| Declan
Kiberd argues that "postcolonial writing does not
begin only when the occupier withdraws: rather it is initiated
at that very moment when a native writer formulates a
text committed to cultural resistance." Paradoxically,
the Irish who emigrated to Argentina, a former Spanish
colony, may be regarded (as they regarded themselves)
as colonised in the country they left, and as colonisers
of their new home. Their case is one of the better counterexamples
to the typical pattern of identities in most of the English-speaking
destinations of the Irish Diaspora. Using fictional works
as primary documents, in this dissertation I search the
identities represented in John Brabazon's Memoirs,
Kathleen Nevin's You'll Never Go Back, and William
Bulfin's Tales of the Pampas. Brabazon memoirs
were translated into Spanish, annotated and published
in 1981 by Irish-Argentine genealogist Eduardo Coghlan.
Kathleen Nevin's novel include the fictionalised biography
of her mother, who emigrated to Buenos Aires in the 1870s.
In Tales of the Pampas, William Bulfin amalgamates
the ambiguous acculturation of the Irish settlers with
that of the "gaucho" (those cowboys of the South
American pampas who almost literally lived in the saddle),
as well as with the symbols of Gauchesca narrative.
Evolving from colonised to colonisers during their initial
settlement, the Irish in Argentina swiftly became
ingleses. In the following decades, in order to join
the local bourgeoisie they were required to be gauchos,
and to show signs of their effective integration to the
native culture, as seen by the Argentine elites. This
explains why most of the successful Irish settlers gradually
separated from the Anglo-Argentine mainstream culture
and shaped their own community. A negotiation of identities
among Irishness, Britishness, and Argentineness
was always in place. I argue that these identities are
not only unmoored in the emigrants' minds but also manoeuvred
by community leaders, politicians and priests. After reviewing
the major milestones of the nineteenth-century Irish emigration
to Argentina, the dissertation analyses selected passages
from the three texts, offers a version of how the settlers
became Irish-Argentines, and elucidates the processes
which created the new Irish-Argentine hybrid. |
|
Introduction
Nineteenth-Century Irish Emigration
to Argentina: The Origin of the Irish Emigration
to the River Plate
The Formation of the Irish Community in Argentina
Sending Areas; Emigrant Profiles and Migration Periods
The Irish Argentines
Conclusions to this Chapter
Irish-Argentine Literature: The
Immigrant Experience; Irish-Argentine Fiction
Community Historians
Journalism
Conclusions to this Chapter
Analysis
of Texts: The Early Emigrant
Experience
A Feminine Perspective
Short Stories in the Irish Pampas
Conclusions to this Chapter
Becoming Irish-Argentine
Bibliography
Annex I: Irish-Argentine Chronology
Annex II: Irish toponymy of the river plate
Annex III: Glossary
|
