"I do not wish banishment on anybody"

migration tales on the Argentinean Pampa Gringa

Abstract

The Universidad Nacional del Litoral’s (Argentina) Oral Resources Lab (ORL) is a research facility whose goal is to retrieve, document and archive European immigrant voices. They focus specifically on the Italian and French speaking families living in Santa Fe’s Pampa Gringa, as well as other social actors related to immigration history. This article reviews one of the migration depictions obtained through interviews conducted by ORL. It illustrates the employed methodology and theoretical framework and presents an interpretative reading of the narrative with the intention of reflecting on the identity constructs of the migrant individual and the tension between personal and social narrative.