Race, Nation Building, and the Development of National Identity in Twentieth Century Argentina

Abstract

In my work, I contend that an elite group of intellectuals and officials known as the Generation 1880 led a number of governmental reforms that affected the Argentine self-identity in racialized terms. I argue that Generation 1880 scholars instituted these reforms in order to pursue their own economic interests and maintain social dominance. In the first section of the thesis, I discuss the influences that affected the Generation 1880's construction of their social model. I focus on why Generation 1880 came to define this social model in racialized terms. In the second section of the thesis, I show how social and legal reforms led by Generation 1880 officials enacted the group's racial ideology. Then I examine the way in which these reforms--based upon the elites' racial ideology--effected citizens living in Argentina. Throughout the paper I analyze the way in which Generation 1880's policies affected Argentine self-identity. I maintain that the social pressures exerted by elites, which delineated acceptable from unacceptable social behavior, effected how citizens in Argentina acted. In time, Generation 1880's race-based policies came to define Argentine identity and the traits of the ideal Argentine citizen in racialized terms.