Identities in tension: Immigrant communities in Argentina and the challenge of the Great War

Abstract

This article aims to analyse the mobilisation of immigrant communities in Argentina during the Great War and to explore its impact on the definition of national identities. By their very nature, migrant communities are at the crossroads of two worlds: their countries of origin and their host societies. In this case, they also connected the belligerent powers and neutral Argentina, the global war and its local experience. Wartime posed them a serious dilemma since the demand for loyalty to the homeland coexisted with alternative national identities and with the experience of the integration into Argentine society.