Quando a imigração se transforma em colonização: algumas leituras sobre a presença italiana no sul do Brasil

The boom of the Italian Immigration in the 1880's almost happens at the same time as the fights for the peninsular unification (1870), and this people's movement was part of the Italian nation building process. In 1885, the Congress of Berlin put into discussion the interests of the “Revisionists” powers, like Germany and Italy, in the construction of personals colonials empires. Looking for more relevance in the European Nations Concert, Italy had to deal with the migratory dynamics that could reveal the national incapacity to maintain their population. In this sense, since the end of the 19th Century, an indefinite use of terms like “colonization”, “colonist” can be observed. The main objective of the article is to put into discussion, in some moments of the Italian immigration process in the state of Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil), this indefinite use of “to colonize”, that was recovered in the celebrations of the 50th year anniversary of the Italian immigration in Rio Grande do Sul, to praise the positive impact of the hard work of the Italian settler.