A Brief History of Argentina

Today I got a warp-speed lesson in Argentine history in my tutoría for Analysis of the Social Practice of Genocide. It was given by Tomas, my incredibly nerdy-cute tutor, who's also my docente, Spanish for extremely underpaid TA. (Docentes make 350 pesos a month — about $120 — which helps explain why they go on strike so much.)

The Genocide class so far has mostly been general sociology with a focus on the Holocaust, which we're studying as a paradigmatic example of a genocide. Starting next week we'll be relating the Nazis to the government under the dictatorship in Argentina in the 1970s and 1980s. Since all I know about the dictatorship in Argentina is that it existed and that it was, like, bad, I found the tutoría really interesting. I'll give a quick summary of the highlights.

Basically, in the 19th century, Argentina won its independence from Spain and then rebuffed an attack by England to become a moderate power in South America. At some point after that, it joined with Brazil to attack Paraguay, which despite being landlocked was getting uppity. Brazil and Argentina totally destroyed Paraguay, which has been impoverished ever since.

Then Argentina turned its sights on its own indigenous population. The indigenous people of Argentina had never had a very strong presence, since the population was largely made up of nomadic tribes and distant outposts of the Incan Empite. Now they have even less of one, since European descendants took care of them in a massacre charmingly commemorated on the 100 peso bill.

[This is my own interpolation — At one point, there was also a decent population of people of African descent, but in one of the wars I listed above (not sure which one) they were all sent first to the front lines, essentially to get rid of them. It worked. There are now between 3,000 and 5,000 black people in the entire city of Buenos Aires.

Argentines as a whole are extremely proud of their Europeanness, and have a disturbing lack of self-consciousness about the scarcity of people of color of any kind. As a norteamericana raised on a diet of strict political correctness, it's offensive to hear all Asian people called chinos and to hear about how Bolivians are dirty. And yet any Argentine you speak to will swear up and down that Argentina is one of the most open-minded countries there is.]

Anyway, back to Tomas. Around 1900, there was a huge influx of immigrants from Europe who came to hacer la America, not really differentiating between North and South or New York and Buenos Aires. There's still such a large population of recent Spanish and Italian immigrants and expats here that politicians from Europe sometimes campaign in Argentina. Tomas told us a joke that an Argentine is someone who: thinks he speaks Spanish, actually speaks Italian, wants to be English, and thinks he's French.

The wave of immigrants, which started out with poorer Italians and Spaniards and spread to include groups from all over Europe, helped define the incredibly complicated politics of the 20th century. As far as I can tell, it was a constant back-and-forth between left-wing socialists and military dictatorships, with a giant chunk in the middle dominated by Juan, Eva, and Isabelita Perón.

Knowing all of this helps me fill in a lot of holes in my understanding of Argentina. First of all, we are currently in the longest period of democracy in Argentina since the beginning of the 20th century, and we're just now entering the 25th year since the end of the last military dictatorship. Also, the three main political players have been the UCR, which is a socialist party, the Peronists, and the military. That helps explain both why the figure of Perón is still so dominant and polemical and why everyone is so obsessed with Marx and social activism.

I still have a ways to go in my understanding of this country. But this is a start.