Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 December 2015
The 1920s saw the emergence of a distinctive, new urban culture in the city of Buenos Aires. Although this culture did not extend to the borders of the nation, it was a national culture in the sense that it continually manufactured and reproduced images of Argentine national identity. Research conducted over the last two decades has greatly improved our understanding of this new culture. We know that it was, to a great extent, forged in the city's new, outlying barrios where manual workers lived side by side with skilled workers and members of the middle class. The relatively strong performance of the Argentine economy during these years made social mobility a more for realistic aspiration for more people than it had ever been before. Partly as a result of this economic reality, the new barrio culture revealed a less militant attitude on the part of porteño workers, a trend visible as well in the significant decline in membership and effectiveness experienced by labor unions. But the new cultural milieu reflected more than just economic prosperity; it was intimately tied to the birth of a mass culture disseminated by radio, cinema, and tabloid. In particular, the 1920s witnessed the commodification and massification of tango and football, two popular cultural practices that were now transformed into quintessential representations of Argentinidad.
The author would like to thank Chris Boyer, Joan Bristol, Mariano Plotkin, the anonymous reviewers of The Americas, and Judith Ewell for their insightful comments on earlier drafts of this article.
1 See, for example, Moya, José, Cousins and Strangers: Spanish Immigrants in Buenos Aires, 1850–1930 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), p. 383.Google Scholar
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12 Saítta, pp. 55–90.
13 Saítta, pp. 65–79.
14 Crítica, 5/14/28, p. 5.
15 Crítica, 2/4/25, p. 13. For Boca Juniors as “ambassadors” see, for example, Crítica, 2/5/25, p. 13.
16 Crítica, 2/6/25, p. 4. These notes were printed in other papers as well. See, for example, La Prensa, 2/4/25, p. 19.
17 Crítica, 3/18/25, p. 7
18 Crítica, 6/13/28, p. 2. See also Crítica, 6/9/28, p. 12
19 More research is needed on the consequences for women of the exclusively masculine national identities constructed around football. For one suggestive interpretation, see Guy, Donna J. Sex and Danger in Buenos Aires: Prostitution, Family, and Nation in Argentina (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990), pp. 190–192.Google Scholar
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21 Archetti shows that Gráfico's journalists, Borocotó and Chantecler, did discuss ethnicity. While Borocotó argued that immigrants became criollo by virtue of their contact with Argentina, Chantecler developed a melting-pot theory, in which each immigrant group contributed something to the criollo style. See Archetti (1999), pp. 66–70. Notwithstanding these analyses of the origins of criollo football style, Crítica's day-to-day coverage of the sport never mentioned Argentina's ethnic diversity. Regardless of its origins, the criollo style was seen to belong naturally to any player who wore the nation's colors.
22 Crítica, 2/4/25, p. 13.
23 Crítica, 6/10/28, p. 2.
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25 Archetti (1999), p. 71.
26 Crítica, 5/28/28, p. 12.
27 Crítica, 6/15/28, p. 5. On the extensive participation of porteño modernists in Crítica during the 1920s, see Saítta, pp. 157–188.
28 Crítica, 6/15/28, p. 5. An impoverished childhood in a lower-class barrio, where football is played with rag balls on improvised asphalt fields or potreros, remains central to the mythology of Argentina's football heroes. See Archetti (1999), pp. 180–189.
29 Crítica, 6/4/28, p. 9.
30 Crítica, 5/24/28, p. 10; 5/17/28, p. 2; 5/18/28, p. 9.
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33 La Nación, 2/4/25, p. 9.
34 La Nación, 2/19/25, p. 4.
35 La Prensa, 6/11/28, p. 10.
36 La Prensa, 6/5/28, p. 14. For another example of the notion that international matches were mainly useful for cementing ties between nations, see the coverage of Boca Juniors’ tour in Caras y Caretas, XXVIII: 1383 (4/4/25).
37 La Nación, 2/5/25, p. 9.
38 Crítica, 2/4/25, p. 12.
39 La Razón, 5/14/28, p. 4.
40 La Razón, 6/7/28, p. 1.
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47 La Nación, 5/30/28, p. 2.
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49 Crítica, 5/8/28, p. 9. In their discussion of Brazilian football, Rowe and Schelling emphasize that popular football style in that country valued improvisation and the art of the trickster over mere goal scoring. In this sense, Crítica's condemnation of excessive fanciness can be seen as an effort to contain and discipline a popular style. Rowe and Schelling, pp. 138–9.
50 Crítica, 3/17/25, p. 14.
51 Crítica, 3/17/25, p. 6.
52 Guy, pp. 142–156.
53 Crítica, 3/23/25, p. 8.
54 Quoted in Saítta (1998), p. 222. On La Nación's anti-Yrigoyensimo, see Sidícaro, Ricardo, La política mirada desde arriba: Las ideas del diario La Nación 1909–1989 (Buenos Aires: Sudamericana, 1993), pp. 55–81, 108–22.Google Scholar
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61 La Prensa, 7/31/30, p. 14. La Prensa also argued that Argentina should not complain about the violent tactics used by Uruguayan players but should instead field a more manly football team capable of withstanding these tactics.
62 The political use of football predated Perón. General Agustín Justo, Argentina's president from 1932 to 1938 and a friend of Natalio Botana, supported Argentine football in general and Boca Juniors in particular. But while he recognized the potential political significance of football, he was not interested in mobilizing the sport's counterhegemonic associations. See Scher, Ariel La patria deportista: Cien años de política y deporte (Buenos Aires: Planeta, 1996), pp. 109–149 Google Scholar. On Perón's patronage and manipulation of popular sports, see Rein, Raanan, ‘“El Primer Deportista’ : The Political Use and Abuse of Sport in Peronist Argentina,” International Journal of the History of Sport 15:2 (August 1998), pp. 54–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar