From Desired County Men Neighborhood to Unwanted Citizens: a Study about Identity and Socialization among Immigrants (Ponta Grossa City end of the Nineteenth Century)

Abstract

Spring 1895, cold night, dark streets, but in one of the commercial housesof the small city in the Parana state was a ball, animated by music anddrinks. It was a party of immigrants, the party of the Russians, Italians,Germans and other “newcomers” that had come to the Ponta Grossarecently searching for better life conditions. The settlement created inthe Way of the troops and that over the eighteen hundreds was madeof a slave and country society, in another historic moment has housedhundreds of European immigrants attracted by the regional politicalpower, which he perceived as “settlers tempered” able to resolve the poorlabor offer in the state. But unrelated to this romanticized view, onceinstalled these individuals have gone through the process of adaptationto this new social world, seeking to rebuild their networks of sociabilityand insert themselves into local society, and not been seen as “foreign”anymore. However, this process of rehabilitation is not always passedseamlessly, without trauma. Sometimes in contact with the “other” therewas struggle, conflict and crime. Thus, is based on criminal cases thatthis paper aims to examine ways of European immigrant integration intoPonta Grossa city society, highlighting the need they have experiencedto rebuild their cultural identity before the inevitable conflicts with theolder local city families.