Italian Immigrant National Day

                   Last Friday, 21st of February, all over Brazil was celebrated the Italian emmigration to Brazil. So this post is a tribute to all Italians that came to Brazil, including my great grandmom and my great grandad that came from Tuscany in the last decade of 19th century. This post is a summary of three articles. The first with the title above was published at   https://www.vercalendario.info/en/event/brazil-holidays-21-february-2020.html. The second was published at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Brazilians. The third was published at   linelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.2050-411X.1994.tb00762.x

              National Immigrant Italian Day is commemorated throughout Brazil's national territory as established in a law passed by Brazilian Congress in May 2008. The creation of a specific day to honor immigrants is the official recognition of Brazil for the great contribution of the Italian people.

              Italian Brazilians are the largest number of people with Italian ancestry outside Italy, with São Paulo being the most populous city with Italian ancestry in the world. Nowadays, it is possible to find millions of descendants of Italians, from the southeastern state of MG to the RS, with the majority living in SP state and the highest percentage in the south of ES with 60-75%. Small southern towns, such as Nova Veneza, have as much as 95% of their population of Italian descent. Four Presidents of Brazil were of Italian descent: Pascoal Ranieri Mazzili, Itamar Franco, Emilio Garrastazu Medici and Jair Messias Bolsonaro. The Brazilian government used to prohibit multiple citizenship. However, that changed in 1994 by a new constitutional amendment. After the changes, over half a million Italian-Brazilians have requested recognition of their Italian citizenship. During the last quarter of the 19th century, the newly-united Italy suffered an economic crisis. An agriculture congress in 1878 in Rio discussed the lack of labor and proposed to the government the stimulation of European immigration to Brazil. The first groups of Italians arrived in 1875, but the boom of Italian immigration in Brazil happened between 1880 and 1900, when almost one million Italians arrived. Over half of the Italian immigrants came from Northern Italian regions of Veneto, Lombardy, Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna. Among all Italians who immigrated to Brazil, 70% went to the State of São Paulo. The rest went mostly to the states of Rio Grande do Sul, and MG. Internal migration made many second and third generations Italians move to other areas. Many rural Italian workers from RS migrated to Santa Catarina and Paraná. Italians migrated to Brazil as families. He had to sign a contract with the farmer to work in the coffee plantation for a minimum period of time. However, the situation was not easy. Many Brazilians farmers were used to slaves and treated the immigrants as indentured servants. In Southern Brazil, the Italian immigrants were living in well-developed colonies, but in southeastern Brazil they were living in semislavery conditions in the coffee plantations. Many denouncements caused great commotion in Italy, forcing the Italian government to issue a decree, which established barries to Italians go to Brazil.

                 Within the framework of the vast Italian diaspora into foreign lands during the course of a century, Italian emigration to Brazil has drawn a fair amount of attention. Yet it has failed to gain the degree of scholarly study that it deserves. The outstanding characteristics of this emigration are the relatively short time span in which it took place, and the sheer numbers of emigrants. Italian migration to Brazil took little time less than 50 years. The migratory flow came predominantly from northern Italy. The composition of the flow was marked by a family component, in contrast to the experience of other South America countries, such as Argentina, and to that of the U.S., where individual emigration by far preceded family groups. Italian emigration was concentrated in the last 25 years of the 19th century, but the greatest numbers arrived after slavery was abolished in 1888. The Italian community quickly turned into the most important foreign ethnic groups in Brazil, exercising a decisive role not only in the economy but also in the cultural and political life of the country. After the difficulties faced by coffee plantations, a second phase of settlement can be observed as emigrants moved into the cities.