German-Brazilians in Misiones Argentina: Tension between Identity and Ethnicity

Abstract

German-Brazilians recreated their homeland in Misiones, Argentina. They are distinguished for having developed transgenerational migration patterns: they inhabited the south of Brazil for a hundred years and then lived almost another century in Argentina. This article analyses how the identity of German migrants was shaped by their feeling of belonging to this new territory and what tensions were evidenced in their identity. Oral history and ethnographic fieldwork were the basis of this research that seeks to unravel tensions between identity and ethnicity after a century of settlement in Argentina (1919–2019). It has been structured in three parts: first some debates about Germanness are exposed. German-Brazilian immigration in Misiones is presented, and finally, tensions between identity and ethnicity are analysed through the Vogelfest, a family party.