L'émigration suisse au Bresil et la question l'integration

Resumo

This essay focuses on the integration of Swiss emigrants in Brazil in the second half of the 19th century. In fact, the first non-Portuguese immigrants in Brazil came from Switzerland. The Swiss case is particularly interesting, as there was not yet a real Swiss identity at the time of their emigration to the American continent. Swiss emigrants often identified themselves much more with their canton than with their country. But there were also other questions to deal with: the fear of contact with the black population, the religious preoccupations of protestants in a completely catholic country and the existence of a large German minority, with whom the German-speaking Swiss emigrants objectively seemed to have more in common than with their French-speaking counterparts; this seemed to be a threat to the Swiss unity. This all forced the Swiss emigrants in Brazil to reflect on their own identity.