MOVEMENTS CELEBRATING THE ITALIAN ANCESTRY IN CASCAVEL/PARANÁ STATE: SOME PERCEPTIONS

Abstract

The social context chosen for this paper involves a group of Italian descendants in Cascavel. This group’s own behavior toward their identity is a way of understanding whether the ethnic frontiers are preserved through celebrations, since this group is part of a multicultural community living with other descendants, as well as with Brazilians from other regions, such as the north of Paraná State, São Paulo State, and Minas Gerais State. Nevertheless, Italian descendants continue to believe that the cultural expressions of ethnic celebration, such as feasts, associations, family gatherings and artistic and media movements are important to preserve the group’s culture. In this sense, to demonstrate the behavior and perceptions of some Italian descendants in Cascavel toward the culture of their predecessors, we selected 18 Italian-descent respondents whose predecessors settled in the South, and that have been living in this region for over 30 years or were born in this town. They were distributed into two dimensions: the diagenerational dimension and the diasexual dimension. Based on that, we conducted one-to-one interviews, through a semi-guided questionnaire. Data enables the verification of their behavior toward the culture of the Italian-Brazilian community settled in the South, i.e., the community from Rio Grande do Sul State and/or Santa Catarina State. We concluded that depending on social factors, such as sex and age, as well as historical factors, the respondents’ perceptions, beliefs and attitudes vary.