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Italians in the Americas
Experiences in South and North Americas

Italian Immigration to Ecuador in the 1930s and 1940s

L’immigration italienne en Équateur dans les années 1930 et 1940
Chiara Pagnotta
p. 72-81

Résumés

Dans cet essai, l’auteur analyse la période des années 1930 et 1940. Celle-ci fut marquée par l’expansion du fascisme et la Seconde Guerre mondiale et leurs conséquences sur les Italiens résidant en Équateur. L’analyse prendra en compte les projets de colonisation de l’État andin par l’Italie, la promulgation des lois raciales en Italie et l’immigration juive à Quito, l’alignement des pays andins sur la politique de défense continentale et l’insertion des Italiens dans la liste noire américaine.

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Notes de l’auteur

The results shown in this article are the fulfilment of a wider research carried out in collaboration between AREIA - Audio Archive of the Migrations between Europe and Latin America (which has its headquarter at the University of Genoa, Department of Modern and Contemporary History) and Istituto de la Ciudad, Distrito Metropolitano de Quito. The research I created and coordinated is related to foreign immigration to Quito during the 19th and 20th centuries.

Texte intégral

  • 1 Fernando Devoto, Historia de los italianos en Argentina, Buenos Aires: Biblos, 2006; Magnus Mörner (...)
  • 2 ChiaraVangelista, ibid, p. 54.

1Until now Ecuador has been an area which is has not been covered in the history of Italian migration. The studies about the migratory flows from Italy to Latin America have focused on Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay as places of destination.1 For example we see that between 1850 and 1930 about 5,800 immigrants arrived in Argentina, the 47% of which had Italian origins.2 On the Pacific side of the Americas, the flow was numerically lower and concentrated on Chile and Peru. Little migratory currents expanded from these countries to reach the other regions of the Andean zone, Ecuador among them.

  • 3 Giovanni Bonfiglio, Dizionario storico biografico degli italiani in Perù, Bologna: Il Mulino, 1998.

2It can be noted that Chile and Peru absorbed a large part of Italian emigration on the Pacific side since they offered better economic opportunities and development for the future and they made things easier for the newcomers than Ecuador. Ecuador itself suffered more than its neighboring countries from negative conditions due to the lack of economic and industrial resources. We see as well that between 1880 and 1930 about 12,000 Europeans (mainly Italians, Spaniards and English) established in Peru.3

  • 4 Ministerio de Economía. Dirección General de Estadística y Censos, Primer Censo de población de Ecu (...)

3Nowhere in Italian historiography it is possible to find a section concerning the study of the flow to Ecuador. This is probably due to a lower number compared to other Italian migratory currents. It must be kept in mind that, if the numerical aspect of migration to Ecuador is not so remarkable compared to other movements from Italy, for Ecuador the Italians constitute a very large proportion of migration. As a matter of fact we know that in 1950 the Italians were the third largest national group in terms of numbers of immigrants, since Ecuador like Mexico and the Andean countries did not receive a significant total number of immigrants. For this reason, the small group of Italians (884 immigrants) during that period can be seen as highly important.4

4With regard to Ecuadorian academics, we notice that only recently an interest has been developing towards social history; but the local scholars, except in rare cases, have not yet compared their surveys with those made of the history of the different flows of migrations. Consequently, research on this theme still needs to be developed; basic statistical data must be organized. This is the reason why the main source for this research project has been the diplomatic correspondence between Italy and Ecuador which can be found in the Historic Archives of the Ecuadorian Foreign Ministry in Quito.

  • 5 Max Weber, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, Tubingen, Mohr, 1922. Italian translation, Economia e socie (...)
  • 6 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, Londo (...)

5Max Weber defined «communitarization» as the social relation founded on the subjective feelings (traditional or emotional) of belonging to a group in comparison with the fact of belonging to the same community. According to him, the process of ethnic «communitarization» is more complex than the other types of communitarization, as it needs various stages: the realization that union exists objectively, the reawakening of a conscience that can be shared within the community, the orientation of collective action as a new awareness5. As to this specific subject, we must note how the term of a shared life, for example because of the distance that the immigrants place with their native country, does not mean the end of the appartenance ties. On the contrary, as Benedict Anderson observes about the Irish case, it is among the immigrants in the USA that the first nationalistic feelings arose.6 People distinguished between the possibility of being physically in a place and the ideal sentiment of belonging to a community.

6This article focuses on the 1930s and 1940s which are characterized by the growth of Italian immigration in Ecuador. These decades also cover the rise of fascism on the political scene. Then this article will briefly analyze its consequences on the Italian migrant population in Ecuador. This essay will also consider important questions, such as the tensions resulting from World War II, the establishment of the racial laws in Italy and the Jewish Italian emigration to Quito, the alignment of Ecuador with the political system of the USA and the placing of Italians on the North-American blacklist.

7During the first decades of the twentieth century, Italian immigration started to expand exponentially and diversify its destinations within Ecuador. The commercial companies established by Italian immigrants developed thanks to the exportation to and importation from Italy, and encouraged the establishing of «recall mechanisms» typical of the migratory chains.

  • 7 Luigi Guarnieri Calò Carducci, Dizionario storico-biografico degli italiani in Ecuadored in Bolivia(...)

8It can be noted that, after World War I, people from Liguria, still constituted the majority of the flow, even though they then represented only one third of the total number of immigrants in Ecuador. This situation came from the improvement of the economic situation in Liguria. The classic paradigm of the Italian immigrant today was not that of the small trader from Liguria as it had been before; those who emigrated to Ecuador were professionals and technicians, employees and religious people from South-Central Italy.7

  • 8 Vittorio Cappelli, Nelle altre Americhe, in Piero Bevilacqua, Andreina De Clementi, Emilio Franzina (...)
  • 9 I underline how the period that goes from the end of the colonial era to 1950 is characterized by t (...)
  • 10 Fernando Noboa Jurado, Quito secreto, Quito: Graphic production, 1998.

9Italians concentrated in Guayaquil, the main port of the country. It must be remembered that many immigrants, a remarkable number of Italians among them, moved to the Ecuadorian port from Peru to escape from the Peruvian war with Chile.8 Italian immigration there lasted until the 1940s without any change: hence a large concentration in the region of the port while their settlement is more scattered in the Sierra.9 In Quito, the number of immigrants increased until it touched the number of nearly 200 people. People emigrating to the capital city constituted a sort of «specialized immigration»: they were mainly architects, engineers and musicians.10

10Between the 1920s and the 1930s, a big change took place in the composition of the flow. Women, wives, daughters and sisters of the pioneer-men joined the groups of immigrants. As already remarked, journeys became easier thanks to the opening of the Panama Canal and the railroad from Guayaquil to Quito. In many cases, it was the whole family unit that decided to emigrate altogether.

  • 11 Casa America Foundation, Dizionario storico biografico dei liguri in America latina da Cristoforo C (...)

11A better accessibility to the means of transportation made the maintenance of the relationships with the country of origin easier, what is called transnationalism. Traveling back and forth the country of origin and the foster country was more frequent and links between the two places were more easily maintained. For example matrimonial choices depended on these links. By analyzing the marriage choices which the Italians made at that time, we note that men who settled in Guayaquil used to marry women from the same region of origin. When it was not possible because of the lack of female Italian elements in Ecuador, the respectable man, who had to get married once he had reached the right age, traveled more frequently than one can expect to his village of origin with the aim of finding a wife and returning to Ecuador and resume his life there.11

  • 12 Interview done to Nicolas Parducci Sciacaluga, Guayaquil May 05, 2011. Nicolas Parducci’s great-gra (...)
  • 13 Oficios a las Legaciones de Ecuador, Archivo Histórico Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores, K.42.33 (...)

12According to a few of the persons interviewed, the strategy of such a choice depended also on the decision of not contracting a marriage in loco with a «non-white person». Exogamy was discouraged, for it would lower the status of whiteness and respectability which is thereto correlated.12 Since the Governments’ interests and programs often followed migration flows, in 1920, the Italian Parliament passed the program for the creation of the CIE – Compagnia Italiana per l’Ecuatore (Italian Company for Ecuador) designed to oversee the foundation of a bank for the economic development of the country, a tobacco company, a farm, a commercial company, public works and other activities, financed by Italian capital coming in majority from the Banca Commerciale Italiana of Milan.13

  • 14 Between 1918 and 1920 Paviolo directed the Agrarian Office in Cirenaica.
  • 15 Various notes in Comunicaciones recibidas de la Legación del Ecuador en Italia, Archivo Histórico M (...)

13According to the program of the Company, at the beginning, Italian immigration was reserved only to a few engineers, since the Italian manpower would have had only managerial functions. In 1920, the consultant of the Company, Italo Paviolo, arrived in Ecuador to bring his own contribution to the project, thanks to his experience in the Italian colonization in Libya.14 According to this project, in 1923, the Banco Italiano de Guayaquil was built and the CIE was the major shareholder. In addition to its financial functions, the bank also played the role of a delegate of the naval company «Italia», which traveled from Genoa to Guayaquil. Later, it became an important element for the economic relationship between Italy and Ecuador.15

14In 1924, Italo Paviolo presented a study which aimed at promoting the emigration of a group of Italian farmers from Manabì. The project relied on a loan from the Company to the Ecuadorian government in order to build the infrastructures necessary to start the project of colonization, to provide schools and health care. In exchange, the Company could profit from the proceeds of the commercialization of the harvests from farming work.

  • 16 Quota laws were adopted in 1921 and 1924 to curb immigration from southern, eastern and central Eur (...)
  • 17 See also Comunicaciones recibidas de la Legación del Ecuador en Italia, Archivo Histórico Ministeri (...)
  • 18 Consulados en Europa, Archivo Histórico Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores, D.19.48 H-I, September (...)

15The Italian government came to be more interested in the emigration phenomenon in Ecuador because of the necessity of finding an outlet for the large number of immigrants who traditionally went to the United States but who could no longer enter this country because of the new measures that imposed restrictions in the 1920s.16 They had to find another destination and many chose the Andean country.17 Nevertheless, in 1937, the CIE disbanded because it had not reached the expected financial success;18 the project of colonization promoted by Italo Paviolo was given up. Due to a lack of interest and funding from both the Italian and Ecuadorian sides, it was abandoned.

The Rise of Fascism and the Effects on Ecuador

  • 19 Chiara Vangelista, op. cit., p. 130.

16The change of interest towards immigration to Ecuador mainly depended on the rise of fascism (1922). The political program promoted by fascism was basically anti-migratory and it tried to channel the excess of labor force to Italy’s rural areas or to Italy’s African colonies. While on the one hand he kept under control free immigration, on the other, Mussolini wanted immigrants to feel part of the «Italic race». In accordance with the new political directives, the word «immigrant» disappeared from the official documents issued by the Italian government and was replaced by Italiani all’estero (Italians abroad). Even the way of speaking had to express loyalty to Italy.19 The Fascist government promoted a pacific colonization (not as the one that took place in Africa) performed by the immigrants themselves in the territories they were living in.

  • 20 Idem. The United States and Australia were the only two countries in which Fascist organizations ab (...)

17In Latin America the Dante Alighieri Local Committees and the consulates became the diamond point aimed at promoting the Italian spirit all over the continent. The interest of fascism in Latin America became evident after the journey that the ship Nave Italia made in 1924. The crew was formed by intellectuals, politicians, builders who wanted to encourage programs of expansion abroad and launch propaganda in the name of the Fascist government. On the occasion of the landing of Nave Italia in Guayaquil, the Local Main Office of Fascism of Guayaquil, whose leader was Luigi Fossati, was inaugurated. Then, the members of the Fascist society were about forty. But all in all, in Ecuador, fascism was not very successful, considering that the members in Guayaquil were about one hundred in 1932.20

  • 21 Consulados en Europa, Archivo Histórico Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores, D.19.54, Tomo IV, I-J, (...)
  • 22 See Consulados del Ecuador en Europa y Asia, Archivo Histórico Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores, (...)

18The consent and plaudit for fascism, even among the Ecuadorian people, were great. Diplomatic documentation showed likeness between the different Ecuadorian governments and Fascist Italy until 1941. For instance, we found in diplomatic documentation that the Foreign Minister Carlos Manuela Larrea was a «fervent admirer of Mussolini»21 and Ecuador never imposed sanctions against Italy as a consequence of the Italy-Abyssinian War.22

  • 23 Comunicaciones recibidas de la Legación del Ecuador en Italia, Archivo Histórico Ministerio de Rela (...)

19A first ramification of the National Fascist Party abroad was the foundation of the Fascio (the single unit of the party) of New York in 1921; afterwards the Fasci spread almost wherever it was possible to find a consistent unit of Italian immigrants. In 1928 Mussolini created the Statute of the Fasci italiani all’estero (Fascist organizations abroad). The correspondence between the Ecuadorian Diplomatic Legation in Italy and the Ecuadorian Minister of foreign countries during this period show that the two countries agreed on several measures such as a strict observance of the laws of Ecuador and the prohibition for Italy to take part in the domestic Ecuadorian policy.23

  • 24 See also El Ejercito Nacional-Revista de estudios históricos-militares, 1928-1932, for this issue t (...)

20The task of the Fascists in Ecuador seemed to be limited almost only to the propaganda in favor of Italy, while the important political functions were conducted by the diplomatic structure and by the Italian Military Mission that had been established in the country since 1922. The latter included twenty-one officers with their families and had the task of preparing the local army to modern war skills; in particular, the efforts concentrated on reinforcing infantry and the air force. The subjects taught by Italian officers in military schools aimed at training the Ecuadorian army concerning the military art and history; they taught classes on artillery and explosives, fortification, military geography, portable weapons and physical education.24 The poor success of fascism in Ecuador - if compared to the German organizations abroad - was also curbed by the low ability of the Italian economy to penetrate Latin America and by the capacity of the second generation of Italian immigrants to integrate Ecuadorian society faster than the Germans did.

Ecuadorian Society against Italian Immigrants

  • 25 Comunicaciones dirigidas por la Legación de Italia en Ecuador, Archivo Histórico Ministerio de Rela (...)
  • 26 Idem.
  • 27 Various notes in Comunicaciones dirigidas por la Legación de Italia en Ecuador, Archivo Histórico M (...)

21The 1940s are characterized by the tensions of World War II and the consequences of the economic crisis. Ecuador, which was a destination for the Italians like all the other American countries, was on its way to adopt a series of restriction measures on immigration. The foreigners had to show loyalty to their host country since they started to be seen as a threat for the safety of the country. The public opinion too pushed the government to carry out a more rigid regulation on immigration, and in 1937 the press (El Comercio and El Dia in particular) started to publish articles which reported a widespread anti-Italian attitude among the Ecuadorian population.25 The newspapers started to identify fascism as a threat as dangerous as communism for the Ecuadorian nation.26 In 1938 many demonstrations erupted, and the Italian military mission in Ecuador was attacked.27 El Dia picked on the weekly Italian language lessons that the Italian delegation was carrying out in Quito because, as the newspaper claimed, what was taught to Italian immigrants’ children born in Ecuador was the Fascist doctrine:

  • 28 Comunicaciones dirigidas por la Legación de Italia en Ecuador, Archivo Histórico Ministerio de Rela (...)

«Fascism is anti-democratic and a school that spreads its message – even among little kids - undermines the basis of the political organizations of the country».28

22If the 19th century was a period when immigration tended to be regulated by agreements among different countries, the 20th century was a time when the nations realized that they wanted to keep under control immigration flows and remove those who were not considered as assimilated.

  • 29 Ministerio de Gobierno, Justicia, Ley de Extranjería, Extradición y Naturalización, Quito, Imprenta (...)

23Regarding the Ecuadorian case, it is possible to note that the laws started to set a timocratic requirement to enter the territory, which dramatically reduced Italian immigration. In order to protect the national labor force, the law of 1938 established that those who wanted to immigrate to Ecuador had to practice farming or industrial business.29 Basically, the immigrants had to submit to the needs of the country without competing with the local labor force. Ecuador was a country based on a rural system, but the population began leaving the countryside for urban areas, as urbanization and industrialization offered better economic opportunities. The Ecuadorian government tried to protect the native population against an invasion of foreign workers. The diplomatic correspondence that the Ecuadorian Consul in Genoa sent to the Foreign Minister, praised a limitation of Jewish immigration which could represent a danger:

  • 30 Consulados del Ecuador en Europa, Archivo Histórico Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores, D.19.54, T (...)

«The immigrants we receive get possession of the little urban shops driving away our shopkeepers and craftsmen that, without an anticipated and appropriate protection, will soon be damaged. I take the liberty, Mr. Minister, of demanding the government to study and proclaim quickly the means you will consider powerful to avoid the damages that Jewish immigration can cause. A solution could be the one of limiting the entrance to the Israelites who can contribute with big amounts of capital and who come with the only aim of building farms in lands that are still unexplored»30.

24Indeed, the country needed to defend the Amazon territories on which both Ecuador and Peru claimed the sovereignty; to protect these regions, their colonization was praised. So immigration in these regions was encouraged and the coming of highly skilled workers was favored. At the same time, in Italy, the number of departures decreased: Mussolini’s regime did not encourage emigration since the Italian government wanted to increase the population in its colonial territories. While the traditional flow of the emigration of the labor force started to decline in 1938 and 1939, the number of exiles escaping the Italian racial laws was rising.

25Fearing the establishment of a political system similar to the one of the German Nazis, a small group of Italian Jews found shelter in Ecuador. This emigration flow took place in 1940 and 1941 until it was stopped by the context of the war which prevented the transoceanic crossing. This atypical migration movement involved mainly scholars. Indeed after the coming into effect of racial laws in 1938, they were prevented from teaching in universities, working in public administration and in private societies where they could have some political influence; more generally, the limitations to the so-called intellectual professions were visible to everybody.

  • 31 Reglamento para la aplicación de la ley de Extranjería, Extradición y Naturalización de 27 de Novie (...)

26Before 1938 Ecuador had not witnessed a strong Jewish immigration but, in order to face a massive flow of arrivals, it hardened its migratory policy. The law of 1938, differently from what the Consul in Genoa seemed to advise in the aforementioned correspondence and as it was erroneously interpreted, had never been a law that exclusively concerned the Jewish population; it was a decree involving the whole foreign population. It was surely used to filter Jewish immigration since, during this particular period, it constituted almost the total number of immigrants. The law of 1938 required the immigrants willing to enter Ecuador to practice farming or an industrial activity and possess an initial capital of one thousand dollars. With the reform of 1941, the financial requirement was transformed into a guarantee deposit of four hundred dollars that had to be returned to the immigrant after a certain period of time.31 Jewish people who wanted to enter Ecuador had to show they filled the requirements of the law, which also included a visa on the passport, granted by the Ecuadorian Consulate at the port of embarkation, which was not always easy to obtain for people escaping racial laws. But Ecuador recognized the Nansen passport as a valid ID to enter the country and required people to have it in case they did not possess the passport of their country of origin. The Nansen document was the passport that the League of Nations granted to stateless people and refugees who did not have any other kind of ID. It was created in 1922, and in 1942 it was accepted in 52 countries.

  • 32 Interview done to Alejandro di Capua, son of Alberto and Constanza di Capua, Quito, June 4, 2011.
  • 33 Interview done to Bianca Ottolenghi, daughter of Giorgio Ottolenghi, Quito, May 6, 2011.
  • 34 Various cases in Registro Oficial, no  35 y 36, Quito, October 14 and 15, 1940.

27In 1939 a small group of Italian Jews arrived in the Ecuadorian capital: they were highly qualified and their amount of social and cultural capital was large. Among others, there were Carlo Alberto Ottolenghi, Michelangelo Ottolenghi (professor of pediatric at the University of Sassari), Aldo Muggia (professor of pediatric and bacteriology at the University of Turin) and his wife Stella, Alberto di Capua (chemist), Emilia di Capua (governess and teacher), Vitale Venezian (officer in the Italian navy), Mario Segrene and his wife Bruna, Gino Falco, Luciana Cameo, Bruno Sadun. This group gave birth to LIFE (Ecuadorian pharmaceutical laboratory), the most famous pharmaceutical industry in Ecuador.32 According to the report of Bianca Ottolenghi, Giorgio’s daughter, the Ecuadorian government wanted to develop a national pharmaceutical industry, but had no competence to make it operative. This group of Jews provided the scientific skills and the money to carry the project out. Along the years they continued to invite colleagues and friends from Italy – and Argentina – offering them a way to get out of Italy. In 1940 a second group came: Costanza di Capua, Giuseppe and Giorgio Ottolenghi with their families, among others, were part of it. This group was the answer to the needs of the Ecuadorian government. The immigrants were specialized technicians who contributed to creating an industry of vital importance for the Ecuadorian state33. A different case was the one of those who were neither farmers nor industrialists. They had to pay a fine, to go on farming or to a penal colony and in some cases they were expelled because they did not respect the migratory laws of the time34.

Ecuador and the Progressive Alignment to the Policy of Continental Defense

  • 35 Documentos sobre súbditos de las naciones del Eje (1941-1946), «the Proclaimed List of Certain Bloc (...)
  • 36 Registro Oficial, n° 845, Quito, June 23, 1943.
  • 37 Until 1941 the majority shareholder was the Banca Commerciale Italiana. Following the inclusion in (...)
  • 38 Documentos sobre súbditos de las naciones del Eje (1941-1946), «Lista negra EEUU 1942-Memorandum», (...)
  • 39 Jenny Estrada, II guerra mundial. Lista negra en Ecuador, Guayaquil: Poligráfica C.A., 2006.

28By the time of the war, Italian immigration declined, exception made of the Jewish case, and the Italians living in Ecuador who had to face many difficulties. At the beginning Ecuador showed some kind of fondness for Italian fascism; gradually, from the 1940s onwards, it got aligned with the United States in the strategy of continental defense against the Axis. In 1940 the Italian military mission in Ecuador was closed, as the governement had expected. In 1941 the government of the United States issued a blacklist containing the names of Italian, Japanese and German people and industries resident in Latin America and suspected to be a fifth column of the Axis.35 From that moment on, the properties of the people and corporations enclosed on the list could be suspended, limited and banned.36 The property of the Italian Bank was transferred so that it was removed from the blacklist in 1942.37 The bank changed its name first into Banco Nacional del Ecuador, and then into Banco de Guayaquil; the Società di Beneficienza Italiana «Garibaldi» (a charitable Italian society founded in 1882) was closed between 1941 and 1944. They were both suspected of being in collusion with fascism. Together with Italian societies, many Italians saw their properties alienated and were confined to live in Cuenca, Quito and Ambato. They could not leave these places without a special permission released by the appropriate authorities. In the 1942 provisional memorandum elaborated by Mr. Riccardo Ortiz and Mr. Ignazio Davalos, officials of the Department of Homeland Security, 23 Italian names were considered as «dangerous nationals of the Axis».38 According to Jenny Estrada, 484 names of corporations and people were inserted in the blacklist between 1941 and 1943.39 It was also forbidden to have commercial relationships with the people on the blacklist.

  • 40 Comunicaciones dirigidas por la Legación de Italia en el Ecuador, Archivo Histórico Ministerio de R (...)

29The correspondence held in the Ecuadorian Foreign Ministry office shows that the Italian Legation asked that a few companies and people should be deleted from the blacklist as their economic and commercial activities played an important part in the national system.40

  • 41 Jenny Estrada, op. cit. p. 51.
  • 42 Naturalizaciones, Archivo Histórico Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores, T.1.6.8, note of April 1, (...)
  • 43 Comunicaciones dirigidas por la Legación de Italia en Ecuador, Archivo Histórico Ministerio de Rela (...)

30In Ecuador, like in almost all the countries in Latin America which progressively lined up with the policy of continental defense impulsed by the United States, all the citizens coming from the Axis countries and particularly those involved in political activities favoring totalitarian regimes, were deported and placed in internment camps in the United States until the end of the Second World War. On December 23 1943, some Italians who were on the list were taken from different areas of the country of Salinas and put on a ship headed to the port of New Orleans, Louisiana. From there they were taken to the internment camps of Crystal City, Texas, and Sharp Park, California, where they stayed until 1946. The group, composed in its majority of German people, also included Dirani Franco, Fossati Luigi, Galeotti Pietro, Razzini Luigi, Ruperti Arturo, and their families (if their relatives were Italian as well).41 In their demand sent to the Foreign Ministry in 1945 - so that the government might release Franco Dirani - his Ecuadorian wife, his mother and father, sister and brother-in-law pointed out that the only reason why he was in an internment camp was the sympathy he showed to Fascism as he had taken part in the Italian Legation in Quito during the fascist period.42 The internment in the camps in the United States affected only a very little group of Italians deemed favorable to the Fascist regime, and it seems that the insertion in the blacklist was due to nationality reasons, prejudices, more than political motives. As a matter of fact the blacklist comprised the names of anti-Fascists, Masons and Jews who had fled Italy to escape the racial laws and, in general, people opposing Mussolini’s government.43

31In the 1930s and 1940s, the Italians started to be considered as a dangerous community. At the same time, the Ecuadorian government not only required stronger allegiance from the citizens of the Axis, but also imposed a progressive closing of the doors of the country to slow down immigration in general and the Jewish exodus in particular, as they were seen as a danger for the national citizens.

32Gradually, the state required the Ecuadorization of the immigrants and wanted them not to be competitive with the local labor force. If before this period European immigration was well received, then it started to be seen as a menace for domestic identity and safety. This situation was amplified when Ecuador decided to align with the North-American policy that aimed at curbing immigration for the sake of security.

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Notes

1 Fernando Devoto, Historia de los italianos en Argentina, Buenos Aires: Biblos, 2006; Magnus Mörner and Harold Dana Sims, Adventurers and Proletarians. The Story of Migrants in Latin America, Pittsburg: University of Pittsburg Press, 1985; Eugenia Scarzanella, Italiani d’Argentina. Storia di contadini, industriali e missionari in Argentina, 1850-1920, Venezia: Marsilio, 1983; Chiara Vangelista, Dal Vecchio al Nuovo Continente. L’immigrazione in America Latina, Torino: Paravia, 1997.

2 ChiaraVangelista, ibid, p. 54.

3 Giovanni Bonfiglio, Dizionario storico biografico degli italiani in Perù, Bologna: Il Mulino, 1998.

4 Ministerio de Economía. Dirección General de Estadística y Censos, Primer Censo de población de Ecuador, 1950. Quito: Taller grafico de la dirección, 1950.

5 Max Weber, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, Tubingen, Mohr, 1922. Italian translation, Economia e società, Milano: Edizioni di Comunità, 1961.

6 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, London: Verso, 1991.

7 Luigi Guarnieri Calò Carducci, Dizionario storico-biografico degli italiani in Ecuadored in Bolivia, Bologna: Il Mulino, 2001.

8 Vittorio Cappelli, Nelle altre Americhe, in Piero Bevilacqua, Andreina De Clementi, Emilio Franzina, Storia dell’emigrazione italiana. Arrivi, Roma: Donzelli, 2002, pp. 97-109.

9 I underline how the period that goes from the end of the colonial era to 1950 is characterized by the absence of any kind of census. The census of 1921 is lost and a national census was only carried out in Ecuador in 1950. In order to obtain quantitative data, we have to look at other kind of sources. According to Descalzi, in 1884, 650 Italians lived in Ecuador – 500 in the city of Guayaquil. Riccardo Descalzi, Gli italiani in Equatore. Rassegna delle vite e delle opere della stirpe italica in terra equatoriana, in Ermenegildo Aliprandi and Virgilio Martini, Anuario Ecuatoriano, Guayaquil: Artegrafia Sanefedder, 1933.

10 Fernando Noboa Jurado, Quito secreto, Quito: Graphic production, 1998.

11 Casa America Foundation, Dizionario storico biografico dei liguri in America latina da Cristoforo Colombo a tutto il Novecento, Genoa: Affinità elettive, 2006. Such tendency is confirmed by the memory of the descendants of the immigrants I interviewed in Ecuador.

12 Interview done to Nicolas Parducci Sciacaluga, Guayaquil May 05, 2011. Nicolas Parducci’s great-grand-father emigrated from Mastiano (Tuscany) to Guayaquil in 1862. The witness - interviewed about his family history - confirms the results explained in several surveys about the ethnic-social identity in Latin America. Among these research surveys we will mention: Chiara Vangelista, Terre, etnie e migrazioni. Tre donne nel Brasile contemporaneo, Torino: Il Segnalibro, 1999. In the aforementioned text, the author shows how physical appearance is one of the criteria for determining the level of respectability and civilization in the South-American continent.

13 Oficios a las Legaciones de Ecuador, Archivo Histórico Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores, K.42.33, 1923, Quito, July 12, 1923.

14 Between 1918 and 1920 Paviolo directed the Agrarian Office in Cirenaica.

15 Various notes in Comunicaciones recibidas de la Legación del Ecuador en Italia, Archivo Histórico Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores, C.25.5, 1922-1923; Comunicaciones recibidas de la Legación del Ecuador en Italia, Archivo Histórico Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores, C.25.6, 1924.

16 Quota laws were adopted in 1921 and 1924 to curb immigration from southern, eastern and central European countries.

17 See also Comunicaciones recibidas de la Legación del Ecuador en Italia, Archivo Histórico Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores, C.25.5 1922-1923, n° 21, November 28, 1922.

18 Consulados en Europa, Archivo Histórico Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores, D.19.48 H-I, September 25, 1937.

19 Chiara Vangelista, op. cit., p. 130.

20 Idem. The United States and Australia were the only two countries in which Fascist organizations abroad had a quite remarkable success.

21 Consulados en Europa, Archivo Histórico Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores, D.19.54, Tomo IV, I-J, 1938, n° 10, January 20, 1938.

22 See Consulados del Ecuador en Europa y Asia, Archivo Histórico Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores, D.19.41, I-J, 1936; Consulados en Europa, Archivo Histórico Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores, D.19.48, H-I, 1937.

23 Comunicaciones recibidas de la Legación del Ecuador en Italia, Archivo Histórico Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores, C.25.10, 1928, Roma, Note n° 20, February 15, 1928.

24 See also El Ejercito Nacional-Revista de estudios históricos-militares, 1928-1932, for this issue the courses were given by Italian officers.

25 Comunicaciones dirigidas por la Legación de Italia en Ecuador, Archivo Histórico Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores, B.25.9 1936-1937, protocol 2642, December 22, 1937.

26 Idem.

27 Various notes in Comunicaciones dirigidas por la Legación de Italia en Ecuador, Archivo Histórico Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores, B.25.10, 1938-1939.

28 Comunicaciones dirigidas por la Legación de Italia en Ecuador, Archivo Histórico Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores, B.25.10, 1938-1939, cut from El Día, October 17, 1938.

29 Ministerio de Gobierno, Justicia, Ley de Extranjería, Extradición y Naturalización, Quito, Imprenta del Ministerio de Gobierno, 1938.

30 Consulados del Ecuador en Europa, Archivo Histórico Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores, D.19.54, Tomo IV I-J, 1938, n° 1, January 4, 1938.

31 Reglamento para la aplicación de la ley de Extranjería, Extradición y Naturalización de 27 de Noviembre de 1940, art.16, in Ministerio de Gobierno, Recopilación de la ley y reglamentos de Extranjería, Extradición y Naturalización, Quito: Imprenta del Ministerio de Gobierno, 1941, p.34-78.

32 Interview done to Alejandro di Capua, son of Alberto and Constanza di Capua, Quito, June 4, 2011.

33 Interview done to Bianca Ottolenghi, daughter of Giorgio Ottolenghi, Quito, May 6, 2011.

34 Various cases in Registro Oficial, no  35 y 36, Quito, October 14 and 15, 1940.

35 Documentos sobre súbditos de las naciones del Eje (1941-1946), «the Proclaimed List of Certain Blocked Nationals», Archivo Histórico Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores, July 17, 1941.

36 Registro Oficial, n° 845, Quito, June 23, 1943.

37 Until 1941 the majority shareholder was the Banca Commerciale Italiana. Following the inclusion in the list of 1941 banker Lucindo Almeida purchased the majority of the shares of the Banca Commerciale Italiana.

38 Documentos sobre súbditos de las naciones del Eje (1941-1946), «Lista negra EEUU 1942-Memorandum», Archivo Histórico Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores, Quito, March 16, 1942.

39 Jenny Estrada, II guerra mundial. Lista negra en Ecuador, Guayaquil: Poligráfica C.A., 2006.

40 Comunicaciones dirigidas por la Legación de Italia en el Ecuador, Archivo Histórico Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores, B.25.22, 1940-1946.

41 Jenny Estrada, op. cit. p. 51.

42 Naturalizaciones, Archivo Histórico Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores, T.1.6.8, note of April 1, 1945.

43 Comunicaciones dirigidas por la Legación de Italia en Ecuador, Archivo Histórico Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores, B.25.11, 1940-1946.

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Chiara Pagnotta, « Italian Immigration to Ecuador in the 1930s and 1940s »Diasporas, 19 | 2011, 72-81.

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Chiara Pagnotta, « Italian Immigration to Ecuador in the 1930s and 1940s »Diasporas [En ligne], 19 | 2011, mis en ligne le 01 janvier 2019, consulté le 14 avril 2026. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/diasporas/1818 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/diasporas.1818

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Chiara Pagnotta

Honorary Fellow in Latin American History at Genoa University-Italy. She got her Ph.D. in contemporary History at the Genoa University and post-doc at the University of Montreal (2008) and at Paris 7, Paris Diderot University (2009). Her research focuses on historical and contemporary migratory circulation between Europe and Ecuador, following the methods of oral and social history. She is the author of: Attraversando lo stagno. Voci della migrazione ecuadoriana in Europa tra continuità e cambiamento (1997-2007), Roma, CISU, 2010.

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