Italian Venezuelans (; ) are Venezuelan-born citizens who are fully or partially of Italian descent, whose ancestors were Italians who emigrated to Venezuela during the Italian diaspora, or Italian-born people in Venezuela. Italians were among the largest groups of European immigrants to settle in the country. According to one estimate, there are 5 million Venezuelans with some degree of Italian or Venetian ancestry, corresponding to about 16% of the population, while there were around 30,000 Italian citizens in Venezuela.
Italians began arriving in Venezuela in massive numbers in the last half of the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth centuries. Yet Italians began to transmit their cultural heritage, giving and receiving demonstrations of social empathy, which contributed to their integration and to the huge flows into Venezuela in 1947 and in 1948.
The massive presence of travelers, explorers, missionaries, and other peninsular and insular Italian immigrants over the course of almost 500 years made Venezuela acquire a Latin vocation instead of a Hispanic one. Italians also influenced the Venezuelan accent, given its slight sing-songy intonation. Similarly, beyond the ethnic contribution, Italian culture has had a significant impact in Venezuela, a country which is the second in the world with the highest consumption of pasta per capita after Italy.
History
The presence of Italians in Venezuela dates back to the Genoese sailor Christopher Columbus who landed in Macuro in 1498, followed by the explorer Amerigo Vespucci (1499) and the conquistador Giacomo Castiglione (Hispanicized as "Santiago Castellón"), creator of the first settlement of Nueva Cadiz on the Island of Cubagua in 1510 (a town created for the exploitation of pearls).
Before the discovery of large deposits of oil in Venezuela, during the first half of the 20th century, the emigration of Italians to Venezuela was limited. In colonial times, only a few hundred Italians (such as Filippo Salvatore Gilii, Juan Germán Roscio, Francisco Isnardi) arrived in Venezuela with a slight increase during the war of independence, including the privateer Giovanni Bianchi, Colonel Agostino Codazzi, Constante Ferrari, Gaetano Cestari and General Carlos Luis Castelli. The jurist and deputy Juan Germán Roscio was the author of the first republican constitution of Hispanic America promulgated in Venezuela on 21 December 1811. Roscio is considered a forerunner in the defense of civil rights and in the fight against discrimination in Venezuela and throughout the Americas, for his defense of his mestizo mother (Paula María Nieves, native of La Victoria).Biografía de Roscio (In Spanish) In the Republican era of the 19th century there was a small number of Italians and their descendants who attained high status in Venezuelan society, such as the surgeon Luis Razetti. The 1891 Venezuelan census recorded 3,030 immigrants from the Kingdom of Italy, just over 6% of the total foreign population in Venezuela. At the beginning of the 20th century, several thousand Italians immigrated to Venezuela, obtaining good working conditions, even while the community remained relatively small.Italiani in Venezuela dal 1870 al 1930 (In Italian)
In the 1940s and 1950s, the dictatorship of the general Marcos Pérez Jiménez promoted European immigration to his depopulated country, and more than 300,000 Italians emigrated to Venezuela where they flourished under his administration because he had started many urban infrastructure projects due to the revenues of oil exportation. There were ample opportunities to work in construction developments, and as a result the economic stance increased within its cities, especially Caracas, Valencia, Barquisimeto and Maracaibo. Noteworthy is the presence of many Italians in 1952 in the creation of the agricultural colony of Turén, the most ambitious experience of this type ever carried out in a Caribbean country.Familias italianas colonizan Turén The Electoral Law of 1957, which allotted to foreigners voting rights for the very first time, became a detrimental event for the Italian communities in Venezuela. The law was put into place by General Pérez Jiménez, to aid him in his reelection campaign. The loss of Perez Jimenez in the presidential referendum meant that his social programs would end, and a huge gap in leadership would follow.
Italian immigrants had notably supported the referendum of 2 December 1957 by President Perez Jimenez, as well as externalizing public support for the dictatorship in a demonstration attended by around 75,000 Italians led by the entrepreneur Filippo Gagliardi. When General Perez Jimenez fell from power on 23 January 1958, the hostile attitude of the provisional military government towards the removed president was also reflected on the groups who were supportive of him. For this reason, many migrants and their families chose to return to Italy through the following year, subsiding towards the end of February, when the Minister of Foreign Affairs recognized the potential damage of this shift and proceeded to guarantee security to the remaining Italians in Venezuela. This is a relevant factor, since acts of disdain towards the Italian populace undoubtedly affected the decisions of that ethnic group in regards to choosing to leave or enter the country.
The Italians in the 1961 Venezuelan census were the biggest European community in Venezuela (ahead of the Spanish).
In 1966, according to the Italian Embassy in Caracas, of the 170,000 Italians present in the country, 90% lived in the main cities. About 96,000 lived in Caracas, 14,000 in Maracaibo, 8,000 in Maracay, 6,000 in Valencia and 5,000 in La Guayra. Most of these Italians were born in Sicily, Campania and Puglia; only 15% were born in northern Italy (mainly in Emilia-Romagna). They initially worked in construction, in the service sector, in commercial agencies and in different businesses (like hotels, banks and restaurants), in manufacturing activities (the shoe industry in Caracas, for example, was fully in Italian hands) and a few also in the oil industry.
In 1976 the "Dirección de Estadísticas" of Venezuela registered 210,350 Italians residents and 25,858 Italians "naturalised" (who had obtained Venezuelan citizenship).Ministerio de Fomento (Dirección General de Estadísticas y Censos nacionales). Décimo Censo nacional de 1971. Caracas In 2001, 126,553 Italians were living in Venezuela.
Marisa Vannini calculated that in the 1980s Italian-Venezuelans made up almost 400,000 of Venezuela's population, including second-generation descendants of immigrants.Vannini, Marisa. Italia y los Italianos en la Historia y en la Cultura de Venezuela. p.68 The Italian language in Venezuela is influencing Venezuelan Spanish with some modisms and loanwords and is experiencing a notable revival between the Italian-Venezuelans of second and third generation.
Santander Laya-Garrido estimated that the Venezuelans with at least one grandparent from Italy can be nearly one million at the beginning of the 21st century (like the former president of Venezuela, Raul Leoni, whose grandfather was an Italian mason refugee of the 19th century).
Currently, Italian citizens resident in Venezuela are reduced to less than 50,000 due mainly to demographic mortality and to their return to Italy (because of a Venezuelan political and economic crisis in the 2000s).
Italian population in Venezuela Census year Venezuelan population Italian population % of immigrants in Venezuela % of Venezuelan population 1881 2,075,245 3,237 6.6 0.15 1941 3,850,771 3,034 6.3 0.07 1950 5,091,543 136,705 31.1 3.01 1961 7,523,999 113,631 24.6 1.51 1971 10,721,522 213,000 22.3 1.99 2001 23,054,210 49,337 4.86 0.21
Italian community Initially, agriculture was one of the main activities of the Italian community in Venezuela. In the 1950s, entire Italian families were moved from Italy to special agricultural areas, such as the "Colonia Turén" of the Portuguesa region.http://www.chiesacattolica.it/pls/cci_new/bd_edit_doc_txt.edit_documento?p_id=8045 Colonia Turen (in Italian)
However, most Italians concentrated in commercial, building and services activities during the second half of the 20th century. In those sectors, Italians reached top positions in the Venezuelan economy. Italian immigration has been a decisive factor for the modernization of production (industrial and agricultural) and commercial activities in the urban and rural areas of Venezuela, as well as for the improvement of living standards.P. Grau: Center for Migration Studies special issues.Volume 11, Issue 3. UCV, 2012
The community's main Italian newspapers are Il Corriere di Caracas and La Voce d'Italia , both published in the capital, and the main Italian school is the Agustin Codazzi of Caracas (with courses from elementary to high school). Since 2002, the Italian government has become the promoter for a provision which makes it mandatory to teach the Italian language as a second language in a consistent number of public and private schools within Venezuela.http://www.ambcaracas.esteri.it/Ambasciata_Caracas/Menu/ Section:Cultural cooperation
Most of the Italian community in Caracas, but even in the rest of Venezuela, followed Deportivo Italia football club, as its own representative team. Deportivo Italia achieved worldwide fame in the Pompeo D'Ambrosio era (it was considered the best Venezuelan team of the 20th century together with Estudiantes de Mérida F.C., according to the International Federation of Football History & Statistics) winning several national championships and participating in the Copa Libertadores in the 1960s and 1970s (getting the famous Little Maracanazo).
Indeed, Italian-Venezuelans have obtained significant results in the contemporary society of Venezuela. The Italian Embassy calculates that one-third of the Venezuelan industries, not related to the oil sector, are directly or indirectly owned and/or managed by Italian-Venezuelans. For example, one of the areas of Venezuelan society most influenced by Italians is gastronomy, with the related food industry. In fact, the consumption of pasta in Venezuela is second in the world only to that of Italy itself, and spaghetti is considered a fundamental dish of the Venezuelan diet (together with pizza).Estadísticas del consumo de pasta en Venezuela y en el mundo
Another sector of the Venezuelan economy favored by Italians is the footwear industry, especially in the metropolitan area of Caracas. Between the 1950s and 1970s Venezuela experienced a spontaneous boom in industrialization and many of the large production laboratories founded by immigrants became, over time, factories and large-scale distribution industries. Among these was the footwear sector, a business dominated by up to 70% Italian immigrants.Industria del calzado en Venezuela
Most of the Italians who arrived after World War II are concentrated in the metropolitan areas of Caracas, Valencia and Maracay.D'Ambrosio, B. L'emigrazione italiana nel Venezuela. Edizioni "Universitá degli Studi di Genova". Genova, 1981 In fact, currently the main community of Italian Venezuelans is that of Caracas, which includes the Church of Pompeii in Alta Florida, the Casa de Italia with Plaza Italia as its main points of congregation (especially in the second half of the 20th century) and now the Italian Venezuelan Center at Prados del Este.
In general, Italian Venezuelans include descendants of settlers who came from various regions of the Italian-speaking area of Europe. Therefore, the descendants of Italian Croatians and Italian Swiss are also counted. Included in the Italian minority are German Italians (Italian citizens of German descent and speak German language) and Arbëreshë people, the Italian-born descendants of Albanian settlers.