors and diversify risk relative to Argentine citizenship without requiring affective allegiance. Taking into account the strategic and affective dimensions of Argentine and European nationality as well as applicants’ frames of reference, it becomes clearer how a second nationality can mean a great deal and not much at all. A shift in the frame of reference from which the value of a second citizenship is derived further supports this argument. What is the value of a Spanish,



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Italian, or European Union nationality after emigration to Europe? Pablo (a twenty-two-year-old engineering student in Buenos Aires) is the son of post–World War II Galician emigrants. He leads a well-known Galician music ensemble sponsored by the Federation of Galician Hometown Associations. He considers himself an Argentine of Galician heritage and sees the promotion of Galician/Celtic song and dance as a way to lift people’s spirits in a time of crisis, just as they did for immigrants to Argentina in the past. He understands his activities as an alternative to the party politics that occupy older Galicians in the federation. He actively dissuades would-be migrants from thinking of Spain as an answer to their economic problems, pointing out the high unemployment rates in that country and particularly in the autonomous region of Galicia. He himself has experienced the difficulties of finding a job in Spain, though he never seriously considered moving there. Given his experience in Argentina and Spain, Pablo has a tempered view of what a second nationality is worth. Marisa (a thirty-five-year-old performer living in Vigo) is the daughter of prominent leaders of the Galician Federation in Buenos Aires. She was raised in a community that nurtured ties to Galicia and Spain and decided to migrate to Vigo about two years ago. Her family is well off but does not feel safe in Buenos Aires. Marisa was mugged several times there, and this was an important factor in her decision to emigrate. She is a known performer of Galician folk music and has recorded several compact discs. In her role as president of an organization that serves Argentines abroad, she comes across many mono-national and dual-national Argentines who come to Spain in search of economic stability and success. In attempts to assist newcomers in finding jobs, she has become painfully aware of the difficulties they encounter. When she returns to Buenos Aires, she tries to convey these difficulties so that people’s expectations will be more realistic. In his role as a union representative in Vigo, Francisco (a forty-nine-yearold Galician attorney raised in Buenos Aires) helps place Argentine newcomers with nationality or residency papers. He unsurprisingly discusses the motivations and arrival of Argentines almost exclusively in terms of work. He travels frequently to Buenos Aires and knows that the economic situation there is very distressing. However, coming to Spain without a job lined up may leave new arrivals in a worse situation than in Buenos Aires because they lack family and social network support. He points to the difficult situation faced even by retornados (returnees), Galician-born emigrants who lived

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abroad and return or the descendants of Galicians who have Spanish nationality. He is using the official Galician definition which entitles these returnees to some assistance from the autonomous region’s government.25 During my visit to Francisco’s workplace, I meet two men in their late twenties who have traveled from A Coruña in hopes that Francisco might help them find work in Vigo. They are brothers-in-law and arrived from Argentina a couple of months ago. Claudio is the son of Galician emigrants and thus obtained Spanish nationality through his parents. Juan has residency papers because he married Claudio’s sister, a Spanish citizen. They have commercial driver’s licenses recognized by the Spanish government through diplomatic convention. Despite their legal status and professional certifications, Claudio and Juan have had serious problems finding work. Claudio has not yet received his national identification card, which may take up to six months to arrive, and thus employers are reluctant to hire him. Juan says he has temporary residence papers and is waiting on his final nationality papers, which can take up to thirteen months to arrive. His status makes employers wary both for legal reasons and because they are unsure if he and Claudio are as compliant as more vulnerable workers. So, they tell me, it is not enough just to have papers. There is already competition for jobs with locals, and this makes finding work difficult. Still, they do not regret their decision to leave Argentina, where they had a small delivery company and were not making it financially. If they do not find work in Vigo, they will go to Barcelona, where they have heard there are many Argentines and more plentiful employment opportunities. Claudio and Juan’s story illustrates both the strategic motivations underlying the search for Spanish nationality and the gap between formal and substantive citizenship. Some informants assess the value of a second nationality with the advantage of a European frame of reference and decide to remain in Argentina. Their rationale, however, confirms that different standpoints operate in the determination of the value of Argentine and European citizenships. Daniel (a thirty-two-year-old self-employed taxicab owner and driver) is the son of Galician and Castilian emigrants. He has had Spanish nationality for several years, but despite the critical economic situation in Argentina and the everyday corruption with which he must deal in the commercial taxi industry, he prefers to stay in Argentina, where he has a house, his own business, and friends. His mother and sister left a couple of years ago to work in Spain, and that gives him a perspective different from that of aspiring emigrants.



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His sister works as a waitress and doing odd jobs. Daniel notes with some bitterness: When it comes right down to it, the only jobs available are the ones they [i.e., Spaniards] don’t want to do. Why would I want to go do that? If I’m going to do a shit job, I might as well do it where I know people, [where] I know how things are. At this point in my life, I wouldn’t leave to go there. . . . But who knows, maybe if I have kids, they’ll want to go.

I have shown in this section how individuals go about the business of getting a second nationality and the ways in which gaps in the specification of formal procedures are filled by everyday knowledge and by entrepreneurs in the paper industry. The lengths to which people go in pursuit of a second nationality and how they talk about getting a second nationality demonstrate that seemingly contradictory perspectives on the value and quality of citizenship may be reconciled analytically by taking into account the position from which individuals make such assessments. It’s Everything and Nothing: How Citizenship Matters Is citizenship becoming less valuable as more people gain permanent residence or have access to the rights and privileges historically reserved for full members, or is it becoming more valuable as the gulf between reference countries widens? In this chapter, I have argued that the answer to both questions is “yes.” When the frame of reference for citizenship is the state jurisdiction that defines it, citizenship has indeed become lighter than it had been, just as Joppke (2010) argues it has in the European Union. The extension to migrants of rights and privileges previously reserved for Argentine citizens means that more people have access to the same resources. When the reference point is the value added in status or opportunities by a second, European nationality, citizenship has increased in worth. The variable worth of citizenship becomes clear through a detailed examination of how people go about pursuing a second nationality and of the strategies they use in making application decisions. This granular “real law” view shows the variable meaning of nationality for those who have it or want a second one. The long view developed earlier in the book reveals that the value and hence the quality of citizenship changes over time: while what mattered in the past was an advantageous immigration status in Argentina and doing just enough to keep one’s birth nationality in the

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event that it became useful, today ancestral nationalities have become highly prized as passports into countries with more options than Argentina. Having a second nationality presumes keeping the old one and thus broadening the range of options and possibilities attached to each. By having a European Union nationality, Argentines access a number of European countries, have an easier time visiting the United States, and continue to enjoy free movement in Mercosur countries. These are no small matters in a world as uncertain as ours at the dawn of the twenty-first century. Argentine lawmakers in the nineteenth century already worried that plural citizenship would give some Argentines more prerogatives than others. The concern was not unfounded and was remarkably prescient of contemporary nationality dynamics.26 I have argued that by studying the case of Argentines with a second nationality option, it is possible to understand the seemingly contradictory perspectives on the value of citizenship posited by Joppke. By examining how nationality law and procedures work on the ground, it becomes clearer why citizenship can both be assessed as critical to people’s lives and as less valuable, even in an individual’s trajectory. The privileged status of Argentines with a second nationality option relative to people with no such options constitutes an advantage for the empirical observation of how the value of citizenship is assessed. In Chapter 5, I return to this point and consider whether the perspectives drawn from this case give analytic purchase in the interpretation of citizenship in other contexts. First, however, I examine the political and identity implications of second-nationality Argentines in Argentina and in Spain and Italy.

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snapshot from Spain and another from Italy show the persistent effects of past efforts to make and keep citizens. Luis Bricio, the mayor of Aguaviva, a small Spanish town in the rural region of Aragon, arrived in Buenos Aires in July 2000 to recruit Argentine families who are descended from past Spanish immigrants and thus eligible for Spanish nationality. The mayor was trying to save his town from the compounded effects of an aging population and the flight of youngsters to urban centers. The Argentine economy was in shambles, although it had not reached its lowest point, and middle-class workers fortunate enough to be employed struggled to make it from paycheck to paycheck. Over five thousand people rushed to the Buenos Aires offices of the Spanish Partido Popular, the conservative political party in office at the time, when Mayor Bricio broadcast the details of his recruiting mission over local radio. The story went “viral” when picked up by major media outlets. Less than a year later, ten Argentine and two Uruguayan families had settled in Aguaviva. A year after their arrival, half the families had moved on or were considering a move. The disgruntled immigrants felt that the promises made to them by Mayor Bricio had not been kept, that they had not been treated as Argentina had treated Spanish immigrants of the past, and that as Spanish nationals they were entitled to the same rights and privileges as their compatriots in Aguaviva. Mayor Bricio and the townspeople felt that while the newcomers may have been Spanish on paper, they had unrealistic expectations and a weak work ethic.

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Spanish nationality gave the newcomers a formal insider status but did not bridge identity gaps. Romano Prodi’s center-left coalition won the April 2006 Italian parliamentary elections with the swing vote of Italians abroad, specifically those in Argentina. This outcome resulted from a law passed in December 2001 that allowed Italians registered abroad to vote as constituents in a new electoral district. Italians in Argentina had a “trial run” as voters in a referendum to modify two laws in 2003, but the 2006 election had higher stakes: seats for twelve parliamentary deputies and six senators who would represent a newly created circumscription of Italians abroad. Electoral campaigns began in 2003 and grew in visibility until the April 2006 vote. People on the streets of Buenos Aires could not have ignored the campaign posters at bus stops and in subway stations and publicity over the airwaves and in the local media.1 Silvio Berlusconi and Forza Italia—his conservative political party—were stunned and questioned procedures of the vote abroad, which they had in fact authored. The right-wing coalition had miscalculated the political leanings of this constituency of Italians abroad, and in particular those in the Southern Cone. They were left to lament their fate at the hands of gli argentini. Outcomes in the 2008 election were more favorable to the right, but clearly the vote of Italians abroad could not be taken for granted. The Aguaviva story and the account of Italians voting abroad illustrate the long-term consequences of past attempts to embrace as citizens people who moved among Spain, Italy, and Argentina. Legal and organizational competitive efforts to assimilate migrants into states and their respective nations have carried within them the seeds of dissimilation and of a change in the quality of citizenship. By dissimilation I mean a process of differentiation that runs counter to what the institutional architects of citizenship had in mind. Citizenship was for them the irreversible accomplishment of a legally exclusive and enduring link between states and subjects on the basis of which rights, privileges, and obligations were distributed and identities formed. Contemporary citizenship has turned out to be neither exclusive nor enduring, thanks to the combined effect of jus soli ties in birth countries’ laws and jus sanguinis links in ancestral homeland state policies. From the perspective of the birth country, the links to the imagined political community have been reconfigured and are in danger of unraveling. For the first time in Argentina’s history, a substantial number of citizens with high human capital have a second nationality, along with the rights, privileges, and obligations that entails.



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From the ancestral homeland perspective, a substantial number of new or “recovered” citizens have a legal tie to the state, but an uncertain social one to the larger political community. The introduction of difference and of more complex solidarities where a common ground was thought to exist has far-ranging consequences. In this chapter, I examine the consequences of dissimilation in the domain of work and of electoral politics and argue that these legacies of past policies have changed the quality of citizenship in the countries involved. Specifically, citizenship has become more flexible, expansive, and differentially valued. Citizenship is flexible in that it allows its holders to respond more elastically and strategically to changing political and economic circumstances than in the past, when plural nationality was frowned on and when the exercise of nationality rights and obligations was more territorially bounded. In the contemporary context, individuals can use nationality options to respond to the effects of economic dislocations in Latin America, market integration in the European Union, and the social welfare and political concomitants of these policies. They can exercise citizenship extraterritorially; for instance, by voting for Italian candidates while living in Argentina. Individuals have hedged their bets against economic and political instability in a way that suggests the emergence of an elusive citizen: one who, because of a well-diversified portfolio of membership options, is able to duck the restrictive embrace of any single government. The flip side of an elusive citizen are compatriots who have been left holding a devalued membership stock and fewer ways to evade government. This scenario contrasts with a period between World War I and the 1960s when governments had relatively more control over their members. In some respects, it is reminiscent of an earlier period of state-formation, when people found ways to slip through the legal and administrative gaps in state nationality and migration policy. The contemporary emergence of an elusive citizen subject is striking, however, because it comes after governments made significant gains in their legitimate capacity to regulate people’s membership and migration. Citizenship has also become more expansive in that it offers individuals greater options for identification and politics in each country. As mentioned, it does not exclusively bind people legally or affectively in the ways touted by nationalists and assumed by people’s everyday sociologies. Argentines can concurrently opt for a second nationality as an entry into new labor markets, affirm the right to access jobs similar to those held by their new conationals,

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maintain their Argentineness and vote in the elections of their new membership states. Finally, citizenship has become more differentially valued than in the past because of its expansiveness and flexibility. It is variable in its payoff to holders over time and across countries. This quality derives from its relation to a state. As sociologist Charles Tilly (1985) has argued, states are simply resource and protection rackets: they monopolize control over labor markets and welfare benefits for members and offer access to these in exchange for fidelity, taxes, and services. People make assessments about the value of citizenship and about which citizenship options to exercise in view of what particular states are able to offer and guarantee. In brief, dissimilation has been a consequence of the competitive dynamics that resulted in the adoption of jus soli and jus sanguinis nationality policies in the political field constituted by Argentina, Italy, and Spain. This process of reconfiguration of citizenship and its changing qualities can be observed in key social domains. In the sections to come, I first examine the experience of Argentines with privileged migratory and citizenship status and their labor market integration in Spain. The second part of this chapter looks at Italian electoral politics in Argentina to gauge the implications of extraterritorial citizenship. A final section discusses how these labor market and electoral scenarios throw the quality of contemporary citizenship into relief. Workers or Citizens? Plural Citizenship and Belonging Argentines with Spanish nationality expect to do as well in the Spanish labor market as their European compatriots do. That is why many of them apply for a second nationality. Spaniards view Argentines as distant cousins returning from a long sojourn abroad. They expect that their common ethnic origins will make it easier for Argentines to integrate than it is for other immigrants and that Argentines will behave like other newcomers to the job market. When these expectations clash, people are left wondering what their ethnic affinity and citizenship mean. Relying on a study of Spanishdescended Argentines who have “returned” to Spain, I argue in this section that the effect of perceived ethnic affinities varies by social context. While ethnic similarity with natives may offer an advantage to migrants in search of housing or educational opportunities, it can hinder entry to the job market. From an employer’s standpoint, what makes “traditional” immigrants suited to these positions is their willingness to accept low wages and poor working



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conditions in anticipation of future economic and status payoffs in the homeland. Argentines who move to Spain on the basis of an official claim on an ancestral homeland have a legal and social standing that affects their vulnerability and sense of where they fit on the job ladder. If they want the same jobs and social status as members of the receiving community, employers are less likely to see them as suitable for entry-level positions, and newcomers will find themselves competing with natives for skilled and professional jobs. The gap between expectations attached to a citizen and a worker leads to conflict among Argentines and Spaniards. In turn, these result in a reevaluation of citizenship.2 Ethnic affinity migrants are individuals who, like Spanish-descended Argentines, benefit from a privileged migratory status based on ancestry or links to the receiving context. They have access to much the same social and economic goods as their legally defined “coethnics,” at least on paper. Ethnic-affinity policies are laws and related official practices through which one state (in this case, Spain) gives prospective migrants living in other countries (Spanish-descended Argentines) a privileged migration or citizenship status based on perceived common origins. Spanish policies reflect a belief in common origins with (a) descendants of former colonial subjects, who at times have been viewed as belonging to a state-transcending community of Hispanic nations; and (b) descendants of recent Spanish emigrants to the Americas, Africa, and Europe.3 Ethnicity can be the means to enclose scarce goods, in this instance Spanish (and European) labor markets, and social welfare resources. Ethnic-affinity laws lend reality to the very distinctions that official discourse treats as natural and self-evident. The legal category “emigrant returnee” applied to people who may never have set foot in Spain and have another nationality, for instance, represents a claim on them by virtue of history and familial ties. It is analytically important to recognize these policies and related categories as ones used by participants in struggles to define national insiders and, by default, outsiders, rather than as reflective of “objective” distinctions. State actors in developed economies are often caught between two competing impulses. On the one hand, there is a persistent emphasis on maximizing social cohesion within a territorially circumscribed population, which often entails official efforts to minimize difference. On the other hand, embeddedness in an economic system that relies on the availability of evercheaper labor means workers come from abroad. Ethnic-affinity migrants

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appear to reconcile these contradictory impulses: they are more likely to share linguistic competencies, religion, customs, orientations, and possibly phenotype with natives. They presumably fill entry-level jobs not taken by natives, at least for a time. The tacit assumption is that ethnic affinity refers to similarities among natives and newcomers that cut across multiple social contexts and ease mutual acceptance. Economic scholarship on migrants, however, suggests that similarity is problematic in the work domain. Difference and a related legal vulnerability is what connects immigrant workers to specific jobs in the minds of employers and what makes them “good” for those positions.4 This perception is also informed by immigrants’ dual frame of reference or that they judge the here and now in terms of the there and then. Ethnic-affinity migrants have all the makings of less pliable workers. They have the same formal rights and privileges as their native hosts, as well as access to similar jobs and probably similar work expectations. Even when they do not, prospective hosts may assume they do and conclude that they are unlikely to be compliant workers. Native employers prefer strangers to do the dirty, dangerous, and difficult jobs they have to offer at very low wages. To establish the baseline of conventional knowledge, with its implicit expectation of mutual acceptance, I examine the discursive construction of the case of Spanish-descended Argentines and their hosts in the town of Aguaviva. The analysis rests on a close interpretive reading of 257 articles compiled between 2000 and 2005 from the Spanish, Argentine, North-American, and European press. This case serves as a window into the conflicting expectations of Spanish-descended Argentines and their coethnic hosts as viewed by journalists from different national standpoints, but who take for granted the commonality between people in these categories and what this implies for mutual acceptance. The case is telling because it reflects broader Spanish and European concerns about declining populations and immigration as a solution to demographic dilemmas.5 To examine “on the ground” dynamics between natives and ethnic migrants, and in particular their mutual acceptance in a range of contexts, I draw on observations and interviews carried out between June 2001 and September 2003 among Spanish-Argentines in Ría, which is a pseudonym for an industrial port city in Galicia, Spain. The selection of an urban and a rural setting controls for the possibility that the observed expectations’ mismatch is an effect of rural-urban differences among newcomers and natives. More importantly, the kinship and historical ethnicities at work in each case shape expectations in remarkably similar ways.



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Aguaviva: Frustrated Expectations, Ethnic Redefinitions, and the Unrealized Value of Citizenship A small town located midway between Madrid and Zaragoza, Aguaviva has gained notoriety as the site of an innovative program to fight depopulation through the selective recruitment of Spanish-descended migrants in South America. Its experiment with immigration by design has received considerable attention from the Spanish, European, and Argentine press because it resonates with broader concerns: first, European states perceived to be in demographic decline, or in a so-called second demographic transition (Kligman 2005; Pérez Leira 2002); and second, relatively new economically ailing emigration countries like Argentina (Actis and Esteban 2006; Lattes, Comelatto, and Levit 2003). The Aguaviva story is captivating because it purports to be a win-win encounter of sending- and receiving-country needs. From the sending-country standpoint, under- and unemployed citizens are able to access European labor markets, and perhaps even send remittances (Calvo 2005). From the receiving perspective, a diminishing population is replenished with people who make possible the reproduction of European polities and economies. The crucial point is that these newcomers presumably bear a family resemblance to natives and are therefore thought more likely to fit in easily. A comparison with other prospective migrants who are linguistically, religiously, racially, and culturally more distant from the native norm, and thus less amenable to integration, is tacit in this understanding (Gil Araujo 2004). Moroccans and sub-Saharan Africans, for instance, are implicit reference groups in the preference for Argentines and Romanians. Thus, the selective immigration program undertaken by Aguaviva is newsworthy as a proactive and innovative approach to dilemmas faced by European receiving and Latin American sending states, and not because of its exceptionality. By the late 1990s, Aguaviva’s mayor, Luis Bricio, had concluded that small towns like his would disappear within a generation in the absence of drastic measures. Aguaviva had the lowest birthrate in a country with the lowest birthrate in the world (Fernández Cordón 2001). In conversation with other mayors from his region, Bricio founded the Spanish Association of Municipalities Against Depopulation of which he has remained president. The objectives of the organization are to foster economic development while promoting selective immigration (Bricio Manzanares 2004). Concretely, towns would sponsor preferably large Latin American families of Spanish descent. Interest settled especially on Argentina since many of its Spanish-descended citizens

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had begun to apply for Italian or Spanish citizenship in the wake of economic crisis. Migrants would enter into a contract with each municipality, committing to stay for a period of five years. For their part, municipalities would front relocation costs and provide housing and work. In July 2000, Bricio traveled to Argentina to select a dozen pioneer families. Working through local chapters of the Spanish conservative Partido Popular in Buenos Aires, Rosario, and Mar del Plata, he announced several blue-collar openings for couples under forty with at least two children (Carricart and Litvak 2000; Monserrat 2000). He spoke on a local radio program, Galicia Oxe, and at least two large media outlets picked up the story. The widely disseminated announcement received an overwhelming response, and within two days, the Partido Popular offices processed inquiries from over five thousand people (Ortega 2001). By April 2001, ten Argentine and two Uruguayan families had settled in Aguaviva, adding thirty-four children to the local primary school with a previous enrolment of fifty children. They newcomers were mostly from middle-class urban backgrounds, and many had managed small businesses during the most recent economic crisis in Argentina. The families arrived with much fanfare, and rosy assessments of Bricio’s initiative were the order of the day. Newcomers to Aguaviva celebrated their good fortune and the generosity of their hosts in multiple interviews with the Spanish and Argentine press. It seemed that there had been a happy meeting between the demographic needs of rural Spain and the economic needs of Spanish-descended Argentines. Subsequently, the repopulation program was expanded to include families from other Latin American countries and Eastern Europe, primarily Romania. In all, about twenty-five families arrived in Aguaviva, raising its total population to over seven hundred and doubling its school-age population (Daly 2003). Despite the auspicious beginnings of the Aguaviva initiative, half the Argentine families had left or were considering leaving within a year of arriving. They all had Argentine and Spanish nationality, which allowed for movement within the European Union. Most claimed that Aguaviva had not met its promises of providing adequate housing and especially work. New arrivals felt entitled to the same treatment as natives, for which they adduced two related rationales. The first was historical. Newcomers invoked stories of help given by Argentina to Spain’s past emigrants, including their own ancestors, to imply that contemporary Spaniards maintained an outstanding debt with Argentina that could be repaid by giving its citizens a comparable hand. Jorge



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López (forty years old, laid off as a technician with 3M in Buenos Aires) held that “my grandfather left Spain because he was going hungry. And he arrived in Argentina looking for a better life. Now, history repeats itself, but the other way around” (Carricart and Litvak 2000). The second rationale for equal treatment was legal. Since many migrants had or were in the process of acquiring Spanish citizenship, they felt entitled to the same rights and privileges as other Spaniards. Therefore, they were not willing to take menial, dangerous, or poorly paid jobs just because they offered nominally more compensation than those available in Argentina. When access to other jobs proved problematic, newcomers felt duped. For instance, several participants in the repopulation program complained that the jobs they had been promised before coming to Aguaviva required Spanish certifications, such as commercial driver’s licenses, at a significant cost. Unable to complete the coursework and pay the fees, they were forced to consider what, from their perspective, were underpaid and dangerous jobs at the local sandpit (Monserrat 2002; Webster 2001). In addition, most newcomers came from urban contexts and thought the housing supplied by locals was substandard and lacking in basic amenities. The townspeople shared with Spanish-descended migrants a sense of cultural affinity and the expectation that this would facilitate the settlement process. “If it were simply a matter of finding workers,” Mayor Bricio had said of his program, “we wouldn’t have traveled so far to find HispanoArgentines” (Carricart and Litvak 2000). Migrants from other parts of Latin America and from North Africa were available in large numbers for employment in Spain (see Gil Araujo 2004). “But it’s a matter of finding people who will come to Aguaviva with the intention of staying forever,” he continued. “For this, the capacity to integrate and adapt to our customs are key, so the natural candidates should be the descendants of Spaniards.” From the community’s perspective, it was important to find the right kind of worker: those similar to Aguaviva’s residents, who could presumably reproduce their way of life. Moreover, townspeople underscored their willingness to settle a historical debt with Argentina, a country that in the past had dealt generously with Spain by receiving its emigrants.6 However, when it came to work and housing, Aguaviva natives held the same expectations of Spanish-descended Argentines as they did of immigrants generally, a point amply illustrated by frequent comparisons with Romanian immigrants. After the municipality sued several newcomers who

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left Aguaviva allegedly in breach of contract, the mayor left no doubts about native work expectations: “[we brought them] not to be princes, but to work and earn a living.” When newcomers refused to do available work, locals questioned their work ethic. In interviews shortly after the arrival of Spanishdescended Argentines, the mayor noted that the Latin Americans had “a different concept of work” than local residents had (Webster 2001, 24). In this and other interviews, natives invariably contrasted Romanian and Argentine migrants and presented the former as examples worthy of emulation. Locals observed that, despite religious and linguistic differences, Romanian immigrants were “more like us” than the Latin American newcomers in their ethic of hard work and modest expectations (Daly 2003; Voss 2003). Indeed, Romanians’ willingness to do hard manual labor and to live in what their urbanorigin Argentine counterparts considered substandard housing emerged repeatedly in native narratives. The upshot of the Argentine-Romanian comparison is that, while natives were willing to overlook linguistic and religious differences, they were less forgiving in the world of work and reassessed the “real” bases of affinity accordingly. In this reassessment, cultural affinity had been moved down the list of factors likely to enhance natives and newcomers’ mutual acceptance (Bricio Manzanares 2004). Spanish nationality allowed prospective migrants to make the first cut, but their perceived work ethic and skills that matched available jobs headed the list of favorable factors, followed by family size, rural origins, and an attitude of “peaceful coexistence.” Mayor Bricio and town residents came to advocate a more exhaustive vetting process at the point of origin that paid particular attention to these criteria. According to Bricio, “integration doesn’t depend on the language, nor is it guaranteed by a shared Spanish heritage. . . . What really matters is the work ethic and that the skills they come with match the sort of jobs we can offer here” (emphasis added, Voss 2003). In this reconsideration of factors likely to facilitate integration, there was an implicit recognition of the limits of similarity. Newcomers should not have been like natives linguistically or culturally, but they should have matched available jobs both in skills and in a disposition to do them, as perceived by native employers. As the evaluation of Romanians suggested, what constituted a good worker was a willingness to do jobs that the natives were not doing. Notwithstanding natives’ moral discourse about work orientation, they shared with their fictive Argentine kin an aversion to the types of jobs filled by Romanians. The “problem”



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from a work perspective was similarity, not difference, in attitudes toward particular jobs. It then follows that selecting migrants who are like prospective hosts in every respect would not help, and would possibly hinder, the matching of ethnic-affinity migrants to jobs generally available to them, unless some basis exists for limiting labor market expectations. To probe this claim further, the following section recounts the experience of Spanish-descended Argentines in Ría, pseudonym for a city in the ancestral homeland and traditional emigrant-exporting region of Galicia.7 Ethnic-affinity migrants in this instance more closely resemble natives along several dimensions, and from a conventional perspective, this would suggest better integrative prospects. Galicia: Better a Foreigner Than a Paper National? The people interviewed in Galicia shared natives’ urban origins, and in addition they had family ties to Galicia, arrived in a context with long-standing institutional links with Argentina, and benefited from subnational government policies favoring returnees. Despite this advantageous convergence of factors, Spanish-descended Argentine migrants to Galicia also found their expectations and aspirations at odds, if not in direct conflict, with those of natives, again especially in the occupational domain. The “urban origins” alluded to earlier subsume several dimensions of commonality among immigrants and hosts: educational profiles, the close fit between worker and job, and infrastructural expectations. Interviewees had educational attainment and skills similar to those of their hosts (Algañaraz 2006a). Those with some university and professional aspirations in particular competed with similarly trained but locally qualified natives and faced the most difficulties in finding jobs matching their formal training and professional aspirations. Skilled workers were in greater demand but had to contend with locals whose nationality and papers were never in question. A study commissioned by the Xunta de Galicia found that, while almost 35 percent of Galician-descended Argentines had a college education that prepared them for the professions, the demand in Galicia was for skilled workers (Heguy 2003).8 In terms of infrastructural expectations, newcomers from large cities like Buenos Aires, Rosario, and Santa Fe were likely to find housing, transportation, and a cultural life comparable to those in Argentina. In addition to having urban profiles in common with Galicians, those interviewed often had parents and grandparents who hailed from Galicia and even Ría. Thus,

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returnees frequently had kinship ties to natives, even if distant, and so the metaphor of relatives fallen on hard times had more literal underpinnings here than in Aguaviva. A kinship network was important in helping ethnic migrants find housing and work, although the latter was less frequent than one might expect, since native relatives were often elderly and disengaged from the labor market or had to worry about their own children’s placement. At an affective level, newcomers were able to connect with the place reminisced about by their parents or grandparents. This is in sharp contrast to the experience of newcomers to Aguaviva, whose links were relatively more contrived or distant. As mentioned, historical, institutional, and organizational links to Argentina have contributed to a sense of affinity among Spanish-descended Argentines and native Galicians. The historical legacies of migration to Argentina and other Latin American countries pervade many aspects of Galicia’s contemporary social and political life, so that a sense of connection to retornados is robust compared to what one might find in a place like Aguaviva, which experienced emigration but no significant return migration. The names of city streets and businesses, schools and cultural institutions founded with past remittances from Argentina and Cuba, the influence of Galician voters abroad, and the recognition of emigrant intellectuals as architects of regional identity serve as reminders of Galicia’s emigration history and its ties abroad.9 A sense of connection to returnees is also nurtured by the activities of associations, some with a long tradition of fostering ties to Galician communities abroad. From an institutional perspective, the government of Galicia has defined the very category of “returnee” and has developed policies and administrative structures to serve eligible individuals (Galicia 1981).10 These regional policies operate within the framework of central-state counterparts but dedicate financial and organizational resources to those who avail themselves of Spanish citizenship and immigration preferences for emigrants and their descendants. The Consellería de Emigración is the administrative entity that coordinates official and nongovernmental organization support for returnees.11 In fiscal year 2006, the regional government allocated 17 million euros to programs for return migrants, including moneys to fund job placement, housing, and education (Xunta de Galicia 2006). The most recent institutional development has been the proposed passage of a new Statute of Citizens Abroad, which would recognize rights and privileges for the estimated 1.5 million



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Spaniards abroad, including those of just over nine hundred thousand Galicians (Abejón 2006; Reino de España 2006). It is understandable in light of these linkages that the arrival of Spanishdescended Argentines would be viewed like a homecoming and their acceptance as unproblematic. Ethnic-affinity migrants are portrayed sympathetically in the press as coethnics returned from a long sojourn abroad. For their part, ethnic-affinity migrants reported acceptance by native Galicians. Sofía (a forty-year-old registered nurse from Córdoba, Argentina) related that she met some initial reserve among Galicians, but she attributed this to a general distrust of outsiders, including Spaniards from other regions. She cited as an example of Galician hospitality the child-care assistance received from neighbors when she and her husband first arrived from Argentina in 1990. Other Spanish-descended Argentine youths and their native peers told of the popularity of Argentines on the local party scene and in local football clubs. When it comes to work, however, assessments are more negative. The dedication of resources to facilitate returnees’ labor market integration attests to the regional government’s preoccupation with employment problems observed among Latin American returnees. Local media have also given wide coverage to returnees’ downward occupational mobility. In field interviews, Spanish-descended migrants reported a range of problems in the occupational sphere. A salient complaint concerned job aspirations that overlapped with those of other Spaniards. For instance, Manolo (a student and unemployed former hotel worker in his late twenties) wanted to find work in “administration or marketing’ but had been unsuccessful since arriving two months earlier. He is part of the 23 percent of returnees who are the foreignborn children and grandchildren of Galicians and have Spanish citizenship. As a citizen, he thought he should have access to the same jobs and pay as any other Spaniard. The jobs offered to him, however, were ones he considered below his abilities, experience, and pay expectations. On the other hand, natives tacitly expected that newcomers would gratefully take available unskilled and semiskilled jobs at modest wages, since even highly skilled and qualified native workers have had to migrate to other parts of Spain and Europe in search of work. Marisa (a thirty-five-year-old employer and daughter of a prominent Galician leader in Buenos Aires) worried about the cavalier attitude of many returnees who, like Manolo, had a “bad” disposition for someone who is unemployed. She was horrified that some newcomers even tell demeaning jokes about their hosts and prospective

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employers. In her view, this did not bode well for Argentine job seekers. In her assessment of Spanish-descended migrants the comparison was to other immigrants willing to humbly accept the opportunities offered them and to Galicians who, as past emigrants, sacrificed abroad in order to make a better life for themselves and their families at home. And yet, when ethnic migrants were willing to do jobs for which they were overqualified, employers sometimes made assumptions that excluded them from these positions. Claudio (a truck driver in his mid-twenties, son of Galician emigrants), and his brother-in-law, Juan (also a truck driver in his mid-twenties, married to a Galician) were desperately seeking employment at a local union office. On the one hand, since they had not yet received their national identification cards, employers were reluctant to hire them for highly regulated driving positions when there were other, fully documented drivers. On the other hand, employers were unwilling to hire them for less qualified work once they learned that Claudio and Juan were Spanish citizens or nearly so. A local union representative who helped place workers like Juan and Claudio believed that employers assumed that, as Spaniards, such workers would not really be willing to do unskilled, poorly paid jobs. Thus, their own aspirations and employers’ notions of who matched which positions frustrated migrants’ job search. One alternative for Spanish-descent migrants was to enter an emerging ethnic employment niche. Pablo (a fifty-five-year-old bartender) returned to Ría after forty-five years in Buenos Aires and could not find steady employment. He was eligible for some government assistance, but was making ends meet by tending bar in a café that caters mostly to Argentine expatriates. As an older returnee, it was unlikely that employers would select him for entrylevel positions, and he did not have the educational credentials to fill skilled or professional openings. However, the commercial sector serving immigrants was still relatively small and was unlikely to offer jobs attractive to most ethnic migrants. For the most part, ethnic-affinity migrants face barriers to entering the local labor market because of expectations that overlap or clash with those of natives or because of employers’ notions of which prospective workers have the right attitude for specific jobs. The employment history of Sofía, a Spanish-descended migrant mentioned earlier, clearly illustrates these hurdles and in particular the crucial difference that citizenship status can make in workers’ and employers’ dispositions and job-matching processes. Although a registered nurse in



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Argentina, Sofía was hired as a nurse’s aide at the local hospital, and for a few years she worked off the books. She had not revalidated her Argentine degree, and the hospital was content to have her work at lower pay. At the time she was not a Spanish citizen. When she applied for residency papers, the hospital issued a contract for the authorities confirming contributions to the social security system on Sofía’s behalf. They then deducted this money, which they were contributing for native workers, from her salary each month. Sofía felt there was no alternative and thought it part of paying one’s dues in a new country. Once a Spanish citizen, she was no longer dependent on the hospital’s contracts to show continuous employment, a requirement for the periodic renewal of residency permits, and felt entitled to better pay, which the hospital resisted. Sofía eventually went on disability leave and then was laid off but received unemployment benefits from the government. By this time, her husband had become captain of a merchant marine ship and they were able to make ends meet. She continued to work for local hospitals on a part-time basis because, to avoid paying benefits, they would not hire her full-time. Ironically, the change in expectations that accompanied Sofía’s change in citizenship status put her in a precarious employment position. The consensus among migrants interviewed was that formal citizenship did not translate into the substantive rights they envisioned for themselves in the job market. Aspiring to the same jobs as their coethnic hosts, they became frustrated with settlement in Ría. Galicians found these expectations unrealistic and arrogant. To the extent that newcomers were not willing to do entry-level jobs, they were cast as undesirable workers. On the other hand, newcomers felt that, even when they were willing to do low-paying and low-status jobs, employers were likely to assume no interest or that these jobs were beneath newly arrived coethnics. It was the legally defined similarity of Spanish-descent Argentines that underlay the expectation of landing native jobs and hindered the maintenance of a dual frame of reference which in turn led to employers’ categorization of newcomers as workers ill suited to available positions. The experiences of Argentine “return migrants” in Aguaviva and Ria demonstrate that the presumed likeness of nationals is at least questionable and certainly uneven. They are not like their fellow Argentines in having a second nationality and access to the Spanish labor market and social support system. They are like their Spanish neighbors in having the same nationality, but this thwarts their social integration because they do not meet local expectations

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about the work they should be willing to do. The long-term effect of Spanish jus sanguinis policies has been marked by the differentiation of Argentines from other Argentines and an uneasy acceptance into the Spanish community. Thus, Argentines are legal insiders but substantively marginalized because of the questionable moral character they show in the workplace, at least during their first years in Spain. On balance, however, they enjoy better employment and lifestyle prospects than in Argentina and the possibility of moving freely among two countries and their jobs and resources. The Spanish citizenship option has been of less value than expected in the work world but still an advantage over a single nationality. The difficulties encountered in finding work have translated into a negative evaluation that has in turn affected substantive social belonging. One wonders if similar dynamics are at work in more formally defined facets of citizenship. For instance, does the value and quality of citizenship change in the domain of electoral politics? The second part of this chapter examines the effects of nationality policies developed in a competitive environment on political choices in an immigrant nation (Argentina) and immigration states (Spain and Italy). Extraterritorial Electoral Citizenship The electoral franchise has been among the most significant rights extended to citizens over the last century. Its exercise has been complex within any given political jurisdiction but becomes even more so when votes are cast in another state’s jurisdiction. Matters become further complicated when more than one generation of nationals in other states’ jurisdictions is allowed the franchise or is defined as part of an electoral district abroad. Spain, Italy, and Argentina constitute an understudied case of just how complex electoral citizenship can be for all involved. The argument of this book has been that competitive dynamics of making and keeping citizens has left a policy legacy that continues to affect migrants, their descendants, and implicated states over the long run. Extraterritorial politics and electoral citizenship facilitated by the “recovery” or “recognition” of nationality among European-descended Argentines have been among these lasting effects.12 Electoral norms that recognize the vote abroad for these newly minted citizens have been a second facilitating factor. In the remainder of this chapter, I examine the political consequences of the recent increase in the number of Italians in Argentina, which has made it the largest community of



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Italian voters outside of Italy.13 The size of this electorate in Argentina and its effects on Italian and Argentine politics make it an especially telling instance, although the case of Spanish extraterritorial politics is also very illustrative. The following paragraphs describe what has happened in Italy and Argentina since the right to vote was first given to Italians abroad in 2002 and reflect on how it has introduced novel political differentiations in both countries. I showed in the previous chapter that the number of Italians in Argentina has increased significantly since 2000, and especially after 2005, to over seven hundred thousand (see Table 3.1). The increase is attributable to the registration of new Italians in Argentina rather than to a recent migration or an increase in the fertility of Italians in that country. This became the largest political constituency of Italians outside of Italy after passage of the so-called Tremaglia Law, which allows Italian residents abroad to vote in national political elections and referenda.14 The law created an extraterritorial electorate divided into four districts (Europe, South America, Central and North America, and Africa/Asia/Oceania/Antarctica) that built on electoral reforms and organizations created in the 1980s (Battiston and Mascitelli 2008). This included the Registry of Italians Abroad, Committees of Italians Abroad, and the General Council of Italians Abroad. Italians abroad have voted twice in referenda on specific themes and twice in parliamentary elections. In a June 2003 referendum on labor law and infrastructural improvements, Italians abroad voted along lines broadly similar to those of their homeland compatriots. In June 2005, however, the results of a referendum on reproductive technologies and practices show a more liberal trend among Italians abroad, though not enough to alter the outcome. In the April 2006 election, Italians abroad, and specifically in the Southern Cone jurisdiction, tipped the number of seats in the Parliament toward Romano Prodi’s Unione and away from Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia (Algañaraz 2006b).15 Romano Prodi’s coalition won by a slim margin with substantial support from the South American district of Italians abroad: five of eighteen representatives abroad came from South America (four Argentines and one Venezuelan), and four of them supported Prodi. The vote of Italians abroad cost Berlusconi the election, but he eventually returned to power after a parliamentary vote of no confidence against Prodi in January 2008 and a snap election in April 2008. The offshore district representative Luigi Pagliari was also instrumental in keeping Prodi in office until 2008.

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Ironically, two reforms promoted by the right were behind Berlusconi’s defeat in 2006, although both had support across the political spectrum. First, the extension of voting rights to Italians abroad was passed in 2001 and went into effect in 2002. An agreement between the administration and opposition parties at the time of passing the Turco-Napolitano Act (1998) on immigration promised a mail-in vote and election of representatives from communities of Italians abroad. The agreement followed on the reform of nationality in 1992 that disproportionately privileged the “reacquisition” of citizenship by descendants of Italians abroad (recall Chapter 3). Mirko Tremaglia (National Alliance) and others on the far right had long advocated the vote abroad under the assumption that the new constituency would moderate left-leaning elements of the electorate. The left, however, also supported or at least did not oppose the extension of the vote to Italians abroad. The second reform that contributed to the defeat of the right in 2006 included amendments made to the national electoral law in 2005. These reinstituted the proportionality system and gave a majority bonus to the party or coalition with the most votes.16 The presence of Italo-Argentine representatives in the Italian Parliament remains, thanks to these reforms, despite the return of the right in 2008.17 The extension of the franchise to Italians abroad has created a politically contentious field that uneasily spans rather than transcends two national jurisdictions. This has had effects on conventional nation-state logic at the level of overlapping political campaigns, geopolitics, and voters’ lived experiences. In the nationalist view, political campaigns should happen primarily within a state’s jurisdiction. When the national community spans more than one jurisdiction, affected countries may feel threatened or view the situation as a tactical opportunity to pursue interests through citizens who participate in another state’s political process. Italians across the political spectrum may subscribe to a familial logic of national belonging (Zincone 2006), but they are uneasy about the political judgment of long-lost putative kin. Francesca— an Italian informant in Buenos Aires who advised a successful candidate of the Committees of Italians Abroad for the 2006 campaign—expressed serious misgivings at the prospect of domestic issues being decided by Italians abroad, especially the constituents she referred to as the “children and grandchildren.” In her view, some of the older Italians were completely disconnected from political and cultural life in Italy or they knew an Italy that no longer existed. At least they knew the language and had a limited understanding of the country. The children and grandchildren—by which she meant Argentines



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who have reacquired Italian citizenship through a filial connection—did not speak Italian and knew very little about Italy generally and about its politics in particular. Francesca questioned their motivations, noting that all “they” were after were “facilities,” that is, ways to make things easier for themselves. Children and grandchildren only wanted to vote because they might otherwise lose their passport or benefits. Francesca doubted even the authenticity of their allegiance to Argentina, saying that they were patriotic only when it came to football. In her view, the children and grandchildren of Italians were privileged in nationality law only because there were Italians who preferred these descendants to an alternative immigration of North Africans and Eastern Europeans. At a geopolitical level, Italian politicians have worried that at best a district of Italians abroad has introduced new opportunities for electoral mistakes and fraud, and at worst Trojan horse candidates who pursue the political agenda of other countries in the Italian Parliament. In terms of electoral irregularities, the list spans from the difficulties of getting people on the electoral roll, as attested to by several informants, reconciling official lists of Italians abroad, allegations of missing ballots, to miscounting in Italy (Tarli Barbieri 2007). In an ironic turn, the Italian right, and especially Mirko Tremaglia—who performed very modestly in the Italian elections in Argentina—have proposed reforms to the external vote on the grounds that the allegiance of Italians abroad was suspect. Less partisan analysts have also worried that the rights of Italians abroad have come at the expense of conceding to diasporic political interests over those of Italians on the mainland (Battiston and Mascitelli 2008). The expansion of citizenship has led to its devaluation for mainland Italians but has benefited Italians abroad. Italian politicians were especially displeased with Luigi Pallaro, a senator elected as an independent and representative of the Italian Associations of South America, whom they accused of bowing to pressure from the Argentine president, Nestor Kirchner. Argentine and Italian leaders had been squabbling over a debt bond swap program implemented by Kirchner after the economic debacle of 2001–2002 which substantially reduced expected profits for thousands of Italian investors. Prime Minister Berlusconi had not been receptive to Kirchner’s renegotiation, and the relationship between the two countries had become tense. Political analysts were not surprised when Kirchner’s administration celebrated Prodi’s triumph. When the Italian Parliament took a vote of confidence in March 2007, Pallaro was the decisive vote that allowed

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Prodi to remain in power. The Italian media, which derisively called Pallaro “El Senador,” reported that other lawmakers wanted to question him about his communications with Kirchner (see Blanck 2006; Braslavsky 2006; and Cazullo 2007). They insinuated that the Argentine president was advancing his country’s agenda on the debt swap through Pallaro’s office. The misgivings of Italian politicians were understandable, given Pallaro’s instrumental behavior in the Senate. In early 2007 he introduced an amendment that carried his name and set aside 52 million euros (2007–2009) for multipurpose activities of Italian communities abroad (Battiston and Mascitelli 2008). The amendment also stressed policies for Italians abroad, and indeed this became the first of a twelve-point agenda for Prodi’s reconfirmed government in February 2007. Pallaro represented the scenario feared by opponents of multigenerational jus sanguinis nationality and the formation of political constituencies outside national jurisdictions. The lived experiences of Italians abroad show that they viewed the franchise strategically, assessing the costs of participation over abstention, and judging political participation with a lens cut in the Argentine context. Participants in my in-depth interviews described a superficial awareness of ancestral homeland politics, instrumental reasons for voting, and a reading of homeland politics through an Argentine left-right lens. Oscar (a forty-year-old bookstore clerk of Italian nationality) felt culturally Italian because of the household in which he grew up but did not speak Italian and had never been to Italy. His father filtered news to him about events in Italy, and he occasionally read news about Italy on the Internet. Oscar did not belong to any Italian associations or political parties. “The last time I voted,” he said, “I don’t have a clue for whom.” He voted in the 2006 elections because he got the envelope in the mail and his father told him to vote. Another respondent noted that his friend had urged him to vote mostly to punish Berlusconi for his right-wing policies, but in the end he did not. The Argentine left and even center have viewed the right-leaning candidates worldwide through the sieve of experiences with right-wing dictatorships. Participants with Spanish nationality also observed that while they did not know much about Spanish politics, they would have done their part by voting for the Spanish left (e.g., Mariana, a thirty-five year-old artist). In brief, Argentines with a second nationality may have voted with little information and may have judged Italian candidates by Argentine political field standards.



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What has motivated dual citizens to vote in Italian elections at high rates? Italians in Argentina have had a turnout rate of around 50 and 57 percent respectively for Chamber of Deputies and Senate elections in 2006 and 2008.18 One plausible explanation is that candidates were able to use the established immigrant association networks to mobilize the vote (cf. Tintori 2011). It has not been clear, however, if the proportion of new Italian voters participating in immigrant or home region associations has been substantial enough to make these networks effective means of getting out votes. Historically, participation in immigrant associations has been relatively low, and the people I interviewed confirmed this trend. In addition, the massive media campaign waged by candidates in metropolitan areas of Argentina would suggest that association networks did not have sufficient electoral reach. Candidate posters were ubiquitous at bus stops, subway entrances and stops, on over-street signage and pintadas, political ads pained on city walls. Candidates received broadly publicized visits from top-level Italian politicians and recognition from the first Kirchner administration. These factors advise caution in attributing high voter turnout rates exclusively or primarily to historic immigrant associations. The strategic motivations for seeking a second nationality discussed in the previous chapter combined with Argentine voting culture may add another important explanatory layer. The franchise in Argentina has been mandatory, and eligible voters have had to justify any abstention or pay a fine and become ineligible for public employment for three years.19 Organizational informants and interviewees reported that participants often thought they had no choice but to vote, even if they had little information about candidates or issues. Francesca, an Italian consultant with the Committees of Italians Abroad, and Beatrice, a leader in a Buenos Aires–based Italian association, reported that Italians in Argentina were concerned that by not voting they might lose Italian citizenship. This was especially the case for older constituents, who feared the loss of retirement benefits. If in doubt, Italian-Argentines opted not to risk the nationality that had often required considerable effort to get. Like Oscar, they followed the instructions of parents and relatives rather than risk their Italian nationality. A substantial and active constituency in Argentina has implications for the value and nature of citizenship in Italy and in Argentina. In Italy, a group of formal nationals living abroad can change the course of politics and everyday life in Italy without having to suffer the consequences directly. Direct

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consequences of their behavior are limited to the potential loss of nationality, welfare benefits, or the franchise itself, a prospect that would be contested primarily by the political entrepreneurs who have benefited in Argentina but not by the person on the street. That there are more people with the franchise who are removed from the immediate effects of electoral choices means a devalued citizenship for mainland Italians. In Argentina, Argentines with Italian nationality have voting rights in another national political jurisdiction. This makes them of interest to Argentine and Italian politicians. The former see Italian Argentines as a constituency to be mobilized for the benefit of Argentina’s agenda, for instance, by voting for candidates more sympathetic to Argentina’s economic dilemmas and hence willing to negotiate debt bond swaps. Italian politicians view Argentines as a new constituency with distinct interests and to whom they must cater because of their potential impact on the electoral process. The dual franchise and courting by politicians from two countries sets Italian Argentines in Argentina apart from their conationals in both countries. In the Argentine context this is not entirely new—Spanish Argentines have been voting in Argentina for decades—but the strategic conjuncture is different and has raised the importance of voting by dual nationals in both implicated countries. Dual franchise rights increase the value of Italian Argentines’ citizenship portfolio insofar as they benefit by belonging to an Italian electoral district with particular interests. The empirical nature of both Argentine and Italian citizenship tests the persistent nationalist assumption of an exclusive and enduring relationship between individuals and states. The character of participatory citizenship has been determined by legal definitions of nationality rights steeped in emotionally appealing kinship analogies. It remains to be seen if Italian-Argentines’ self-understandings will match legal and participatory dimensions of their citizenship. Extraterritorial Citizenship and Dissimilation Citizenship and migration options available to a large number of Argentines have important consequences in new receiving and sending countries. “Ethnic return migrants” in Italy and Spain encounter cultural expectations of how newcomers should behave that limit their ability to easily integrate into the labor market, a key arena that motivates their decision to get a second nationality and to migrate. As their frame of reference for evaluating citizenship shifts from Argentina to Italy or Spain, a second nationality seems



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“lighter” than anticipated. For those who remain in Argentina, their compatriots’ strategic decision to move and the receiving society’s failure to make good on perceived historical and familial debts serve only to affirm the unspoken assumption that, no matter what papers people have, they cannot change their national stripes. At the same time, their departed conationals have legal affiliations, objective opportunities, and incipient allegiances that set them apart as different in a way that does not jibe with a long-standing assimilationist national narrative. Thus, a critical consequence of plural citizenship options in Argentina has been the differentiation of its population by access to these alternatives. A second important consequence of nationality options has been the emergence of extraterritorial citizenship. Spaniards and Italians in Argentina are able to participate in the electoral politics and voting of Spain and Italy. This scenario poses challenges but also opportunities for the countries involved. From a Spanish and Italian perspective, the community of nationals abroad exercises the franchise without having to experience the immediate consequences of their choices. The implications of this circumstance have yet to be fully explored. From an Argentine perspective, the impact on national imaginings of having foreign electoral campaigns waged on the airwaves and on the billboards of Argentina’s major urban centers remains to be studied. Extraterritorial citizenship also entails opportunities like the prospect of externalizing or sharing the costs of an aging population (Feldman and Golbert 1990). Spain and Italy have among the lowest total fertility rates in the world (1.4 births per woman in 2009) and rising ratios of dependents to the working-age population (46 and 52 percent respectively in 2009). Argentina has a higher, albeit falling, fertility rate at 2.2 births per woman in 2009 and a decreasing age dependency ratio.20 These data suggest that Italy’s and Spain’s elderly populations are growing and their economically active populations are shrinking. From the Spanish and Italian governments’ perspective, it is preferable to have the elderly diaspora remain in Argentina and other Latin American countries while attracting the younger kin of nationals abroad. In addition to being a more cost-effective policy with respect to the elderly, the policy of externalizing the costs of an elderly population while attracting younger nationals reflects a perception that putative coethnics from Argentina are more acceptable as immigrants in Spain and Italy than alternative migration from North Africa or Eastern Europe. From the Argentine perspective, dual nationals in Argentina present the possibility of mobilizing this constituency

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on matters of strategic importance like the controversial bond swaps initiated by the Kirchner administration and discussed earlier. The challenge for the nationally agnostic observer is to examine a range of possible challenges and opportunities in the political field in which countries are located rather than to “solve” problems for a particular state actor. From this perspective, plural citizenship has become a more flexible asset in the hands of its holders, more expansive in the political and identification options it entails, and more variable in its payoff to holders over time and across countries.

5

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All the World’s a Field The Fútbol Club Barcelona is one of the most successful in the history of the “beautiful game,” and its players and strategies form the foundation of the world champion Spanish national team. It is also a microcosm of citizenship options. Its 2010–2011 squad of twenty-three includes eleven international players, nine of whom have two nationalities and only two of whom hold only a single passport. Among players with two nationalities, all have a European Union passport and thus are eligible to play in that continent’s most prestigious leagues. Lionel Messi and Dani Alves, Argentine and Brazilian internationals respectively and among the top players in the world, hold Spanish passports. Only Jeffrén Suarez, a Venezuelan-born Spanish national, plays for his adoptive rather than birth country in international matches. The choice is understandable given Spain’s strong record in World Cups when compared to that of Venezuela. The stakes are very high in the global football industry, and these simple statistics suggest that membership in a European Union country is valuable because it offers easier access to the world’s premier football venues. However, when it comes to representing countries on a world venue—where status incentives may outstrip or at least coincide with economic ones—players generally choose to don a birth country jersey.1 Citizenship options available to footballers raise the kinds of questions addressed in this book and intimate their relevance to a much broader

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population. In Tanja Brøndsted Sejersen’s (2008) study, the number of countries with legislation that allowed for dual nationality quintupled between 1959 and 2005. The biggest increase in dual nationality was in Europe, but instances also increased in the Americas and more recently in Asia. Approximately 2.5 billion people live in countries that allow dual nationality. As this book goes to press, the Economist laments a proposed law that would limit dual nationality among immigrants in the Netherlands and among the Dutch diaspora should they opt for a second nationality while abroad. The authors maintain that “the Netherlands is bucking a global trend.”2 This is a far cry from times when plural citizenship was likened to bigamy and international law organizations tried to reconcile nationality conflicts under the guiding principle that every person should have a single nationality. How is it possible to have shifted from a normative consensus against plural nationality to one in which footballers have the kinds of alternatives described and in which the Netherlands is perceived as bucking the global trend toward multiple citizenships? What do the choices of Barcelona superstars or of Argentine plural nationals say about the meaning and value of legal and affective citizenship? In the historical chapters of this book, I gave an account of how contemporary citizenship options issue from past institutional arrangements. In Chapter 1, I showed how in the period before World War II, Italy and Spain developed a primarily descent-based pattern of nationality law while Argentina fashioned a birthright policy. These patterns of policy resulted from a scramble among these countries to affiliate and gain the allegiance of the same population of migrants and their children during periods of state formation and consolidation. The challenges of making nationals in a context of high mobility (Spain and Italy) and low population (Argentina) sparked competition among these countries for mobile individuals. The concrete means of competing with each other included laws, organizations to implement these laws and to maintain ties with nationals abroad, and key practices of official organizations, like counting and identifying specific individuals, and promoting a sense of affective connection to the nation. In Chapter 2, I examined the same competitive dynamics that have shaped nationality in these countries since World War II, stressing documents and associated procedures. I argued that the laws, documents, and practices that made it possible for states to legitimately regulate migrants and citizens of the past have made it possible for their descendants under reversed economic conditions to gain a second nationality in the present and to elude the state’s embrace.



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In chapters that study the current context, I made an argument about how past citizenship dynamics have become relevant and how they change the contemporary value and quality of citizenship and with what consequences. In Chapter 3, I explored whether citizenship has become less valuable, as more people have access to the rights and privileges of full members, or more valuable, as the gap between comparison countries opens. I maintained that when the reference point is a single country, citizenship has become “lighter” (Joppke 2010); but if the frame of reference is the value added in status and opportunities of a second, European nationality, citizenship’s worth has increased for its holders. More importantly, I argued that a “real law” view of how nationality works in practice offers new insights on why observers describe citizenship alternatively as having a declining value or being priceless. In Chapter 4, I examined the consequences of plural nationality in Spanish labor markets and Italian electoral politics to argue that citizenship has become more flexible, expansive, and variable in its payoff to holders over time and across countries. The Barcelona example suggests that the dynamics of nationality law formation observed in the migratory and political system constituted by Argentina, Italy, and Spain are a feature of the broader international field in which citizenship has been made. In this final chapter, I examine how citizenship has played out globally and the implications of adopting an international political field framework for understanding institutions of membership and belonging. Expressed in terms of the football case, the dynamics of making citizenship that have allowed Argentine players to acquire Italian or Spanish citizenship are characteristic of citizenship formation processes across the globe. Defender Seydou Keita has access to French and Malian nationality because of how the former colonial power and colony negotiated their relations through migration and nationality law. Midfielder Ibrahim Afellay, born in the Netherlands, can opt for the Moroccan nationality of his parents because, de jure or de facto, Dutch and Moroccan laws allow him to do so. These citizenship options and individuals’ strategic use of them to elude central state control challenge both nationalist and postnationalist takes on political membership and belonging. In turn, this challenge raises questions about how political communities hang together, and in a concluding section I show the benefits of an international political field framework for rethinking citizenship. First, however, I turn to the neglected role of the international political domain in the forging of citizenship.

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Evidence of a Global Competitive Dynamic By the 1930s, the form and content of immigration law showed considerable convergence across the globe (Cook-Martín and FitzGerald 2010; McKeown 2008). National and international efforts to compile and analyze immigration laws and regulations demonstrate the extent to which countries were influenced by what others were doing and shared similar immigration policies. Examples of national efforts include the 1936 collection of laws in the Americas compiled by eugenicist and immigration reformer Harry Laughlin, who thought that the white race was at risk if biologically selective immigration policies were not implemented both in the United States and in its Latin American “backyard.” In Argentina, the second referent for immigration policy in the hemisphere after the United States, Nelida Giuricich, Cesar Ruiz Moreno, and Alberto Pichot (1942) compiled immigration and emigration laws from major sending and receiving countries as well as emergent international policies. Spain and Italy had their own comparative compilations to understand the claims being made on their citizens abroad (Reino de España 1905; Scalabrini 1888). At the international level, the League of Nations and the International Labour Organization had collected examples from immigration policy across the world to explore the possibility of reconciling them in an international policy or convention.3 The prefaces, introductions, and expert interpretations captured in these sources demonstrate concern for how other countries were making nationals, implications for sending and receiving countries, and strategies to counter other countries’ advances. Patterns of immigration policy in the Americas showed evidence of mechanisms that operated domestically and internationally. Implicit in this global convergence was a belief in the legitimate right of states to regulate the entry of newcomers as either a first cut of prospective citizens or only as workers not desirable as permanent members of the polity. The logics for selecting potential immigrants and citizens were also remarkably alike and changed in similar directions: biological selection before the Second World War gave way to a cultural rationale of assimilability during that war and finally to universalistic criteria after the 1960s (FitzGerald and Cook-Martín, in preparation). The determination of nationality had been a prerogative of states since their inception, but because related laws and statutes, particularly of emigration countries, often assumed a static population and borders, they conflicted with those of other states with sometimes perverse consequences. Discussions of Italian nationality law by Congresses of Italians Abroad, for example, show



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the problems faced by migrants who were caught between the demands of sending and receiving states (Istituto Coloniale Italiano 1911). In particular, would immigrants and their children have to serve in the military of two countries? Would they use their dual affiliations to shirk military service in both jurisdictions? What nationality would married women follow? The nationality status of women and dependent minors was dependent on that of a male head of household and hence mutable as these men moved across borders or borders moved over them (Llewellyn-Jones 1929). The deeply gendered character of nationality law in most sending and receiving states was problematic in itself but was aggravated by the combined application of sending and receiving state laws: one country might strip a woman and her children of nationality due to marriage with a foreigner, but the husband’s country might not recognize the wife as a citizen (Cook-Martín 2006). Men of military service age took advantage of conflicting norms and limited state powers to track membership. The redrawing of borders or expulsion of entire populations, as Hannah Arendt has so poignantly shown, resulted in the status of stateless person, another anomaly faced by international nationality law. Conquered or expelled by a state with jurisdiction over their region of birth, individuals found themselves outside the pale of political community, a chronic and devastating problem for Jews in 1930s Europe (Arendt 1973). No Laws More Fluid: Limits of Sovereignty and the Interstices of Citizenship Institutional efforts by states to overcome the anomalous conditions of plural or no nationality demonstrate that despite unilateral claims about the definition of nationality, it has been formed in an international field of actors. France, Argentina, or the United States could define legal citizenship against or without consideration for the claims of other countries on immigrants and their children, but competing claims would have to be reconciled. This was done in a series of bilateral treaties with sending countries, but eventually international law emerged to regulate facets of conflicting claims. In 1906, participants in the Third International Conference of American States signed a convention about the citizenship status of naturalized immigrants who returned to the country of origin. Essentially, returned migrants would lose citizenship acquired through naturalization on returning to their home country. Eventually, nationality law would require an explicit renunciation of any citizenship, but this regional convention served to further the interests

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of receiving countries that sought to expand their populations permanently. At its Rome session in 1924, the League of Nations appointed a Committee of Experts for the Progressive Codification of International Law. Nationality headed the list of eleven subjects selected for consideration by the committee.4 The report of the subcommittee on nationality began by recognizing that sovereign states have exclusive sway in matters of legislating nationality. It went on to note, however, that conflicts on nationality were becoming “more and more frequent as a consequence of emigration and re-emigration” and that these could be resolved through treaty and convention or through international law embodied in plurilateral conventions (League of Nations 1926, 24; Hyde 1926; and Finch 1925, 535). Two categories of conflict that could be resolved this way were those arising out of the joint application of jus soli and jus sanguinis policies and exceptions of ex-territoriality, when individuals exercise public duties on behalf of a government in the jurisdiction of another. The authors explained how dual and no nationality could be resolved through international law. By 1930, participants in the League of Nations recognized the desirability of abolishing “all cases both of statelessness and of double nationality” but settled for solving “certain questions relating to the conflict of nationality law.”5 The drafting committee that eventually produced the 1930 convention made two important observations. First, it underscored the fluidity of nationality law in response to changing circumstances: “There seem to be no laws which are more fluid and subject to change than nationality laws” (League of Nations 1926, 24). Second, the committee noted that while national states had a right to define nationality internally, the right was not absolute. This observation, and the legal opinions on which it rested, showed that in practice nationality was negotiated in the interplay of different country policies that were “interested in the allegiance of the same natural person.” The French case discussed in the Introduction, then, was not as exceptional as one might have thought. Two scenarios on which the Permanent Court of International Justice expressed opinions further support this point (see Weil 2008). The first case dealt with a dispute between Great Britain and France over the application of French decrees to the effect that persons born in Tunis and Morocco were French. These were applied to children born of British nationals in Tunis and Morocco and motivated Great Britain’s complaint. In Advisory Opinion 4, the court held that the council of the League of Nations was competent to deal with this dispute under the terms of the charter. In another instance,



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the court was asked about the acquisition of Polish nationality by former nationals of other countries under the Minorities Treaty signed in Versailles, 1919. The court expressed that that while “a sovereign state has the right to decide what persons shall be regarded as its nationals, it is no less true that this principle is applicable only subject to the treaty obligations of the State.”6 In brief, nationality has necessarily been contested among countries whose sovereignty has not been absolute. It could not be otherwise in a Westphalian world of discrete political jurisdictions whose fortunes have been interdependent because of global economic and cultural integrative forces since at least the nineteenth century. Migration, the redrawing of political borders, and cross-jurisdictional familial ties in a world of nation-states have meant that nationality has in practice been the result of institutional struggles over the same people, even as it formally remained the sovereign domain of states. The scramble for citizens, then, has been a critical and not incidental determinant of nationality policy in the international political field. A rereading of nationality that moves outward from the domestic sphere to follow responses to international factors gives a more rounded picture of the dynamics under which policies are shaped. This is the case even with powerful, quintessential countries of immigration with a strong nationalizing myth like France and Argentina. In the sphere of international law, it becomes clear that sovereignty is an important appearance to maintain in the community of nations but that practical adjustments have to be made in response to the combined application of country policies to the same group of individuals. In this sense, nationality law is negotiated in both international and domestic political fields. Citizenship laws are indeed finalized by the legislators of a particular country. However, the process of fashioning nationality law takes international models into account and, as I have shown, responds to the claims and pressures of other countries (pace Joppke 2005, 28). Immigration countries have had the relative advantage of “possession” over migrants, and in setting their own domestic immigration policies, which was as much an assertion as a practice in the early twentieth century, also constrained policy for sending countries. When Argentina and the United States increased or changed the type of papers required by immigrants, they forced sending countries to adopt policies that would meet these requirements. Likewise, when receiving countries passed legislation that made naturalizations easier and clarified jus soli practices, sending countries responded with their own policies. Nationality law was

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“the most fluid of laws” because it was forged in an arena where players had their own strategic interests. Citizenship in an Integrating World A long view of an international political field offers a framework that reveals the universal prevalence of plural nationality, options it entails for those who have it, and challenges to current perspectives on citizenship. A historical field or relational standpoint shows that multiple nationalities have become more common, an insight that is obscured by a narrow focus on citizenship from the view of migration receiving or sending states. A field perspective takes into account both the external and internal faces of citizenship. The microcosm of the Barcelona squad reflects what analysts have been saying about plural nationality becoming more common. Players have nationality options that allow them to maximize professional opportunities without necessarily severing legal ties or affective allegiances with their countries of origin as might have been expected, say, in the 1970s. Similarly, the subjects of this book have nationality options that potentially improve their life chances. Moreover, the availability of these nationality options—the result of past competition among states to affiliate and gain the allegiance of individuals—challenges interpretations of citizenship that cling to conventional nationalist assumptions about the exclusive relationship between individuals and states or that posit the demise of the nationstate. An international political field framework presents an opportunity to develop a sociology of membership by putting these interpretations in historical and cross-jurisdictional perspective. Observers who assume a conventional nationalist perspective worry about violating the assumption of an exclusive link to state organizations and their territorially bound imagined political communities. Citizenship loses value in a context of globalization manifested in greater migration and where “the importance of state and territorial boundaries declines” (Spiro 2008, 4). The success of countries like the United States has, on this view, been closely linked to its coupling of identity to place; therefore, their decoupling could weaken social ties in countries of immigration. Postnationalists share with conventional nationalists a reading of how globalization impacts the nationstate. This development, however, is to be celebrated rather than lamented. On this view, citizenship has become decoupled from the state as a territorial



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and membership organization, as well as from the nation. The individual rather than the state is becoming the main referent of citizenship and repository of rights. This shift is attributable to the postwar emergence of a normative framework of international human rights in the wake of what John David Skrentny (2002) has called the rights revolution. A state or similar political entity is still the guarantor of individual rights, but these obtain by virtue of personhood rather than membership in a state organization. State sovereignty abuts against the norms of an international system of peers. From a postnational viewpoint, individuals’ identifications would ostensibly be independent of those promoted by particular state organizations and would more accurately reflect changing allegiances and social links. From a transnational perspective, the tie between states and citizens can span political jurisdictions and, given migration and border reconfigurations, nationality is not linked to territorial residence, hence the claim that dual nationality reveals the deterritorialized nature of citizenship. Rights still issue from the relationship between individuals and states, but the link is not exclusive. Identities can be aligned with multiple affiliations. Political theorist Rainer Bauböck (2010) has offered a useful way to think about transnational citizenship by referring to people who are stakeholders in more than one polity. An international political field framework yields a useful analysis of these perspectives and reframes some of the “problems” they identify, as well as the way we think about potential solutions. Concerning nationalist perspectives, the assumption of an exclusive citizenship link simply does not square with historical and contemporary evidence. As I have shown in this book, individuals have had de facto plural citizenship due to the conflicting claims of sending and receiving country laws and administrative practices. Further, dual nationality has become more accepted in the international system of states to the point where it is not seen as an aberration. Even if one concedes that citizenship ties have become weaker, formally or affectively, this does not necessarily portend the end of place-based identifications. Still, to the extent that subjective perceptions of commonality form a foundation for social solidarities, nationalists raise important questions about the impact of plural citizenship on social cohesiveness. They have difficulties, however, envisioning approaches to matters of identity that avoid categorical discriminations.7 An international political field framework suggests that, for all of the fretting about the devaluation of citizenship under the onslaught of

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globalization, nationalists overlook existing fissures within the class of “citizens.” In T. H. Marshall’s well-known interpretation of the British case, citizenship was a bargain struck between capital and labor. This compromise rested on the extension of social rights to a national population as if it constituted a single class with equal status relative to government organizations (see the discussion in T. H. Marshall 1998, 108–9). The compromise between capital and labor would seem to have been broken under the impact of advanced contemporary capitalism. In the case of Argentine citizenship, for instance, it has been seriously devalued by a decade of neoliberal policies that gutted state organizations, education, health care, and pensions. Savage and deeply troubling inequalities among conationals have been exposed by disasters like Hurricane Katrina (Somers 2008), racialized social control exerted through the U.S. penal industrial complex (Wacquant 2009), riots in some of Europe’s wealthiest countries, and expressions of substantive citizenship within less developed and developing nations (Holston 2008). It stands to reason that, when possible, people would seek a second nationality to hedge against the devaluation of their birth nationality, a strategy that shows the resourcefulness of individuals when faced with declines in the value of citizenship. And yet plural nationality options remain the prerogative of the cosmopolitan few and call into question the putative horizontal comradeship that nationalists maintain constitutes one class. This has arguably been an illusion and legitimation of inequalities rather than a reality, but the recent tightening of capitalist screws on middle and lower classes has made it less credible. Nationalists’ focus on globalization and immigration obscures the stark realities exposed by a comparative field lens. A political field framework also draws attention to the continued significance of a global system of states in view of postnationalist claims to the contrary. In particular, links between individuals and states, although lessened, persist. In fact, there is very little evidence to support most claims by the postnational camp. National states or supraregional governmental entities continue to be the referents and guarantors of the rights and protections of citizenship. Immigrants with a legal status naturalize despite minimal differences between lawful resident and citizen status. 8 From a postnational viewpoint, one would expect a decrease in dual nationality if nation-state organizations are no longer important referents, and yet it is increasing. International norms continue to presume a national model of citizenship, although they ref lect greater sensitivity to



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cross-national mobility and to rights that should apply irrespective of an individual’s location. An international political field framework has significant affinities with transnationalist views on citizenship. For instance, Bauböck’s “citizenship constellation” approach seems to presuppose a political field framework. An array of relationships among individuals and national states and among nation-states with respect to citizenship laws imply an interpretive framework that looks not only at discrete political entities but at relations and dynamics of a system of such entities. I prefer the language of political fields and configurations of relations among countries and individuals because it allows me to identify dynamics of a field—competitive, cooperative, synchronous—beyond a potentially static array of relations. In addition to the benefits of a political field framework touted so far, transnationalist approaches have the potential to address meaningful and important questions about identity raised primarily by nationalists. This is perhaps one of the thorniest questions raised by nationalists and is linked to deeply sociological questions of what makes our worlds hang together. In Bauböck’s (2010, 856) citizenship constellations, for instance, citizenship is not only a bundle of rights derived from residence but also a “significant identity that integrates diverse societies with mobile as well as sedentary populations.” Further empirical study is needed to understand the direction of causality between dual legal affiliations and identifications. Do identifications shape decisions about a second nationality? Or does a second nationality entail a shift in identifications? It is important to avoid conflation of affective and formal links to the nation and state, or to invoke commonsense theories of how and why these relationships change over time. Taking a long view of migration and nationality in a political subfield, I have shown that allegiances and identities do not follow legal affiliation as easily as one might suppose. Taking an ancestral European nationality does not imply the automatic adoption of the corresponding national identity. Historically, the quality of ties between individuals and “their” political communities have been forged through complex and long-term processes. Wars, migration, demographic changes, and redrawn borders have altered these ties. In addition, allegiances have sometimes been to political communities at different scales (towns, cities, regions, and central states), and these have often been held concurrently and may change over a person’s life course. An immigrant who came to Buenos Aires in the postwar era could

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formally become an Argentine while identifying with the hometown in Galicia, possibly with Spain, and, more recently, with Europe. State agents and nationalists may not have liked these plural, multilevel, and unfolding identifications, but most of the political entities referenced did not dissolve because of them. A long and comparative view indeed shows that political organizations have weathered these complex and changing identifications and associated allegiances. Canonical figures of early sociological thinking were motivated by vexing questions about how conventional solidarities had been disrupted by emergent capitalism with its new modes of economic and social exchange. Émile Durkheim in particular worried about and tried to conceptualize the changing bases of solidarity as people experienced the shift from the “simple” ties of socially undifferentiated villages to the “complex” solidarity of highly differentiated urban settings. In the radical shift from one type of society to the other, new forms of solidarity had been established. In the contemporary context, there is no reason to assume that new referents for political community and solidarity would not emerge even if we have yet to recognize them. Organizational referents of membership and subjective belonging may in fact be shifting. Aihwa Ong (2006) examines the Chinese case to identify another way in which the approach developed here can be pushed further: formal and substantive citizenship can be defined as membership in political entities at different scales. The Chinese are members of a central, national state that is the referent of rights, obligations, and identifications; but with the advent of supraregional and subnational political entities of which they are also members—like ASEAN +3 and special economic zones—the referents increase. This introduces another layer of differentiation among the Chinese and between them and nationals of other countries, but also quite possibly in their subjective identifications with different referents of political community. Thus, the referent of membership varies by political scale above and below that of the central national state. A multiscalar approach would suggest new ways to think about citizenship even in Western settings where subnational and supranational referents like Spanish autonomous regions and the European Union are becoming more common.9 The value and quality of citizenship has changed in the period examined, but it persists as a mode of membership and belonging in ways that call for further study. Less encumbered by national blinders, a historical and relational view may give us all much-needed insight on the domains



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and levels at which this has happened. Building on this dispassionate view, we may inquire further into how and why the prerogative to have rights, as Arendt described citizenship, is changing along with its referent states and imagined political communities. We need not presume a bad end to the story of citizenship based on older understandings, although we would do well to be concerned about the decimation of supporting organizations like the state and encroachments by advanced capitalism. The story is very much in the making.

Notes

Introduction 1. In Spanish, the term plata refers to both silver and money. 2. I use pseudonyms and change identifying details to protect the privacy of the people interviewed or observed. 3. For a discussion of ethnic Germans and members of the Jewish diaspora, see Joppke 2005 and Levy and Weiss 2002. 4. Takeyuki Tsuda’s (2009) recent edited volume is the only comparative volume of which I am aware that addresses the dynamics and consequences of ethnic “return” migration, although it does not dwell extensively on matters of citizenship. 5. Kamal Sadiq (2009, 5–6) argues that conceptions of citizenship are generally based on the institutional experience of Western states that presume a legal status based on considerable infrastructural power over subjects, and a clear path for the naturalization of newcomers. The point is well taken, but when Sadiq refers to Western states, he has in mind the usual suspects mentioned in this chapter (the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, and France). These states represent a narrow range of institutional experiences in the Western Hemisphere and Europe. Other states have much less capacity to manage immigrants and embrace them as citizens. Further, states’ capacity to manage people and make members has developed and changed over time. Argentina and other developing countries, as well as countries in Southern Europe, reflect different institutional experiences that question conventional conceptualizations of citizenship. 6. See the reports in the journal of the American Society of International Law (1929). 7. Appears in the constitutional assembly debates of the 1860s (República Argentina 1863, 2). 167

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8. U.S. Department of State (http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/cis/cis_1753. html). Accessed October 25, 2009. 9. Links of individuals to nation and state do not necessarily coincide: one can be a member of a particular nation and not of an associated state or vice versa. However, there has been a secular convergence of these modes of political membership (Hansen and Weil 2001). 10. A good example is the nationality of women in the United States and elsewhere during the early twentieth century (see Bredbenner 1998). 11. I borrow “tyranny of the national” from Gérard Noiriel (1991) in reference to a perspective dominated by the assumption that the world is naturally divided into nation-states. 12. The full text of the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness is available from the United Nations: http://untreaty.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/english/conventions/6_1_1961.pdf. The UNHCR annual Global Trends publication defines and counts stateless persons: http://www.unhcr.org/4a375c426.html. 13. On migratory systems, see Mabogunje 1970 and Zlotnik 1992. 14. See Chapter 2 for more details on the scope and composition of migratory flows between Italy, Spain, and Argentina. 15. I rely on Kitty Calavita’s Invitation to Law and Society (2010) for my understanding of “real law.”

Chapter 1 1. In Italian nationality law prior to 1948, married women assumed the nationality of their husbands (Álvarez Rodríguez 1990). 2. As I show in Chapter 4, this is not uniformly the case with Argentines who apply for an ancestral homeland state nationality. Applicants often have a sense of ancestral origins and identity, feel affinity with Italy or Spain, or develop such attachments as a result of the search for family background information. Still, they see Spanish or Italian citizenship as a key to greater opportunities and a way to attenuate the socioeconomic risk of living in Argentina. 3. For more examples, see Cook-Martín 2005; 2008. 4. On the roles of enumeration and of population policies in making nations, see Patriarca 1996 and Ipsen 1996 for Italy, and Sanchez Casado 1983 for Spain. On the general process of “making up people” for the purposes of counting them, see Hacking 1986. On Argentina, see Otero 2006. 5. Argentina had in 1857 signed a bilateral immigration agreement with the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, which prefigured subsequent preferences for European immigration. On emigration after Unification, see Gabaccia (2003). 6. See José Moya’s (1998) discussion of five global revolutions that linked sending and receiving countries. 7. As part of “peace and recognition” diplomacy, Spain negotiated a series of treaties with the new American republics, which regulated the nationality of Spaniards in those countries.



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8. A significant indicator of this process was the redaction of the 1865 Italian Civil Code that required distilling one version from five regional precedents: the Austrian of 1815, the one from the Two Sicilies of 1819, Parma 1820, Subalpine 1837, Modena 1831 (Bussotti 2002, 21). 9. See Patriarca 1996. This discussion is not meant to imply that there were no efforts to delimit a population for governance among states that came to constitute unified Italy. The focus in this discussion is, however, on the post-1862 republic. 10. For more on the Argentine census and its categories of enumeration, see CookMartín, Novick and Mera forthcoming and Otero 2006. 11. Italian women who married Argentine men could lose Italian nationality without necessarily gaining Argentine citizenship. 12. President Domingo Peron’s administration resurrected automatic naturalization proposals in the Constitution of 1949 at a time of heightened Argentine nationalism and vulnerability for Spain and Italy (see Chapter 3). 13. For instance, Anthony Smith (1986) views nations as a having a substance that dates to centuries before they took the form of entities managed by state organizations, while Ernest Gellner (1983) views nation-states as constructed phenomena that emerge with industrial capitalism. 14. On Italian schools in Argentina, see Baily 1999, Devoto 2008, and Favero 1985. Figures to calculate the percentage of Buenos Aires children in Italian schools are available in Favero 1985 (180). 15. In “Ten Commandments for Italians Abroad,” for instance, the Rivista enjoined “Italians abroad” to acknowledge their indivisible allegiance to the patria, to overcome regional, class, and political divisions among compatriots, to honor representatives of the state, to never give up Italian citizenship or cause others to lose theirs, to foster italianità among children (including Italian language education, literature, and history, preferably taught in Italian schools), to “buy Italian” when possible, and to marry within the national fold (full text in Bosworth 1979, 421). 16. Biblioteca Nacional del Maestro, Banco de Imágenes: http://www.bnm .me.gov.ar/cgi-bin/wxis.exe/opac/?IsisScript= opac/banco.xis&dbn=BANCO &tb=aut&query=BOOTE,%20SAMUEL&src=ind&cantidad=12&sala=&formato= breve 17. Argentina’s legal system was based on a French civil law pattern, which means that court decisions did not constitute precedent in the same way they would have in a common law, stare decisis system. 18. For a detailed discussion of ethnic preferences and lack of legal exclusions in Argentine immigration law, see Cook-Martín 2011. 19. Mussolini was by no means the first Italian politician to invoke the organic metaphor of hemorrhaging. Nationalists in the liberal era frequently deployed such images. Indeed, Italian and Spanish nationalists used metaphors of hemorrhaging and organic loss with reference to emigration (Manzotti 1969; Bussotti 2002; Bosworth 1996, 121; for Spain, see Reino de España, Consejo Superior de Emigración 1916).

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20. See República Argentina, Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores y Culto 1938. However, competing claims on Argentine-born Italians were not fully resolved until the signing of a bilateral agreement in 1971. 21. Low rates of naturalization among immigrants were attributable to the relatively small payoff to citizenship, potential obligations like military service, and the labyrinthine bureaucratic process of naturalization.

Chapter 2 1. Bertillonage—a standardized system of registering bodily measurements, characteristics, and stigmata through observation and photography—and dactyloscopy, or fingerprinting, are examples of such techniques. In France, the United States, and Argentina, these were first applied to foreigners suspected as criminals or political troublemakers (Cole 2001, chap. 5; Noiriel 1996, 69). 2. This argument is developed more fully in Cook- Martín 2008. 3. In keeping with a policy of neutrality that dated back to the Great War, Argentina entered World War II on the side of the Allies in 1945. During the War, Argentina’s military regimes were viewed by Brazil and by the United States as too militaristic, and Argentina’s late entry may have been calculated to appease these worries and to counter U.S. plans to make Brazil the South American superpower (Cisneros and Escudé 1998). 4. Archivo General de la Nación (hereafter cited as AGN), Box 547, Folder 5. 5. Convenio Comercial y Financiero entre la República Argentina y la República Italiana (1947) and Tratado de Migración (1948). On the negotiation of these treaties, see Albónico 1992 and Barbero and Cacopardo 1991, 294. 6. On the historical unfolding and historically contingent meaning of hispanismo and hispanidad, see Diffie 1943; Balfour 1996; Gomez-Escalonilla 1992; and Rein 1991. See also Joppke’s (2005, 114–17) more recent discussion with specific reference to this ideology’s effect on nationality law. 7. See Otero 2006 on official definitions of those outside the Argentine state’s control. 8. On the warrants offered by Perón for a special relationship with Spain, see Rein 1990. 9. For a detailed account of Spanish-Argentine skirmishes, see Ministerio de Finanzas, Memorias del Banco Central de la República Argentina 1949, 43–44; 1950; and Rein 1991, 7–11. 10. “Habla Perón en el primer acto organizado por la Asociación Argentina Amigos de Italia” (Perón 1954). 11. This resonance is demonstrated by an analysis of publications in the Anales de Instituto Étnico Nacional and in the proceedings of the Primer Congreso de la Población (Cook-Martín 2005). 12. For a full discussion of this process of legitimating migration control, see Cook-Martín 2008.



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13. AGN Box 547, Folder 1, “Antecedentes para la Politica Inmigratoria.” 14. For example, see the discussion among middle-class professionals during the First Population Congress held in 1940 (Museo Social Argentino 1941, 134–35). 15. At the administrative level, particularistic criteria remained a valid strategy for immigrant selection into the late 1940s. The decree that created the Dirección Nacional de Migraciones (#2896/February 4, 1949) noted that immigrants should be received cordially and with generosity, but selectively “according to the bases that support our immigration policy and the solution of ethnic problems that result from it” (p. 2). 16. Constitución de la Nación Argentina, 11 de marzo de 1949, Article 28. http:// www.elortiba.org/pdf/Constitucion_1949.pdf. 17. A compilation of DGRN resolutions between 1914 and 1989 is available in Álvarez Rodriguez 1990. 18. Municipal registration figures are available by country of birth, community, gender, and age at http://www.ine.es/jaxi/tabla.do?path=/t20/e245/p04/a2006  /l0/&file=0ccaa007.px&type=pcaxis. 19. Ministerio del Interior, Presidencia de la Nación, “Programa Provincia 25: Argentinos en el Mundo.” http://www.mininterior.gov.ar/provincias/provincia_25  .php?idName=provincias&idNameSubMenu=provinciasProv 25. (accessed September 14, 2010). 20. The Mercado Común del Sur (Common Market of the South, or Mercosur) is a regional trade association whose main member countries include Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay. Associate members include Bolivia, Chile, Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia. Venezuela is in the process of becoming a member. 21. Remittances to Argentina were US$ 853 million in 2009, down from US$ 955 million in 2008 and up from US$ 100 million in 2001. In other words, remittances to Argentina increased almost ten times between 2001 and 2008. These figures are based on data from the Inter American Development Bank: http://www.iadb.org/mif /remesas_map.cfm?language=Spanish. 22. Diario de Sesiones del Senado (Transcripts of Daily Senate Sessions) 1999 no. 156, 3463. 23. In the words of Spanish legislators, “objective” rather than “subjective” categorical criteria. 24. Decreto del presidente della repubblica, October 18, 2004, no. 334 (still in force at the time of writing)

Chapter 3 1. Elsewhere, I have also shown how citizenship has been a gendered mechanism of property and wealth transmission since the mid-nineteenth century (Cook-Martín 2006). 2. For discussions of contemporary “ethnic return migrations” to countries with similar histories, see Tsuda 2009. Nancy L. Green and François Weil (2007) have edited

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a volume that takes a historical view of countries that forged citizenship in contexts of emigration. 3. I selected this period because it follows an adjustment of consular roles, likely in preparation for the 2006 parliamentary elections that would include Italians for the first time. The decrease in Italians in Argentina before 1985 also reflects the migration of dual citizens who started their application several years earlier. 4. An Italian informant who worked with Italian political candidates in Buenos Aires (April 6, 2006) complained of Argentines treating Italian citizenship lightly when they claimed it only to move to Spain. 5. For a discussion of state efforts to control migration, see Cook-Martín 2012. 6. Remittances to Argentina were US$ 853 million in 2009, down from US$ 955 million in 2008 and up from US$ 100 million in 2001. In other words, remittances to Argentina increased almost ten times between 2001 and 2008. These figures are based on data from the Inter-American Development Bank: http://www.iadb.org /mif/remesas_map.cfm?language=Spanish. 7. Hijos y Nietos de Españoles, for instance, began lobbying as early as November 2002, when I first interviewed one of its coordinators. 8. Decreto del Presidente della Repubblica, No. 572 (October 12, 1993), which regulates the execution of the 1992 citizenship law, and Decreto del Presidente della Repubblica, No. 362 (April 18, 1994), which regulates the procedure for acquiring Italian citizenship. 9. A hard copy is on file with the author but can also be viewed at Ambasciata d’Italia a Buenos Aires: http://www.ambbuenosaires.esteri.it/Ambasciata_BuenosAires /Menu/Informazioni_e_servizi/Servizi_consolari/Cittadinanza/. 10. For more details, see Cook-Martín, Novick, and Mera forthcoming. 11. For instance, Fabian Zamboni (2002), the author of a genealogical search guide, speaks of ethnicity in this way. Asked if having a second nationality changes his selfperception, Gustavo (a journalist from Buenos Aires) maintains that his Spanish citizenship is subjective and symbolic. 12. See Gilboy 1991 and Lipsky 1980 on how bureaucratic practices and cultures can affect outcomes for people who interact with state agents. 13. See figures from the Italian Ministry for Foreign Affairs (Repubblica Italiana 1999–2006). 14. These archives primarily contain administrative correspondence and internal memos (AGN) and reserved memos in some cases that refer to specific individuals and their cases (Immigrant Museum). 15. For more on the Mormon archives, see Allocati 2001. There are approximately nineteen Mormon Family History Centers in the province of Buenos Aires, and records can be consulted online as well as in the centers. These primarily include census and Catholic baptismal records. 16. Scalabrinians, “Federation of Centers for Migration Studies”: http://www .scalabrini.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=226&Itemid=59



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&lang=en; recall the discussion Chapter 1 about the role of Scalabrinians in migration policy and studies. 17. Personal communication with CEMLA archive director Alicia Bernasconi (August 2003). 18. At the time of my fieldwork, data were available for the period 1882–1929. CEMLA’s project to digitize passenger lists and immigration records is ongoing, and thus the number of records available continues to grow. For the most current information, see CEMLA’s website: http://www.cemla.com/busqueda.html. 19. Although sometimes it is unclear if the Holy Grail of a lost ancestor has been found without additional outside confirmation. 20. The Immigrant Museum (Museo del Inmigrante) is an Ellis Island–like commemorative facility on the grounds of the former immigrant hotel, includes a small research library. The DNM still has working offices on these grounds. The facility was designed to receive newcomers, process their papers, assess their health, and offer employment services. Immigrants were then released to Retiro, the hub of Argentina’s transportation system, where they could make their way to relatives or jobs in the capital city or the provinces. 21. I model my definition of the paper industry on Rubén Hernández-León’s (2008) conception of a broader migration industry, which in turn draws on Harney 1977. 22. For a small number of the people I interview, the choice was to make use of a second nationality, not to seek one, since parents or older relatives had already initiated the procedure. 23. See studies by Néstor Pan cited by Silvina Heguy (2003). 24. These findings from a study by Graciela Bramuglia and Mario Santillo (2002) are consistent with those of María Cristina Cacopardo (1992) and José Luis Rhi Sausi and Miguel Angel García (1992) about an earlier wave of Argentine emigration. 25. For more detail about emigrant return policies in Spain, see Cook-Martín and Viladrich 2009. 26. Deputy Montes de Oca (1863) raised these concerns at a constitutional assembly.

Chapter 4 1. See, for example, the coverage by Clarín, the daily with the largest print and electronic circulation: http://edant.clarin.com/diario/2003/09/28/i-631291.htm. 2. This section draws on similar materials to Cook-Martín and Viladrich 2009 but makes an argument about the quality of citizenship rather than about the mismatch between ethnic expectations of newcomers and natives. On ethnic affinity migration more broadly, see Tsuda 2009. 3. On the historical meaning of hispanismo and hispanidad, see Chapter 2. 4. See Massey et al. 1987, Piore 1979, and Waldinger and Lichter 2003 on how employers define the goodness of immigrants.

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5. Angela Garcia’s (2007) subsequent fieldwork and ethnography confirms the analysis presented in this chapter. 6. This perspective is ubiquitous in Spanish public discourse about Argentines (Spanish president Rodriguez Zapatero, cited in Clarín 2005; Cook-Martín 2002, 23–24; Retis 2003, 15) 7. I use a pseudonym because my informants had some expectation of privacy, in contrast to the residents of Aguaviva, who spoke freely to the press or wrote publicly about their circumstances. 8. The Xunta de Galicia is the regional government organization. Galicia is one of seventeen autonomous communities in Spain and one of four regions with special provisions of autonomy. 9. As of January 30, 2011, Spaniards abroad can no longer vote in municipal elections: Ley Orgánica 3/2011, de 28 de enero, por la que se modifica la Ley Orgánica 5/1985, de 19 de junio, del Régimen Electoral General. 10. “Return migration” to Spain comes not only from the Americas but also from other European countries and Northern Africa (Rogers 1985; Vilar and Vilar 1999a; 1999b). 11. For a list of nongovernmental organizations that serve return migrants, see Fundación Galicia Emigración: http://www.fundaciongaliciaemigracion.es /funCastellano/noticia.php?idNoticia=12. 12. By extraterritorial citizenship, I mean status, rights (e.g., voting), and identities associated with a national jurisdiction which are operative in another because of a citizen’s location (see FitzGerald 2000). 13. The size of the Italian electorate in Argentina is largely a function of how citizenship is transmitted across multiple generations according to Italian citizenship law. Also, “recognition” of nationality does not require immediate migration to Italy, which has also contributed to the growth of Italian nationals in Argentina. 14. Named after Mirko Tremaglia of the far right National Alliance, a longtime supporter of extending voting rights to Italians abroad. The official law is Legge 27 dicembre 2001, n. 459. Norme per l’ esercizio del diritto di voto dei cittadini italiani residenti all’ estero. Published in the Gazzetta Ufficiale n. 4, January 5, 2002. 15. For official electoral results, see http://elezioni.interno.it/. 16. Legge 21 dicembre 2005, n. 270. 17. On the background to passage of the vote abroad, electoral reforms, and results see Algañaraz 2006b, Battiston and Mascitelli (2008); Massetti 2009; and Zincone (2006). As this book goes to press, I have become aware of the excellent account by Guido Tintori (2011). 18. Italian Ministry of Internal Affairs: http://elezionistorico.interno.it/. In the referendum of June 12 and 13, 2011, voter participation abroad was significantly lower but still at about 30 percent for Italians in Argentina. 19. Ley No. 19945 (Código Electoral Nacional), 11/14/1972: http://infoleg.mecon.gov. ar/infolegInternet/anexos/15000–19999/19442/norma.htm.



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20. World Bank Data on fertility: http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN. TFRT.IN/countries. Data on age dependency: http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/ SP.POP.DPND.

Chapter 5 1. Figures collected from club data compiled at Wikipedia, “Fútbol Club Barcelona,” http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C3%BAtbol_Club_Barcelona#Plantilla_2010.2F11. 2. “Dutchmen grounded,” Economist, January 7, 2012. 3. The League of Nations (1925a; 1925b; 1935; 1930; 1926; 1936) had multiple such compilations in the 1920s and 1930s, as did the League of Nations, International Labour Organization (1922; 1925; 1928; 1929). 4. See Finch 1925 and League of Nations, International Labour Organization 1919; 1926; 1929; 1922. 5. Representatives of thirty-two countries signed on to this convention including major countries of emigration like Italy, Spain, and Mexico. Countries of substantial immigration like Argentina, Brazil, Canada and the United States did not sign on to this convention. 6. See League of Nations 1929, 22. 7. For instance, the acclaimed political scientist Samuel Huntington (2005) worried that the growth of a Latin American–origin population, particularly Mexicans, undermined American nationness because of slow assimilation on a number of fronts and dual affiliations and allegiances. Leo Chavez (2008) offers a counterargument. 8. Irene Bloemraad, Anna Korteweg, and Gökçe Yurdakul (2008) offer a useful review of evidence for several contemporary perspectives on citizenship. 9. Neil Brenner (1999) offers a provocative discussion of scale in conceptualizing political organization. Rainer Bauböck (2010) has hinted at this multiscalar approach in the study of citizenship, but it remains to be more fully studied.

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Index

Afellay, Ibrahim, 155 Affective citizenship, 6, 8 Affiliation: Argentine, 43–44; migrant, 47–54 Afro-Argentines, 10 AGN, see Archivo General de Nación Aguaviva: Argentines in, 134, 135–39; recruiting migrants to, 129–30 Alberdi, Juan Bautista, 37, 38–39, 54 Allegiance: migrant population, 19, 47–54 Alves, Dani, 153 Ancestral nationality, 15, 22 Andalusia, 35 Andorra, 106 Archives, 172n14; governmental and private, 114–15 Archivo General de la Nación (AGN), 114 Argentina, 8, 12, 14, 36, 42, 74, 169n17, 170n3, 171n21, 172n6; automatic naturalization in, 57, 169n12; assimilation in, 17, 47, 80, 83; citizenship in, 3, 15, 43–44, 45, 48, 55–56, 60–61, 167n5; documentation, 63, 105–6, 110–11, 114, 116; dual nationality, 22–23; economy of, 11,

30–32; education, 52–54, 59–60; emigration from, 24, 85–87; hispanidad in, 71–72; immigrants in, 4, 10, 33–34, 79–80, 84–85; immigration policies, 13, 18–19, 21, 58, 69–70, 76–81, 96, 156, 168n5, 170n1; Italians in, 29, 51, 144–50, 174n13; national identity, 1–2, 25–26; nationbuilding, 37, 103; neoliberal policies, 89–90, 162; New Law of Migrations, 87–89; population growth, 38–39; post-World War II era, 66–68; quality of immigrants, 54–55; trade agreements, 70–71; travel documents, 27–28 Argentine Central Bank, 80 Argentine Immigration Delegation in Europe (DAIE), 80 Argentine Institute for the Promotion of Trade, 80 Argentine National Migration Service, 106 Argentines: in Aguaviva, 129–30, 135–39; ancestral nationalities of, 102–3, 168n2; application for second, 108– 20; European nationality, 162–63; in 197

198

Index

Galicia, 139–44; identity as, 37–38; with Italian nationality, 109–10, 146– 47; second citizenships/nationalities of, 97, 100–101, 106, 122–27, 131, 150–51 Aristotelian model of citizenship, 6 Assimilation, 5, 10, 11, 15, 17, 47, 77, 80, 83 Authority: of ending state, 42–43 d’Azeglio, Massimo, 36 Barcelona, 123; footballers in, 153–54, 155, 160 Basques, 34 Belgians, 17 Berlusconi, Silvio, 130, 145, 146, 147, 148 Birthplace citizenship, 3, 4, 45, 55, 56, 65, 107, 158, 159 Birthrates, 18, 151 Birthright citizenship, 21, 26, 107 Blood descent citizenship, 3, 4, 46, 59, 158 Bolivians, 85 Bonomelli, Geremia, 50 Boote, Samuel, 54 Borders: maintenance of, 94 Bossi-Fini Act, 95–96 Bramuglia, Juan, 70 Brazil, 170n3; automatic naturalization, 46–47; migrants in, 29, 30 Bricio, Luis: Argentine recruitment, 129, 135, 136, 137, 138 Brubaker, Rogers, 6 Buenos Aires, 54, 136; CEMLA in, 116–17; immigrants in, 33, 34; Italian schools in, 48, 51 Cacho: emigration from, 24, 25 Cádiz: as free trade zone, 71 Cairòli, Benedetto, 48 Canada: migrants to, 9, 10 Canary Islanders: migrants from, 29 Carlists, 34 Carpi, Leone, 50 Catalonia, 29, 34 Catholic Church, 50–51, 60

Cavallo, Domingo, 115 CEMLA, see Center for Latin American Migration Studies Censuses, 41, 42 Center for Latin American Migration Studies (CEMLA): database, 114, 115–16; information searches in, 117–19; offices, 116–17; paper industry and, 121–22 Center for Migration Studies (New York), 115 Certificates of nationality: for Spanish emigrants, 82 Children, 52; citizenship of, 19, 47, 48, 107, 157; Italian nationalism, 49–50 Chinese, 164 Chinese Exclusion Acts, 10 Citizenship, 8, 13, 19, 26, 46, 48, 62, 76, 97, 105, 107, 167n5; application for second, 108–11, 113–19; Argentine, 37, 43–44, 45, 55–56, 60–61; birthright and descent, 21–22; creating and maintaining, 9–12; as contested, 7–8; defining, 3, 4, 5–7; European Union, 112, 123–24; extraterritorial, 43, 151, 174n12; extraterritorial voting, 144–50; Italian, 59, 95, 119–20, 149; migration and, 39, 65; overseas participation, 129–30; plural, 99–100; postnational, 162–63; return migrants, 157–58; rights of, 7, 164–65; second/dual, 4, 15, 21, 24–25, 65, 106, 122, 124–27, 130–32; Spanish, 36, 81–82, 87, 120, 140–41; value of, 98–99, 127–28, 160–62 Citizenship Law (1912) (Italy), 83 Citizenship laws, 46, 81, 83, 101 Civil Code (1865) (Italy), 43, 45, 46, 169n8 Civil Code (1889) (Italy), 43 Civil Code (Spain), 58, 81, 82, 94; nationality law, 106–7 Civil registries, 63, 106, 114 Civil War (Spanish), 69, 106



Coethnics, 133 Coleros, 121 Colonies: Spanish, 35, 36; Italian, 51–52 Colonization: emigration as, 59 La columna de fuego (Ghiraldo), 38 Committee of Experts for the Progressive Codification of International Law, 158 Committees of Italians Abroad, 90, 145, 146 Common Education Law (1884) (Argentina), 52–53 Competition, 27, 105, 155, 156–57 Congresses of Italians Abroad, 52, 156–57 Consejo Superior de Emigración (Spain), 91 Consellaria de Emigración, 140 Constitution (Argentine), 37, 43, 81, 169n12; Article 25, 55 Constitutional Courts: Italy, 107 Consular offices, 113, 121, 172n3 Convento Comercial y de Pagos, 70–71 Council of Hispanicity, 60, 71 Cuba, 29, 30, 35 Culture: Argentine national, 74, 80 Czechoslovakia: French labor agreements, 16 DAIE, see Argentine Immigration Delegation in Europe Decree of 26 November 1932, 58 Department of Emigration (Spain), 90 Descent citizenship, 21, 24, 60 DGRN, see Service of Registries and Notaries Dirección Nacional de Migraciones (DNM), 110, 114, 173n20 “Disaster of ‘98,” 35 Dissimilation, 11–12, 23 DNM, see Dirección Nacional de Migraciones Documentation, 28, 40, 65, 101, 105–6, 159; paper industry, 120–22;

Index

199

requirements, 57–58; for second citizenship application, 108–20; use of, 63–64 Drafting Committee (Argentina), 78 Dutch citizenship, 154, 155 Eastern Europe: migration from, 84 Economic development: in Argentina, 71, 72; in Spain, 135–36 Economies, 17, 38, 68(fig.); Argentina, 30–32, 67, 109–10; European Union, 123–24; Italy and Spain, 33(fig.), 83–84; and nationalities, 11, 122, 131, 154 Education, 48; of Argentine emigrants, 86–87; Argentine nationalist, 52, 53–54; Italian nationalist, 50–51 Education laws: Argentine, 52–53 Elections: extraterritorial franchise in, 130, 144–50 Elites, 49, 57; Argentine, 37, 38, 44, 52, 54; on Spanish emigration, 35–36 Emigrants, 41; from Argentina, 85–87; Italian, 45(fig.), 49–52; Spanish, 44(fig.), 81–82, 91 Emigration, see Emigrants; Migration Emigration Fund (Italy), 49 Emigration Law (1901) (Italy), 49 Emigration laws, 20, 32, 36, 49, 156 Emigration policies: Italian, 82–83; Spanish, 44–45, 67, 69 Employment: in Aguaviva, 132–33, 137–39; in Galicia, 141–43; for immigrants, 125–26, 127, 134 Equatorial Guinea, 106 Estudios Migratorios Latinoamericanos, 115 Ethnicity, 17, 72, 75, 79, 94, 95, 172n11; of return migrants, 22, 132, 133 Eugenics: and Argentine immigration, 58, 66–67, 80; and French nationality, 17–18, 20 European Community: and Spain, 91–92

200

Index

Europeans, 9, 35(table), 54; in Argentina, 33–34, 37, 42, 54, 67(fig.), 68, 69–70, 79 European Union, 90, 93, 112; access to, 123–24; and second nationality, 122, 128, 131 Exclusion: in Argentine immigration policies, 79 Exiles: Spanish, 94 Expediters: paperwork, 118–19 External face of citizenship, 7 Extraterritoriality: of second citizenship, 131, 132 Fact-finding: in second nationality applications, 111–16 Fascist regime: in Italy, 58–59 Favero, Luigi, 115 Fertility rates, 18, 151 First Population Congress (Argentina), 66, 75 Flournoy, Richard, 3 Footballers: Spanish citizenship options, 153–54, 155, 160 Foreigners’ Act (Spain), 91; reform of, 92–93 Forza Italia, 130, 145 France, 158; migrants and citizenship in, 9–10; migration policies, 19–20, 170n1; nationality in, 16–18; nationalizing myth, 15–16; use of documentation, 63, 64 Franco, Francisco, 58, 60, 69, 72, 76, 81, 91; and Perón, 73–74 Free trade zone: Cádiz as, 71 Fútbol Club Barcelona: citizenship, 153, 155, 160 Galicia, 62, 110, 123, 174n8; emigrants from, 29, 35; migrants to, 125–26; Spanish-Argentines in, 134, 139–44 Galician Federation, 125 Genealogical search guides, 121 General Commissariat of Emigration, 58 General Council of Italians Abroad, 145

General National Archive (AGN), 114 General Office of Italians Abroad, 58, 90 Germany, 9, 10, 18, 49, 92, 94 Gestores, 118–19 Ghiraldo, Alberto: La columna de fuego, 38 Globalization, 12, 39; and value of citizenship, 98–99, 160–62 Great Britain, 18, 31, 158 Greater Italy, 29; nationalist framework for, 49–51 “Great Naturalization” (Brazil), 47 Greece, 32 Greeks, 11 Gribaudi, Pietro: La più grande Italia, 50 “Gypsies”: as undesirable immigrants, 57 Hispanic-American Cultural Association, 71 Hispanidad (Hispanicity), 60, 69, 71–72, 92; Peronism and, 74–75 Human rights, 88–89, 161 Identity, 7, 36, 38, 98; migrant, 40, 130, 163–64; national, 1–2, 6, 25, 105 Identity papers, 63, 115 IEN, see Instituto Étnico Naciónal Immigrant associations: Italian, 48, 51 Immigrant Museum, 114, 117, 173n20 Immigrants, 63, 93, 100, 171n15; in Argentina, 2, 33–34, 79–80, 84–85; desirable and assimilable, 17, 69–70, 170n1; documentation required, 57–58; dual frame of reference for, 134, 143; nationalism, 49–51; quality of, 54–55 Immigration, see Immigrants; Migration Immigration laws, 13, 19, 156, 168n5; Italian, 95–96 Immigration policies, 99; Argentine, 54, 76–81, 87–89, 100; eugenic, 66–67;



Italy, 95–96; migrant categories, 18–19; Spain, 92–94 Imperialism: Spanish, 35–36 Industrialization, 71, 72, 83 Instituto Étnico Naciónal (IEN), 75, 78, 79–80 Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration, 80 Integration, 9–10, 11 International Brigades, 106 International law, 56–57 International political field framework, 12, 23, 155, 160–63 Interventionism: Argentine, 70 Ireland: surplus labor in, 32 Irish nationality, 11 Italian-Argentines, 109–10 Italian Associations of South America, 147 Italian Colonial Institute, 51–52 Italian Parliament, 147–48, 149 Italians, 11, 36, 119; in Argentina, 2, 32(table), 34(fig.), 37, 48, 69, 80, 102–3, 151, 170n20; Argentine school, 59–60; extraterritorial, 58–59, 169n19; extraterritorial electoral franchise, 144–50; migratory mobility of, 14–15; overseas/abroad, 90, 107, 104(table), 130, 169n15; quality of migrant, 54–55 Italian Schools Abroad, 49 Italo-Argentines,146–47 Italy, 8, 12, 13, 14, 16, 22, 28, 32, 41, 90, 103, 113, 130, 151, 174n13; and Argentina, 4, 67, 70, 80; citizenship, 24–25, 43, 45, 46, 107–8, 114, 119–20, 168nn1, 2; descent laws, 27, 154; economy of, 83–84; fascist regime in, 58–59; immigration policies, 21, 94–96; Latinidad, 72, 75; mass emigration from, 29, 30(fig.), 32(table); migration and nationality policies, 18–19, 45, 62, 82–83, 95, 105, 156–57;

Index

201

nationalism, 49–52; post-World War II era, 66, 68–69; unification of, 9, 36, 169n9 Italy, Kingdom of, 36 Jews, 2, 17, 77 Jobs: Aguaviva initiative, 137–39; in Galicia, 141–43 Juan Carlos I, 92 Jus sanguinis, 3, 4, 46, 59, 158 Jus soli, 3, 4, 45, 65, 107, 158, 159; in Argentina, 55, 56 Keita, Seydou, 155 Kinship network: in Galicia, 139–40; Italian, 146–47 Kirchner, Nestor, 147, 148, 149, 152 Labor, 19, 32, 70, 123, 162; Aguaviva initiatives, 137–39; Argentine demand for, 37, 38 Labor agreements: in France, 16 Labor markets: access to, 123, 131; Spanish, 132–34, 141–42, 143–44 Landholding: in Spain, 35 Language: Argentine, 74 Latin America, 11, 84, 137, 156; and Spain, 73–74, 81, 106 Latinidad (Latinness), 72, 75 Latvians, 11 Laughlin, Harry, 156 Law of Historical Memory (Spain), 94, 106 Law of Migrants (Argentina), 96 Law 36/2002 (Spain), 106 Law 91 (Italy), 107 Law 94 (Italy), 95 Law 817 (Law of Immigration and Colonization), 55, 57, 76–77, 78, 79, 87, 88 League of Nations, 3, 43, 158, 175n3 Legality: state creation of, 28 Legal systems, 4–5, 169n17

202

Index

Lega Nord, 95 Leo XIII, Pope, 50 Ley de Bases, 78 Ley de Extranjería (Spain), 91; reform of, 92–93 Liberalism: political, 7, 72 Male heads of households: citizenship and, 45, 56, 157, 168n1 Mar del Plata, 136 Mauco, Georges, 17 Membership, 76; state, 40–41, 98, 168n9 Mendé, Raúl, 74 Mercosur, 89, 128, 171n20 Messi, Lionel, 153 Mexico: nationalism, 49 Middle class, 1, 109–10 Migrants, 35(table), 76, 123; affiliation and allegiance of, 47–54; allegiance of, 39–40; and citizenship, 9–10, 65; competition for, 105, 154, 156–57; desired, 18–19, 78; ethnic-affinity, 133–34, 141–42; to Galicia, 125–26, 135–36, 139–44; identity of, 163–64; return, 22, 132, 157–58; sending states’ authority over, 42–43 Migration, 2, 7, 16, 27, 38, 39, 77, 135; from Argentina, 85–87; dual frame of reference, 134, 143; from Italy and Spain, 29–30, 32, 35, 58, 59; to Italy and Spain, 83–84, 91; multidirectional, 13–14; and plural nationality, 3–4; as safety valve, 68–69 Migration chains, 67–68 Migration policies: Argentina, 87–88 Military service, 19, 44, 56 Ministry of Education and Culture (Argentina), 54 Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Argentina), 86 Minorities Treaty, 159 Mobility: in France, 19; of Italian and

Spaniards, 14–15 Mormon Family History Centers, 115, 172n15 Moroccans, 100–101, 155, 158 Morocco, 35, 158 Museo del Inmigrante, 114, 117, 173n20 Mussolini, Benito: on extraterritorial Italians, 58–59, 169n19 Nation: and affective citizenship, 6–7 National Academy of Language (Argentina), 74 National Alliance, 146 National Ethnic Institute (IEN) (Argentina), 72, 75, 78, 79–80 Nationalism, 6, 48, 57; Argentine, 38, 52–54, 73; Italian, 49–52; Spanish, 34–35 Nationality, 43, 60, 62, 95, 155, 156–57; ancestral, 22, 102–3; application for second, 108–20; Argentine, 59, 81; documentation required for, 120–22; dual, 22–23, 97, 100–101, 106, 154; establishing, 64–65; ethnic affinity and, 94, 172n11; eugenics and, 17–18, 20; European, 100, 162–63; French, 16–17; international law, 56–57; plural, 1–2, 3–4, 11; second, 122–27, 150–51, 154; Spanish, 94, 168n7; value of second, 127–28 Nationality blowback, 64–65 Nationality Law (1912) (Italy), 95 Nationality laws and policies, 2, 5, 8–9, 13, 20, 99, 159–60; Argentine, 3, 15, 43–44, 45, 48, 55–56, 57, 60–61, 167n5, 169n12; and desired immigrants, 18–19; Italian, 82–83; return migrants and, 157–58; Spanish, 94, 106–7 Nationality Quotas Act of 1924, 17 Nationalizing myths, 159; in France, 15–16 National Migration Services (DNM)



Index

203

(Argentina), 80, 89, 110, 114, 173n20 National Reception and Placement Committee (Argentina), 80 National Socialist (Nazi) regime, 17, 20 National Technical Secretariat (Argentina), 80 Nation-building, 103, 105; Argentina, 37–38 Nation-states, 41, 168n11; control of populations, 28–29; migration system, 27–28 Naturalization, 157, 170n21; Argentine, 37, 82, 114; automatic, 46–47, 57; French, 17, 18 Neoliberal policies: in Argentina, 89–90, 162 Netherlands: dual nationality in, 154, 155 New Law of Migrations (Argentina), 87–89, 100 New York City, 33 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, 9 North Africans, 84, 100–101

Philippines, 35, 106 La più grande Italia (Gribaudi), 50 Plaza, Victorino, 55 Plural nationality, 1–2, 3–4, 11 Poland, 16, 18–19, 159 Politics, 14, 19; dual nationality, 151–52; extraterritoral electoral franchise and, 144–50; international field framework, 12, 23, 155, 160–63 Population growth: Argentina, 38–39, 42, 66, 89; Spain, 35 Populations, 18; nation-state control of, 28–29 Populationist policies: in France, 17, 18 Portugal, 32, 106 Postnationalism, 7, 162–63 Poverty rate: Argentina, 89 Privileges, 6; of Spanish nationality, 100–101 Prodi, Romano, 95, 130, 145, 147, 148 Province 25 program (Argentina), 88, 96, 106 Puerto Rico, 35

Pagliari, Luigi, 145 Pallaro, Luigi, 147–48 Paper industry, 120–22 Paraguayans, 84–85 Partido Popular, 136 Passenger lists, 114, 115, 117 Passports, 2; Italian, 24–25 Patria: Argentine, 53–54 Patria Grande Program (Argentina), 89 Pedagogical Congress (Argentina), 52 Peralta Ramos, Santiago, 77, 79 Permanent Court of International Justice, 158–59 Perón, Eva, 80 Perón, Juan Domingo, 66, 68, 71, 72, 75, 80, 169n12; and Franco, 73–74 Perón-Franco Accord, 74 Peronist administration, 73, 74; immigration policies, 76–77, 78–81

Race, 42, 80 Racism, 77 Ramos, Juan P., 57 Ramos Mejía, José María, 53 Recruitment: by Aguaviva, 129–30, 135 Refugees, 17, 20, 80 Registry of Italians Abroad, 145 Regulation of Law 817, 57 Regulatory Decree (1916), 79 Remittances: to Argentina, 106, 171n21, 172n6; from Spanish emigrants, 91 Republicans: Spanish nationalism, 34 Retornados (returnees), 125–26; kinship ties to, 139–40 Ría: Spanish-Argentines in, 134, 139–44 Rivista Coloniale (magazine), 52 Rojas, Ricardo, 38 Romanians: Aguaviva initiative, 136, 137, 138

204

Index

Roman model of citizenship, 6 Rosario, 33, 136 Royal Decree No. 1997 (Italy), 59 Royal Order (1922) (Spain), 81 Salesians, 51 Santa Fe, 33 Sarmiento, Domingo, 38, 42, 48, 51 Scalabrini, Giovanni Battista, 50, 51 Scalabrini Federation of Centers for Migration Studies, G. B., 115 Schengen Agreement on the Free Movement of Community Nationals, 92, 94 Schools, 48; Argentine, 53–54, 59–60; and Italian nationalism, 49–50, 51 Second Republic (Spain), 58 Secretaria Técnica de la Nación (STN): immigration records, 78–79 Secularism: Argentine education, 53–54 Sending states, 56; affiliation laws, 47, 48; authority of, 42–43 Service of Registries and Notaries (DGRN) (Spain), 44–45, 58, 81, 82 Ship manifests, 114, 115 Social transformation: Argentina, 30–32 Sovereignty: Argentinian territory, 66 Spain, 8, 12, 13, 14, 22, 28, 32, 40, 41, 58, 66, 76, 112, 120, 125, 151, 168n7; and Argentina, 4, 72–73; Argentines in, 86–87, 123, 132–44; citizenship, 25, 62, 81–82, 108, 114, 124, 153, 168n2; descent laws, 27, 154; economy of, 83–84; emigration from, 44(fig.), 67, 69; and European Community/Union, 91–92; hispanidad, 60, 71–72; immigration policies, 21, 92–94; imperialism, 35–36; and Latin America, 73–74; mass emigration from, 29–30, 31(fig.), 32(table); migrants from, 94–95; migration and nationality policies, 18–19; national identity, 34–35; nationality, 1, 100–101, 105; nationality

laws, 106–7; recruiting by, 129–30; return migrants, 140–41; subjects of, 43–44; trade agreements, 70–71 Spaniards, Spanish, 17, 46; in Argentina, 2, 32(table), 34(table), 37, 69, 151; migratory mobility of, 14–15; quality of immigrants, 54–55 Spanish-American War, 35 Spanish Association of Municipalities Against Depopulation, 135–36 Spanish Empire, 35–36 State, 5; authority of, 39, 42–43, 132; membership in, 40–41, 98, 168n9 Statelessness, 9, 56 Statute of Citizens Abroad, 140–41 STN, see Secretaria Técnica de la Nación Study Committee No. 6 (Argentina), 77–78 Suarez, Jeffrén, 153 Surveillance: documentation as, 64 Switzerland, 92 Technical Secretariat of the Nation (STN): immigration records, 78–79 Territory: maintaining boundaries, 40, 66 Third International Conference of American States, 157 Tittoni, Baron, 50–51 Trade agreements: Spanish-Argentine, 70–71 Transportation technology: and Argentinian economy, 31–32 Treaties, 44, 70, 157, 168n7 Tremaglia, Mirko, 146, 147, 174n14 Tremaglia Law, 145, 174n14 Tunis: French citizenship, 158 Turco-Napolitano Act, 94, 95, 107, 146 Turks: in Germany, 10 Unione, 145 Unione e Benevolenza, 51 United Nations, 9, 70



United States, 15, 71, 73, 86, 98, 128, 156, 162, 170nn1, 3; European immigrants, 33, 34; migrants to, 9, 10, 17 Universal and equal rights, 88 Universal Exposition (Paris), 54 Urbanization, 33 Uruguayans, 84, 136 Victor Emanuel II, 36 Videla Law, 87, 88 Vigo: migrants in, 125–26

Index

205

Visas: Spanish, 120 Voting rights: extraterritorial, 144–50 Washington Consensus policies, 109 Weber, Max, 6 Women, 30; citizenship of, 19, 56, 157, 168n1, 169n11; and French nationality, 16–17 Work ethic: of migrants, 137–39 Working class: in Spain, 34 World War I, 9, 19, 40