“Allow us to introduce ourselves”. Programs and intentions in the first editions of Italian-language newspapers in Brazil

Abstract

This article examines the programs that almost all newspapers presented to potential readers upon publishing their first issue, outlining the topics that would be the periodical's primary focus, typically those that would be of interest to the immigrant community. In general, these topics were more related to educating rather than informing their audiences, and concerned the valorization of Italian identity and the strengthening of collective forms of life, in terms of associations, primary education institutions, and publications in Italian, which were, in fact, extremely numerous. They also touched, but often in passing, on other topics, with references to domestic Brazilian issues and, much more frequently, to problems related to emigration and the lives and defense of immigrants. There was no shortage of ideological clashes in these programs, between labor movement newspapers and bourgeois publications, especially anarchist ones, but also between Catholic and anticlerical newspapers. These divisions intensified in the 1920s and 1930s between fascist and antifascist newspapers, with other conflicts continuing after World War II.