At the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Italian migrants who traveled annually to Argentina to harvest wheat were known as golondrinas. Despite their frequent mention in historical narratives, these migratory workers remain an underexplored and enigmatic subject. This paper seeks to address this gap through a qualitative analysis of a nominative database, offering initial hypotheses about the political dimensions associated with the term golondrina. The study not only sheds light on the lived experiences of these migrants but also investigates the rhetorical figure of the golondrina as part of a broader research hypothesis on the “imagined migrant” in the contexts of both departure and arrival
Beyond the Myth of the Golondrinas: Rhetoric and Reality of Italian Mobilities to and from Argentina (1880–1920)
Stefano Gallo
2026
Abstract
At the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Italian migrants who traveled annually to Argentina to harvest wheat were known as golondrinas. Despite their frequent mention in historical narratives, these migratory workers remain an underexplored and enigmatic subject. This paper seeks to address this gap through a qualitative analysis of a nominative database, offering initial hypotheses about the political dimensions associated with the term golondrina. The study not only sheds light on the lived experiences of these migrants but also investigates the rhetorical figure of the golondrina as part of a broader research hypothesis on the “imagined migrant” in the contexts of both departure and arrivalI documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
