How can we account for the dramatic shift in attitudes towards Essay

How can we account for the dramatic shift in attitudes towards immigration in Argentina between 1860 and 1914 - Essay Example Many of the Latin American countries including Argentina displayed a negative repercussion towards the European immigrants.   A thorough scrutiny of the case of Argentina on the socioeconomic and socio-cultural perspectives would enable us to point out the main causes of such a radical change in the posture. Though the liberal economic policy of the Argentine government is believed to be orchestrated mainly by the-then Argentine President Sarmiento, according to De Avila (1964:118) the laws had already been established for immigration. This postulate was supported by Vogel (1991: 128-129), who argued that the supremacy of Sarmiento lies in his attitude to promote immigration, which was initiated by his predecessors.   Whitaker (1964: 55)marks Sarmiento as a real leader to pave the economic and cultural development in America through a change in the socio-political orientation of the country. The progressive leaders of the Argentina in the 19th century pleaded for the migration as the economy had a huge arable land with the scarcity of labor to utilize efficiently. The progressive leaders realized that purpose of economic growth by the intensive utilization of the natural resources would be practically impossible without the import of laborers from different corners of the globe. Howev er, the plan of immigration was designed to serve quantitative as well as qualitative purpose as the Argentine population had the urge to replace the monotonous Spaniard culture by a homogeneous European culture. Domingo F Sarmiento (2004:9-10) expressed his belief on the European immigration as a catalyst to promote moralization and order and to accelerate the tempo of economic growth in Argentina in his famous book Facundo.   Delaney (2002: 436) supported the argument of the Sarmiento on the basis of the fact that attracting European immigrants was synonymous to importing the European sophistication. The