CONSTRUCTION OF AN ETHNOGRAPHICAL DATABASE OF GROUPS OF IMMIGRANTS AND THEIR DESCENDANTS IN THE PROVINCE OF BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA -EXCLUDING SPANISH AND ITALIAN Marta M. Maffia, Klaus Mehltreter, Marcelo Basaldua COBISS 1.03 INTRODUCTION For many years in the United States, Canada and the European countries, numerous research projects in anthropology, sociology, psychology and education have dealt with and still analyse the topic which Horace Kallen in 1915, called »Cultural Pluralism«. This theory defends the importance of variety as an enriching element for the recipient society, supporting it by stimulating the social dynamics as a consequence of their interrelationships and facilitating the harmonic development for the individuals, carrying it out without implying the rupture of family traditions and social values (Dolores Juliano, 1993: 40). Although Berkson, Draschler and Gordon modified these propositions later, they still maintain their importance as the basis of all subsequent trends, which are named »multiculturalistic«. The research project of this presentation should be inscribed within these perspectives. Therefore, if we consider that the diversity, typical of pluralistic societies like ours, is functioning as a generating core of changes, we will grasp the importance of encouraging integration, not at the cost of eliminating the cultural tradition of its people, but claiming for it with the aim to achieve a beneficial space for all. For this reason, a clear representation of these groups and their original culture can help illustrate universal kinds of human behaviour and recognize the essential components and conditions which affect their actual expression. The majority of the large countries of the world have accepted and still accept a high percentage of immigrants and foreign residents: the heterogeneity is an integral and interactive part of each society. The »personal identity« is no longer simple. Everyone can compose it, by combining heterogeneous elements of different areas of the culture. From a cultural standpoint, migratory movements have promoted in our country a new form of generating and expressing identity. In Argentina, research about immigration has traditionally been made fundamentally upon two majorities: Spanish and Italian. There were few specific anthropological studies concerning small and medium groups of immigrants (Cape Verdeans, Polish, Greek, Lithuanians, Ukrainians, etc.). As a result of our experience in the field of anthropology, working with some of Dve domovini • Two Homelands, 11-12 • 2000, 287-298 these groups and their descendants, we became aware of the need of a tool which allows, in a flexible way, to recognize the profile which characterizes the studied communities and those which will be studied in the future. Our ultimate goal was to establish in advance, sufficiently representative comparisons to describe similarities and differences between distinctive groups. Without such a tool, it would be difficult to characterize the modifications which were produced and still take place as a consequence of the cultural change and the intercultural contact. At this stage of the research, diverse specialists in statistics were consulted, who agreed that a database is the best tool for this purpose, since it allows flexible and more efficient storage and management of the information. Thus, we considered two steps: 1. Definition and development of the data base structure, 2. Elaboration of an interface for actualization and modification of the collected data. PRELIMINARY STUDIES The first task of our team was to study some of the most important research works related with this task and carried out in different countries of the world; and to compare these with our own experiences in this field. From this analysis we draw a guideline, which supports the design of our planned enquiry and finally the data base structure. The immigrant, influenced by cultural origins, expresses his identity in a dynamic way, adjusting his behaviour to the standards and the models created by his group of origin and the recipient society. He frames his daily life fundamentally within two elements, especially during the first stage upon his arrival to the country of destination - one being his family and his »clubs or national associations«, while the other element is public life, work and school. Both elements give him the possibility to reconstruct his identity. On the one hand, the family develops a conservation process, perpetuating the elements of the culture of origin by generations, such as the native language, religion, and traditional cooking or games. At the same time, an immigrant is exposed to a series of changes, occurring as a consequence of the interaction with the local setting by incorporating new elements, i.e. the Spanish language or multicultural unions. The clubs or national associations fulfil a double function. They help broaden the sensation of affiliation to the group, maintaining the connections with their native country, by specific cultural practices like their language, their music, their dances, the preparation of native food and the celebration of patriotic functions or other cultural preferences. Moreover, they help with the process of adaptation to the recipient society and the integration in the new setting by solving problems such as housing, employment or partnership. In both cases (family and societies) the native language operates as a symbolic factor of cohesion within the group. It functions as an element of identity, as a tool for the internal communication and as a factor to distinguish between the people who speak it and those who do not know it. Therefore, the common origin (basically as a consequence of the same native origin) together with the mother language, the music and other cultural practices, like for example the »art of traditional cooking« and in some cases religion too, have facilitated and intensified the singularity of these groups, expressing their ethnical identity by participating in a different culture. METHODS AND TECHNIQUES The empirical references of the first stage of this research were groups of Cape Verdean, Lituan, Syrian and Lebanese immigrants and their descendants in the Province of Buenos Aires. These groups were selected, especially the two first ones, as a consequence of the information we already had about them. Polling was selected as the most convenient technique to collect the data to be entered into the database. It is used for individuals, immigrants or their descendants of any generation, of both genders and above 6 years old, residing in the province of Buenos Aires. A list of potential individuals for the enquiry was elaborated. Data came from lists of local society memberships of voluntary participation. These associations represent different sectors (popular, intermediate, accommodated), socio-economic and cultural classes, and sometimes religious groups. They hold permanent and periodical meetings and keep record of their members, whom they allowed us to contact. Another important condition for their acceptance was their interest in our research, without implying any institutional intervention. The enquiry, of a duration of approximately half an hour, was not only applied to members of these organizations, but also to all those relatives, friends and descendants that we could record »ad hoc« during the consultation. The questionnaire was set forth by advanced students of anthropology, who participated at the same time in the adaptation and improvement of the items included in it. The pilot enquiry was made in a Syrian Lebanese community at the locality of Pergamino. The enquiry comprises basic questions about occupation, social participation, educational level, etc.; as well as open questions, referred to attitudes or affiliation to organizations. Other questions are confined to one option, e.g. marital status. The questions are generally accepted and understood. Comprehension varied as a consequence of the instruction level. For example, questions related to the native and second language or the origin and residence, had to be clearly explained in advance. OPERATING DEFINITION OF THE VARIABLES With the aim of describing precisely the meaning we wanted to give to each of the variables within the data base, we will shortly mention and exemplify some of these. Firstly the pollster asks for the personal data of the questioned individual, which includes surname, name, address, sex, birth date and age. This information is separately stored in the data base and the access is restricted through a password to protect the identity of the participants of the enquiry. The individual variables sex and age allow us wide possibilities of combination with the rest of the variables. Regarding the family situation, we consider primarily the marital status of the interviewed person, which is usually treated as a synonym of the »marital situation« in the demographic literature. This is the condition that allows us to talk about relationships in anthropology. This variable can adopt the following defined values: Single (unmarried): person who neither has got married nor united to a partner. Married: person who has got married (legal union of a man and a woman). United: person who has a stable and permanent union with a partner. Separated: person who is legally separated from his/her marital partner, but is not able to get married again. Divorced: person whose marriage has been legally dissolved from his/her marriage and is able to get married again. Widowed: person whose partner has died and did not get married again. Regarding children, we asked about their number and sex. TABLE 1 TABLE 2 Estudio Estado civil Numero Sirio-Libanes97 Casado 96 Sirio-Libanes97 Divorciado 2 Sirio-Libanes97 Separado 1 Sirio-Libanes97 Soltero 85 Sirio-Libanes97 Unido 4 Sirio-Libanes97 Viudo 12 Estudio NroHijos Nuinero Sirio-Libanes97 98 Sirio-Libanes97 1 13 Sirio-Libanes97 2 49 Sirio-Libanes97 3 28 Sirio-Libanes97 4 7 Sirio-Libanes97 5 3 Sirio-Libanes97 7 1 Sirio-Libanes97 11 1 The intention of the questions with reference to the family is to allow a family’s subsequent typological characterization, based upon the following factors: 1 - the type of partnership 2 - the origin of the marital partner 3 — the actual family size 4 - the stage of development in his family life cycle. As regards migration, we investigated the origin of the polled person, his parents, his grandfathers and marital partner. The origin is understood as: »if he/she has any ancestor who immigrated in any lineage (maternal or paternal) and in any generation.« Finally we set the place of birth and the present residence, and in the case of immigrants, the date of departure from his/her country of origin and the date of arrival in Argentina. TABLE 3 Estudio Lugar de nacimiento Residencia actual Llegada Numero Sirio-Libanes97 Siria Argentina 1910 1 Sirio-Libanes97 Libano Argentina 1912 1 Sirio-Libanes97 Libano Argentina 1937 1 Sirio-Libanes97 Libano Argentina 1948 2 Sirio-Libanes97 Libano Argentina 1949 2 Sirio-Libanes97 Libano Argentina 1950 1 Sirio-Libanes97 Libano Argentina 1951 1 Sirio-Libanes97 Libano Argentina 1952 4 Sirio-Libanes97 Libano Argentina 1954 1 Sirio-Libanes97 Libano Argentina 1959 1 Sirio-Libanes97 Siria Argentina 1968 2 Regarding the language we distinguished between the variable of the mother tongue, defined as »the language which is first acquired by the person and which is transfonned in his/her natural instrument of thinking and communication« (UNESCO), and the variable second language »is the one acquired after the mother tongue was established. It generally coincides with the official language« (UNESCO). TABLE 4 Estudio Primera Lengua Segunda Lengua Numero de Casos Sirio-Libanes97 Arabe Arameo 1 Sirio-Libanes97 Arabe Castellano 22 Sirio-Libanes97 Arabe Frances 2 Sirio-Libanes97 Arabe Ingles 1 Sirio-Libanes97 Castellano Arabe 44 Sirio-Libanes97 Castellano Frances 4 Sirio-Libanes97 Castellano Ingles 56 Sirio-Libanes97 Castellano Italiano 1 Sirio-Libanes97 Castellano Ninguna 69 Regarding the mother tongue, we asked if he/she understands, speaks, reads and writes it. TABLE 5 Estudio Lengua Entiende Habla Lee Escribe Numero Sirio-Libanes97 Arabe Si Si Si Si 12 Sirio-Libanes97 Arabe Si Si No No 12 Sirio-Libanes97 Arabe Si No No No 2 Sirio-Libanes97 Castellano Si Si Si Si 167 Sirio-Libanes97 Castellano Si Si No No 7 Finally there were two questions which could be considered as related to the attitudes towards learning the mother tongue and reading news related with his/her place of origin. The variable religion is understood, in a wide sense, as the practice of any type of TABLE 6 Estudio Religion del Encuestado del Padre de la Madre Numero Sirio-Libanes97 Catolico 46 Sirio-Libanes97 Catolico Catolico 1 Sirio-Libanes97 Catolico Catolico 1 Sirio-Libanes97 Catolico Catolico Catolico 107 Sirio-Libanes97 Catolico Islamico 1 Sirio-Libanes97 Catolico Islamico Catolico 4 Sirio-Libanes97 Catolico Islamico Islamico 1 Sirio-Libanes97 Catolico Protestante Catolico 3 Sirio-Libanes97 Catolico Protestante Protestante 1 Sirio-Libanes97 Catolico Siriano-Ortodoxo Catolico 1 Sirio-Libanes97 Catolico Siriano-Ortodoxo Siriano-Ortodoxo 4 Sirio-Libanes97 Islamico 2 Sirio-Libanes97 Islamico Catolico Islamico 1 Sirio-Libanes97 Islamico Islamico Catolico 1 Sirio-Libanes97 Islamico Islamico Islamico 3 Sirio-Libanes97 Ninguna 1 Sirio-Libanes97 Ninguna Catolico 1 Sirio-Libanes97 Ninguna Catolico Catolico 2 Sirio-Libanes97 Ninguna Islamico 1 Sirio-Libanes97 Ninguna Islamico Catolico 1 Sirio-Libanes97 Ninguna Islamico Islamico 1 Sirio-Libanes97 Ninguna Siriano-Ortodoxo Siriano-Ortodoxo 3 Sirio-Libanes97 Protestante Protestante Protestante 2 Sirio-Libanes97 Siriano-Ortodoxo 5 Sirio-Libanes97 Siriano-Ortodoxo Siriano-Ortodoxo Siriano-Ortodoxo 6 religious belief. We asked about the actual religion, if there was a second one and, finally the religion of his/her father and mother. Regarding the job, we homogenized statistical and anthropological criteria, understanding this term as: the collection of specific tasks that are practised during his/ her work, of any branch of economic activities or any professional category he/she has. If the person is an immigrant, it should be specified what was his/her job in his/ her place of origin, and which was the first job in Argentina. The variables related to recreation referred to the activities that were carried out during free time. The alternatives considered were sports, dancing, cinema and television. These were complemented with the indication of affiliation to or participation in institutions, where he/she is member or regular visitor. With the term habits, we referred to the common way of realization of cultural practices, which are linked to the place of origin, like meals, the playing of musical instruments and dances (explaining type and frequency). With regard to schooling, we had to make comparisons between the schooling system of Argentina and that of the other involved countries during the first part of our studies. Even if we found variations in respect to the contents and length of the cycles, the boundaries between the large categories (primary, secondary, tertiary/college) are maintained. We considered it as appropriate to distinguish within these three categories, whether these were complete or not. Estudio Escolarizacion del Encuestado Numero Sirio-Libanes97 Primario Incomplete 29 Sirio-Libanes97 Primario Complete 30 Sirio-Libanes97 Secundario Incomplete 32 Sirio-Libanes97 Secundario Complete 20 Sirio-Libanes97 Terciario Incomplete 11 Sirio-Libanes97 Terciario Complete 15 Sirio-Libanes97 Universitario Incomplete 32 Sirio-Libanes97 Universitario Complete 28 Although we recognize that these variables are not sufficient as analytical indica- TABLE 7 Estudio Practica Danzas Numero Caboverdeanos79 No 141 Caboverdeanos97 Si 20 Caboverdeanos97 No 34 Japones97 No 32 Lituanos97 Si 21 Lituanos97 No 16 Sirio-Libanes97 Si 63 Sirio-Libanes97 No 137 TABLE 8 tors of social stratification and mobility, the profession and school level allow us to measure in some way the position that an individual occupies within a social scale, and also the experimented social mobility (horizontally and vertically). The latter means the social change, suffered with respect to the place of origin in relation to the present residence and the changes in profession and school level (the one of his/her own and the one of his/her parents and children). Finally we referred to the investigated group with the term »study«. DESIGN OF THE DATABASE The database is built as an application of the program MS-Access 2.0©. The minimum requirements of the hardware are a computer with a 80386 processor, 75 MHz and 8 MBRAM, Windows 3.1 or newer and MS-Access 2.0. The design of the application makes it easy to handle the data offering the user menus and control buttons. Upon starting, the user can choose from a main menu, which type of work he wants to elaborate. The system allows to receive data from various studies, to add and to modify data of the inquiries (figure 1) and to analyse these, concerning the field of interest, with the help of variable parametric queries (figure 2). Different options exist to extract and present prepared reports to show the results within tables (table 1) or diagrams (diagram 1). Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo ■ rprMr UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL DE LA PLATA ■ Apellido: H Nombre: Domicilio: ■ Ciudad: I Sexo: Ijlfl masculino|pifemenino|| Fecha de nacimiento: || Nro de hiios SituacionB EstadoCivil: familiar varones muieres: N^acjoriaj^da^^del^c6inyuQeij| Origen del conyuge Figure 1: Top of the inquiry form. The fields with an arrow at the end allow only one specific selection of an answer. In this way the answers were standardized and errors were inhibited. The addresses were added in a codified mode to protect the personal information of the polled people. The database structure is relational. It comprises 13 related basic tables. Figure 3 shows the principal structure. As the people polled (»Encuestado«) are the object of investigation, this table is centred in the figure. Its fields are related to corresponding key fields of the surrounding tables. To demonstrate the relations between various different fields of the table »Encuestado« with the same field of the table of origin (»Origen«), it is necessary to add these virtually several times. The same occurs with the tables language (»Lengua«) and religion, but we cancelled these virtual duplicates * 1 rrr.’ir I Fainilia Educacion I Lenqua 9 Musiča J E studios Estado civil Ocupacidn | Interns Lenyua 1 Comida | | Encuestadores | Conyuqe B 9 Coiiiprensiiin | llan/as B Hijos B 9 tutori‘s Noticias 9 Asociacioncs B Estructura Edad B Actual E* ! ! 1 U <>>! <> !|| : if Catnblos H Olilf II ItlMlil.li ,1 Anteriores Figure 2: Query form of variable parameters, which allows a flexible analysis of the data. Ercuestado Estofo IDEncuedado IDE studio N ombre Apellido IDDireccion IDSexo FechaD eN acimiento Edad IDEdad IDEsladoCivil ID 0 rigenD elCony uge ID N acionalidadD elConyug- NroHijos NroVarones NroMujeres LugarNacimientoCiudad ID LugarN acimientoPais ResidenciaActualCiudad ID R esidenciaAclualPais LlegadaDia LlegadaMes LlegadaAno IDOMadre IDOAbuelaMaterna IDOAbueloMaterno IDOPadre IDEstudio IDEncuestadoReladj Escolarizacion EscolEspecifico IDDireccion IDSexo Direecbn IDEdad IDDiecdon QtrosFarniliares EstadoCivil ID E ncuesladoR elaqj Escolarizacion EscolEspecifico IDDireccion IDLenpua IDOriqen InstiuroentoMusbal IDInsfaunento Reltgion IDEncustador IDOtigen Figure 3: Relational data structure of the application. Virtual duplicates of the table origin (»Origen«) help understand the multiple relations between this and the table »Encue-stado«. Virtual duplicates of the tables »Lengua« and »Religion« were excluded from the figure. Various fields of the tables, especially of the table »Encuestado« are hidden. from the figure to avoid confusion. The relation between the table »Encuestado« and the table »Estudio« is very important for the application, because it demands that any polled person can not be part of different studies (or it must be added twice). The directions are administered in an extra table for reasons of data protection. Moreover the entry to the whole application system is protected with passwords. Table 1 and Diagram 1: Example of a simple query and the correspondent diagram of the result on the marital status (within the study of Sirio-Lebanese): Estudio Estado civil Numero Sirio-Libanes97 Casado 96 Sirio-Libanes97 Divorciado 2 Sirio-Libanes97 Separado 1 Sirio-Libanes97 Soltero 85 Sirio-Libanes97 Unido 4 Sirio-Libanes97 Viudo 12 Casado 47% 13 Casado B Diuorciado □ Separado □ Soltero ■ Unido □ Viudo The application allows the management of numerous and different studies and the analysis options allow comparisons between them. The only indispensable requirement is that all different studies use the same inquiry or the same questions with the same options to answer. For this reason, the questionnaires have to be cautiously prepared and the options to each question have to be thought out carefully and with a wide perspective. FINAL WORDS At the moment we continue with the data collection and at the same time we are initiating the application of this method to new groups, such as: Greek, Armenian, Dutch, Danish and Bolivian. The availability of human and economic resources assigned to these studies, will allow us to advance and fulfd the final objective of this project: to undertake a socio-cultural survey of all groups of immigrants and their descendants (excluding Spanish and Italian), resident within the Province of Buenos Aires. Soltero’ 43% Unido Viudo 2% 6% Separado 1% Diuorciado 1% BIBLIOGRAPHY Amundsen, M. & C. Smith, 1997: Teach yourself Databank Programming with Visual Basic 5. Indianapolis: SAMS Publ. Baloui, S., 1995: Access 2.0: Das Kompendium. Haar: Markt & Technik. Basaldua, M., 1998: La migracion sirio-libanesa en las ciudades de La Plata, Berisso y Ensenada: su contribucion en la constitucion de la identidad bonaerense. Informe Inedito presentado a la CIC. Campbell, M., 1995: Todo lo que quiso saber sobre Access y no se atrevio a pregun-tar. Madrid: McGrawHill. Cresswell, R. & M. Godelier, 1981: Utiles de encuestay de analisis antropoldgicos. Madrid: Fundamentos. Heuer, A. & G. Saake, 1997: Datenbanken: Konzepte undSprachen. Bonn: Thomson Publ. Instituto Nacional de Estadistica y Censos, 1996. Censo Nacional de Poblacion y Vivienda 1991. Serie c-parte 2 (Census). Instituto Nacional de Estadistica y Censos, 1997. La migracion internacional en la Argentina: sus caracteristicas e impacto. INDEC estudios, N° 29. Juliano, D., 1993: Educacion Intercultural: Escuela y minorias etnicas. Madrid: Eu-dema. Lahitte, H. et. al., 1979: Analisis de los datos en Ciencias Humanas y Naturales. Revista Espanola de Antropologia Americana, N° 9. Madrid. Lahitte, H. & M. Maffia, 1981: Presentation estadistica y corroboration del calculo por el tratamiento analitico descriptivo en un grupo caboverdeano. Publicacio-nes Larda. La Plata. Maffia, M., 1986: La migracion caboverdeana hacia la Argentina. Trabalhos de Antropologia e Etnologia. Sociedade Portuguesa de Antropologia e Etnologia. Vol. 26, fasc. 1-4. Pag. 191. Porto. Morgante, M. G.; Fora, M.; Maffia, M. (Direction), 1996: La inmigracion lituana en la Argentina. Revista del Museo de La Plata. Tomo IX. Pag. 327. Murdock, G. P., 1981: Atlas of world cultures. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Oficina de estadistica de las Naciones Unidas, 1958. Principios y recomendaciones relativos a los Censos Nacionales de Poblacion. Informes estadisticos serie M n° 27. Nueva York. This project is financed by CONICET (PIA n° 6795), is part of the Research Program of »Antropologia Cognitiva« (PINACO-CONICET) and is one of the research projects realized by the »Section Movimientos Migratorios del Departamen-to Cientifico de Etnografia del Museo de Ciencias Naturales de la UNLP«. Moreover it has received financial support from the »Comision de Investigaciones Cientificas de la Provincia de Buenos Aires« (CIC), especially Lie. Maria Apezteguia, member of the »Laboratorio de Matematica Aplicada de la Facultad de Ciencias Exactas de la UNLP« and statistician Ing. Maria Ines Urrutia, chief of the Scientific service of CESPI, UNLP. POVZETEK IZDELAVA ETNOGRAFSKE PODATKOVNE ZBIRKE O SKUPINAH PRISELJENCE V IN NJ1HO VIH POTOMCE V V PROVINCI BUENOS AIRES V ARGENTINI - RAZEN ŠPANSKIH IN ITALIJANSKIH Marta Maffia, Klaus Mehltreter, Marcelo Basaldua Priseljenske raziskave se v Argentini že tradicionalno bolj ali manj omejujejo na obe večinski narodnosti, špansko in italijansko. Le nekaj specifičnih antropoloških študij je bilo posvečenih manjšim priseljenskim skupinam (poljski, litovski, ukrajinski itd.). Na osnovi dosedanjih izkušenj pri antropoloških raziskavah nekaterih od teh skupin priseljencev in njihovih potomcev se je izkazalo, da bo izdelava podatkovne zbirke najboljša osnova za prepoznavanje značilnosti posameznih priseljenskih skupnosti, tistih, ki jih že raziskujejo, in tistih, ki jih še bodo v prihodnosti. V članku je uvodoma izpostavljen problem, ki predstavlja izhodišče načrtovanega projekta, opredeljenega v naslovu prispevka. V nadaljevanju so povzete ugotovitve predhodnih študij, nato pa so prikazane metode in tehnike izdelave podatkovne zbirke s pomočjo vprašalnikov, ki so v tem začetnem poročilu o projektu podrobno predstavljene in pojasnjene. V zaključku je najprej definirana trenutna faza raziskave: nadaljevanje zbiranja podatkov o že obravnavanih etničnih skupinah in začetek uporabe iste metode še pri drugih priseljenskih skupnostih, in sicer grški, armenski, nizozemski, danski in bolivijski. Sledi še opredelitev končnega cilja projekta, to pa je social-no-kulturni pregled vseh skupin priseljencev in njihovih potomcev v provinci Buenos Aires v Argentini (razen španskih in italijanskih).