Italian Chilean

Italian Chilean

Italian Chileans (in Spanish: Italochilenos, Italian: Italo-cileni) are Chileans of full or partly Italian descent. Italian were by far the largest non-spaniard immigration to Chile. It is estimated that 150,000 people could have Italian ancestors. In Southern Chile, there were state-conducted Italian immigrants programs, though they were not as massive as the German and Croats immigrants programs. These families settled especially in Capitán Pastene, Angol, Lumaco, and Temuco, but also in Valparaiso, Concepción, Chillán, Valdivia, and Osorno. One of the notable Italian influences in Chile is, for example, the sizable number of Italian surnames of a proportion of Chilean politicians, businessmen and intellectuals, of whom a good number intermarried into the "Castilian-Basque" elites.

Italian Chileans, along with French Chileans, contributed to the development, cultivation and ownership of the world-famous Chilean wines from haciendas in the Central Valley, since the first wave of Italians arrived in colonial Chile in the early 19th century.

Although being just a fraction of the size of the migration to Argentina, Italians in immigration to Chile have been present since the arrival of the first Spaniards into the country, such as Captain Giovanni Battista Pastene who helped Pedro de Valdivia's expedition. Thence, with akin Latin culture, Italians have helped forge the nation, with architects (Gioacchino Toesca), painters (Camilo Mori), businessmen (Anacleto Angelini), economists (Vittorio Corbo) and statesmen (Arturo Alessandri).

In an unusual manner, since Italian immigration was never massive or organized, the only case of concerted immigration appeared in the town of Capitán Pastene, in the Araucanía Region of southern Chile, where in 1904, 23 families from Emilia-Romagna were left at their own device after being wrongfully enticed to the "riches" of Chile. Today, this small town celebrates a renaissance of their Italic heritage.