Ukrainian Argentines
 Ukrainian Argentines in parade in Misiones Province |
|
| Total population | |
|---|---|
|
(300,000-500,000 0.75-1% of Argentina's population) |
|
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Buenos Aires Province, La Pampa Province, Misiones Province, Chaco province, Córdoba Province and Chubut Province | |
| Languages | |
| Rioplatense Spanish · Ukrainian · Russian | |
| Religion | |
| Ukrainian Catholicism · Ukrainian Orthodox Church · Judaism | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Ukrainian people · Ukrainian Brazilians · Ukrainian Paraguayans · Russian Argentines |
(300,000-500,000
Ukrainian Argentines (Ukrainian: Українці Аргентини, Ukrajintsi Arhentyny, Spanish: Ucranio-argentinos) are Argentine citizens of Ukrainian descent or Ukraine-born people who reside in Argentina. Ukrainian Argentines are an ethnic minority in Argentina; although the Argentine census does not provide data on ethnic origins, estimates of the Ukrainian population range from 305,000 to 500,000 people (the latter figure making Ukrainians up to 1% of the total Argentine population). Currently, the main concentrations of Ukrainians in Argentina are in the Greater Buenos Aires area, with at least 100,000 people of Ukrainian descent, the province of Misiones (the historical heartland of Ukrainian immigration to Argentina), with at least 55,000 Ukrainians, and the province of Chaco with at least 30,000 Ukrainians. In Misiones Province Ukrainians constitute approximately 9% of the province's total population. In comparison to Ukrainians in North America, the Ukrainian community in Argentina (as well as in Brazil) tends to be more descended from earlier waves of immigration, is poorer, more rural, has less organizational strength, and is more focused on the Church as the center of cultural identity. Most Ukrainian Argentines do not speak the Ukrainian language and have switched to Spanish, although they continue to maintain their ethnic identity.
There were four waves of Ukrainian immigration to Argentina: pre-World War I, with about 10,000 to 14,000 immigrants, post-World War I to World War II, including approximately 50,000, post-World War II, with 5,000 immigrants, and the post-Soviet immigration, which is estimated to number approximately 4,000.
The first wave of Ukrainian immigration to Argentina included 12-14 families from Eastern Galicia (at the time part of Austria-Hungary) in 1897. When the immigrants arrived in the country, the Argentine government sent them to the Misiones Province, where they settled in Apóstoles. Their settlement here was part of the local governor's strategy of building up European immigration in his province as a way of preventing neighboring Brazil's claims on the region. The settlers were granted land allotments of 123.6 acres, or 50 hectares (500,000 m2) in two identical lots, with one lot being used for agriculture and the other for cattle breeding. Initially, they struggled with adapting to climatic conditions quite different from those of their native Ukraine, and eventually largely switched to tending crops that were appropriate to their new homes, such as sugar cane, rice, tobacco, and especially yerba mate - South American tea. Indeed, the first person to grow tea in the province of Misiones was Volodymyr Hnatiuk, a Ukrainian immigrant. Ultimately, at least 10,000 Ukrainians from Galicia settled in Misiones before the onset of World War I. At this time, an estimated 4,000 Ukrainians also settled in Buenos Aires.
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Wikipedia