Italian Immigration To Brazil
According to the Italian government, there are 25 million Brazilians of Italian descent, the largest population of Italian background outside of Italy itself. All those figures relate to Brazilians of any Italian descent, not necessarily linked to Italian culture in any significant way. According to García, the number of Brazilians with actual links to Italian identity and culture would be around 3.5 to 4.5 million people. Scholar Luigi Favero, in a book on Italian emigration between 1876 and 1976, pinpointed that Italians were present in Brasil since the Renaissance: Genoese sailors and merchants were between the first to settle in colonial Brazil since the first half of the 16th century, and so - because of the many descendants of Italians emigrated there from Columbus times until 1860 - the number of Brazilians with Italian roots should be increased to 35 million.
Although victims of some prejudice in the first decades and in spite of the persecution during World War II, Brazilians of Italian descent managed to mingle and to incorporate seamlessly into the Brazilian society.
Many Brazilian politicians, artists, footballers, models and personalities are or were of Italian descent. Amongst Italian-Brazilian one finds several State Governors, Congressmen, mayors and ambassadors. Three Presidents of Brazil were of Italian descent (though none of them were directly elected to such a position): Pascoal Ranieri Mazzilli (Senate president who served as interim president), Itamar Franco (elected vice-President under Fernando Collor, whom he eventually replaced as the latter was impeached), and Emílio Garrastazu Médici (third of the series of generals who presided over Brazil during the military regime). Médici was also of Basque descent.
Read more about this topic: Italo Brazilian
Famous quotes containing the words italian and/or immigration:
“Their martyred blood and ashes sow
O’er all the Italian fields where still doth sway
The triple tyrant; that from these may grow
A hundredfold, who, having learnt thy way,
Early may fly the Babylonian woe.”
—John Milton (1608–1674)
“The admission of Oriental immigrants who cannot be amalgamated with our people has been made the subject either of prohibitory clauses in our treaties and statutes or of strict administrative regulations secured by diplomatic negotiations. I sincerely hope that we may continue to minimize the evils likely to arise from such immigration without unnecessary friction and by mutual concessions between self-respecting governments.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)