So what is the Argentine identity? Well according to my history teacher, one's identity as an Argentine is composed of 4 components, "your name, your mother, your football (soccer) team, and your political views."
The Argentines are a very unique people, and porteños even more so. The Argentine race is 90-some percent of European decent, in other words they're a lot of white people. And since they're such a race built upon much recent (in other words at the beginning of the 20th century) immigration, they have a very strong sense of European culture, which makes them very unique in comparison to most of the rest of Latin America.
Most Argentines feel a connection to Europe in one way or another. Many in fact, almost 50% of the population has obtained or applied for double citizenship in a European country (mostly Italy and Spain, these being the two biggest migratory groups) because they were able to prove that a grandparent or a great-grandparent had come from one of these countries. This is beneficiary to many because they're able to travel more easily with a European passport to many parts of the world without a visa (such as the United States).
Porteños seem to have a special pride in showing off their "Europeaness." They're very fashionable, they live in a city that tried everything it could to copy Paris architecture, they have poodles and dog walkers (like one things of a French park with dogs and dog walkers). The Spanish (even though Spanish is a European language already) spoken here, especially in Buenos Aires, is very unique, it has an unmistakable Italian tone to it, with many Italian words working their way into the every day Spanish vocabulary of the Argentines, one example being saying the Italian word for beer many times instead of the Spanish word
cerveza here they prefer to say
birra which you see on many signs of businesses even.
Argentines in general tend to have (from what I've witnessed, not all, but many in my opinion) a resentment of being considered Latin Americans, because they really don't share in common many characteristics with other Latin American countries, such as Indigenous blood or cultures (Except in the north of Argentina, like Salta and Jujuy... I'll be there in a month by the way). The Porteño attitude is very much the stereotype one has of Parisians, in that they are very fashion-forward, very proud of themselves and their city, and have an over all "snob" attitude towards people. Another Parisian characteristic is the "Cafe culture." This applies to me right now in fact, I'm sitting in a Cafe, drinking a
Café con leche (Café au lait) eating some
facturas (Argentine version of what we would see as a French Pastry)
Another thing that I have talked to others here about, is that they seem to have this "snob" attitude because of the fact that it is a huge city, and its hard to trust people that aren't you're extremely close friends or family members (being that Argentines, like most Latino, Spanish and Italians, are very family oriented people), so they seem to have a shield up when it comes to strangers.
That being said, I've witnessed them to be very kind people as well, for example on the buses and the metro trains, when ever a pregnant woman or and elderly person gets on, not only one, but many people will gladly give up their seats and offer it to them. And just the other day waiting in line to buy a ticket for the Subte, a man in front of me, 3rd in line, saw a pregnant woman just get into the station and stand at the back of the line, and called her up to the front to go a head of him to get her ticket so she didn't have to stand all that time in line.
The Argentine political scene is very potent and divided. It seems to be rich vs. middle/working class in terms of political views, especially towards
Peronismo a political movement born in the 40's with Juan Domingo Peron, and his very famous wife "Evita" (who Madonna played in the movie of the same title). I can't really give my opinion on this political system, because I don't know all of the facts, you have to take everything an Argentine tells you about politics with a grain of salt, because you don't know what facts they're giving you and what they're not to make the opposition look worse. Think; a republican teaching you the ideals of the democrats or Vice-Versa... Further more, most all Argentines, especially Porteños are very politically active and beginning at a very young age.
A block away from my apartment is a High School, and when I walked past it two days ago, it had a big home-made sign that read in Spanish "School taken, until we get gas, we're freezing to death." This basically means they don't have gas-heat in the school, and the students have taken the school over, by sit-ins and not letting anyone into the school, hoping this will get the city's attention and they'll install the proper heating in the classrooms. And this is just one of many examples. Public schools and Universities (such as the University of Buenos Aires or UBA) constantly are protesting for the government to correct something either in the buildings or with the class system because they're discontent. This is because Public Universities are Free in Argentina, and so tuition isn't paid to go to education, rather people's tax-pesos go towards public education to anyone who would like to further their education, this means more and more people are concerned about how their tax-money gets spent.
There is a protest every single day in this city, usually in the "Centro" or the congress square. Especially now because presidential elections are going to take place in October. It is fascinating how politically charged this country is, in comparison to the states, where NOBODY ever protests, they just let the government get away with whatever they want really. Although the form of protesting can be a little annoying here, such as blocking main, important avenues off, or shutting down the bus system or the subte system, which makes it hard for people to travel to different parts of this giant city.
Argentineans are a unique group of people, they definitely stick-out among their Latin American neighbors in many ways. They're not quite Latin American, but not quite European either, they seem to be caught some-where in the middle.
