O Centenário da imigração italiana no Rio Grande do Sul e a construção do ítalo-gaúcho

The article argues that the Centenary Album of Italian Immigration in Rio Grande do Sul (1975) should be read as an ideological and epistemological construct shaped by both the authoritarian context of Brazil’s military regime and the contemporary paradigms of the social sciences. Rather than offering a neutral reconstruction of the past, the Album articulates a narrative that reflects the convergence between political imperatives and academic interpretations. On the one hand, the authoritarian context favored representations that emphasized social order, cohesion, and the successful integration of immigrant groups into a unified national identity. On the other hand, this narrative drew heavily on mid-20th-century anthropological frameworks—particularly Thales de Azevedo’s concept of acculturation—which interpreted cultural change as a gradual and harmonious process of adaptation. Within this dual framework, the “ítalo-gaúcho” emerges as a constructed collective subject, the result of a linear trajectory from migration to full integration. Diversity, tensions, and conflicts are largely silenced in favor of a homogeneous and cohesive image. At the same time, the centenary celebrations mobilized intellectuals, often linked to the Catholic Church, to produce a form of public history that collected, organized, and disseminated this vision. The article thus demonstrates that the centenary narrative is not merely descriptive, but the product of a reciprocal relationship between political context and scholarly discourse, which together shaped a simplified and integrative representation of immigrant identity.