Cousins and Strangers: A Harmonious Meeting

Moya’s Cousins and Strangers is a monograph which encapsulates disparate aspects of a particular cultural phenomenon—the position of Spanish immigrants in Argentina. The author uses writings from primary sources such as letters to form the basis of his understanding of this phenomenon, taking an approach to history that seems to present ‘certified’ knowledge in terms of authenticity and verified details.

The book covers the historical period from 1850 to 1930, when, in an unprecedented exodus, millions of people migrated from the vastly-overpopulated Europe to Latin America. This paper focuses on a comparative review of Moya’s macro-structural and microsocial approaches, found in chapter one and three respectively.

The first chapter is an apt illustration of Moya’s style. He examines emigration from Spain in a macro-structural light, examining the reasons for the movement of millions from one continent to another. In terms of the methodology he has utilized, Moya observes that he does not validate the qualitative method, since he has found that the quantitative one is more likely to present accurate results, and is less vulnerable to the risk of manipulation:

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[T]his gross discrepancy between my findings and the qualitative evidence once again confirms the potential for deception inherent in qualitative sources and the peril of relying solely on this type of material. It validates the need for quantitative methods in social history. (p. 233)

Although Moya’s own book is based on qualitative research through the examination of census records, newspapers, magazines, and personal narratives, therefore, he still recommends that qualitative research cannot be the sole measure of a phenomenon or its attributes. As Moya observes, no study which aims at “the uncovering of past social realities” (p. 233) can afford to engage merely in the gathering of data through qualitative means.

According to him, if the researcher does not discover and implement quantitative means of gathering data, he or she is merely participating in a kind of “literary criticism—the analysis of texts" (p. 233). This is not to deride literary criticism, but to illustrate a primary difference between literary and historical writing—the demands of the latter imply that the writer or researcher engage in methods of exploration that are focused on ‘real,’ empirical contexts, and not just on opinions on existing documentation, which would be akin to a literary analysis rather than an exposition of freshly discovered facts.

Moya begins the first chapter by addressing his central research question directly to the readers: “Why did [the] Mataronese and 2 million other Spaniards migrate to Argentina between the midnineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth?” (p. 13) He goes on to outline the primary reasons, and quotes data from sources which have previously been neglected as being of much value, such as an incidental remark made by Argentinean Vice-Consul Carrau, who described the “push-pull scheme” as the primary reason for the migration (p. 13).

According to this method, which Moya describes as “a useful heuristic device” (p. 13), migration takes place because “push” factors drive people out of a particular location, while “pull” factors entice them into venturing into a geographical area which may fulfill the migrating people’s requirements. As Carrau observed, “the strikes and labor unrest that have driven 5,000 workers into public charity push hundreds across the ocean, attracted by the flourishing economy of the River Plate” (p. 13).

However, Moya is a discerning researcher and does not accept easy answers. He points out that there is “one basic flaw” in the identification of such a reason for emigration:

We could find a myriad of places in which labor unrest, famine, wars, starvation, and a whole array of “push” factors never led to emigration and in which fertile, empty lands, flourishing economies, high wages, and other “pull” factors never enticed immigration. In other words, push and pull conditions have concurred in countless areas and countries of the world from time immemorial to the present, yet mass transoceanic migration occurred only during a particular historical epoch: from the midnineteenth century to the Great Depression of 1930. (p. 13)

It is clear from the outset, therefore, that Moya does not wish to apply generalizations to his area of research; nor does he want to give more credibility than is due to the “push and pull” argument, even if it is true in this case. As the author observes, the same conditions have existed over several cultures in disparate locations and periods in history, but none have led to migration on such a large scale. Consequently, it is clear that Moya’s intention here is to identify particular rather than universal reasons for the Spanish migration to Argentina. As he declares, “one could easily compile similar lists for periods and places where no migration took place” (p. 14). Although the question of why migration took place is itself “simple,” therefore, “the answer is not” (p. 14).

This, however, is not to suggest that Moya debunks the push-and-pull theory in the context of this exodus. He acknowledges that “As the trend matured, a more balanced approach began to emphasize the complex interplay between the premigration heritage and the host environment, between continuity and change” (p. 4). As he observes, the concept of adaptation of peoples to new cultures, and their subsequent assimilation into the host culture, form “the a priori position of this study” (p. 4).

Although most works on cultural migration focus on the movement itself and on its possible causes, Moya chooses to go back to an earlier time, covering the three decades prior to the migration, to analyze “the pre-arrival traits” (p. 4) of the migrant community, thus prioritizing the dynamics of interaction with their new environment that the migrants faced, and the ways in which environmental changes impacted their adaptation to their new host culture.

A particularly useful feature of Moya’s text is that he also provides occasional commentary on his methods, and uses such instances to himself outline the possible drawbacks of his approaches. For example, in his chapter on migration, he discusses the validity of the macro-structural approach: “During the decades when macro- structural conditions obstructed emigration, the microsocial networks became inactive but not inert, the chain became dormant but did not die” (p. 68). In the light of this recognition, Moya bases his next section on the microsocial approach, utilizing it to complement and sometimes counter the evidence and recommendations suggested by the macro-structural approach.

The primary factor which encourages Moya to implement the microsocial approach in his quest to discover why the immigration took place is the fact that there was a socio-historical precedent for such migration: “Emigration from Mataró to Buenos Aires dated back at least to the middle of the eighteenth century and was originally related to transatlantic trade” (p. 61). At this point, Moya’s microsocial approach takes the text into a hitherto-unexplored area of interpretation, as he takes the argument back full circle to Vice-Consul Carrau, and the manner in which his appointment as an official impacts our quest to discover the reasons behind the migration:

Yet the real clue to understanding Mataronese immigration to Argentina lay not in the protocol and formality of that appointment but in the less formal reality it concealed... [I]f one scrutinizes the consulates, odd and unconventional consuls appear. Indeed, the Argentine vice-consul at Mataró was neither a diplomat nor an Argentine. Sr. Carrau was a Mataró druggist with personal and commercial overseas relations, married to the daughter of Josep Riera Canals, an americano, or successful returnee who maintained business and family relations with Buenos Aires. (p. 63)

Moya goes on to outline other such business and personal connections between Carrau’s succeeding consuls and Buenos Aires as well. He comes to the discovery that “in provinces that lacked social linkages with Buenos Aires, like Valladolid and Córdoba, the results in terms of attracting immigrants proved disappointing” (p. 64). Thus, Moya considerably expands the scope of his analysis by including such non-formal reasons for immigration as social precedents and interconnectedness between the act of immigration and intra-city links, which must have provided the incentive for their Spanish “cousins” to enter areas in Argentina which had established links with immigrant cultures.

In his microsocial analysis, Moya also looks into such empirical factors conducive to immigration as the availability of roads and other transport routes that may have facilitated travel. He points out that such factors as the transportation (sometimes illegal) of such refuges in cargo and passenger ships are an important consideration in identifying why the Spanish migrants decided to go to Argentina, rather than any other neighboring location. For example, he observes that from 1840 to 1860, there were only four ship routes from Europe to the River Plate, and only five ports in Spain, out of which only one, Genoa, was the primary point of departure for emigrants (p. 64).

Other ports remained inaccessible to immigrants; Moya’s research of passenger lists from the time revealed that Barcelona, for example, had no record, of any vessel carrying more than eight such passengers, barring one exception, which was also limited to only sixteen passengers. Also, Barcelona was not a stop on many of the routes. It was only in the 1880s, when “the use of larger and faster carriers and more frequent ocean crossings enabled steamships from the Genoa route to make stops in Barcelona” (p. 64) that Large-scale migration to Argentina began. Thus, Moya resources empirical causes for the mass migration, which gives us a realistic picture of what actually happened, rather than relying on sociological or ethnological theory to outline the reasons for why the migration took place.

Among Moya’s strengths is the fact that despite his target area being a large demographic population and also covering a long historical period, he does not focus excessively on the broader, more generalized aspects of such research, but instead provides detailed information, often in the form of charts and tables (e.g., pp. 16-17) which provide the reader with a quick at-a-glance format in which to assess information. Also, he does not restrict his work to national boundaries by prioritizing either Spain or Argentina as the point of focus, but rather focuses on the migrating population itself. This gives his work an objectivity that transcends issues of cultural and ethic domination.

References

Moya, J. C. (1998). Cousins and strangers: Spanish immigrants in Buenos Aires, 1850-1930. Berkeley: The University of California Press.

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