30,000-126,000 citizens according to the National Census 0.39% of Venezuela's population[1][2]1,500,000 to 2,000,000 Venezuelans of Italian descent 5–6% of Venezuela's population[3]
Italian-Venezuelans are Venezuelan citizens of Italian descent. The word may refer to someone born in Venezuela of Italian descent or to someone who has emigrated to Venezuela from Italy. Among European Venezuelans, Italians are one of the largest groups of immigrants to settle in the country.
The Italian diaspora is the large-scale emigration of Italians from Italy. There are two major Italian diasporas in Italian history. The first diaspora began more or less around 1880, a decade or so after the Unification of Italy, and ended in the 1920s to early-1940s with the rise of Fascism in Italy. The second diaspora started after the end of World War II and roughly concluded in the 1970s. These together constituted the largest voluntary emigration period in documented history. Between 1880-1980, about 15,000,000 Italians left the country permanently. By 1980, it was estimated that about 25,000,000 Italians were residing outside Italy. A third wave is being reported in present times, due to the socio-economic problems caused by the financial crisis of the early twenty-first century, especially amongst the youth. According to the Public Register of Italian Residents Abroad (AIRE), figures of Italians abroad rose from 3,106,251 in 2006 to 4,636,647 in 2015, growing by 49.3% in just ten years.
Venezuela, officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and a large number of small islands and islets in the Caribbean Sea. It has a territorial extension of 916,445 km2. The continental territory is bordered on the north by the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Colombia, Brazil on the south, Trinidad and Tobago to the north-east and on the east by Guyana. The Venezuelan government maintains a claim against Guyana to Guayana Esequiba, an area of 159,542 km2. For its maritime areas, Venezuela exercises sovereignty over 71,295 km2 of territorial waters, 22,224 km2 in its contiguous zone, 471,507 km2 of the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean under the concept of exclusive economic zone, and 99,889 km2 of continental shelf. This marine area borders those of 13 states. The capital and largest urban agglomeration is the city of Caracas. The country has extremely high biodiversity and is ranked seventh in the world's list of nations with the most number of species. There are habitats ranging from the Andes Mountains in the west to the Amazon basin rain-forest in the south via extensive llanos plains, the Caribbean coast and the Orinoco River Delta in the east.
Before the discovery of huge deposits of oil in Venezuela, during the first half of the 20th century, the emigration of Italians to Venezuela was limited. A number of Italians (among them Agostino Codazzi) moved to Venezuela from Italy during the colonial times and the Simón Bolívar era. In the second half of the XIX century there was a small number of Italians and their descendants, who were able to reach important levels inside the Venezuelan society, like Luis Razetti.
Petroleum is a naturally occurring, yellowish-black liquid found in geological formations beneath the Earth's surface. It is commonly refined into various types of fuels. Components of petroleum are separated using a technique called fractional distillation, i.e. separation of a liquid mixture into fractions differing in boiling point by means of distillation, typically using a fractionating column.
Giovanni Battista Agostino Codazzi was an Italo-Venezuelan soldier, scientist, geographer, cartographer, and governor of Barinas (1846-1847). He made his main investigations and cartographic work in Venezuela and Colombia, thereby creating for both countries a complete set of maps and statistics after the tumultuous post-independence years from the Spanish Empire.
Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar Palacios Ponte y Blanco, generally known as Simón Bolívar and also colloquially as El Libertador, or the Liberator, was a Venezuelan military and political leader who led the secession of what are currently the states of Venezuela, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Panama from the Spanish Empire.
By 1926 there were 3009 Italians in Venezuela... approximately one-third lived in the capital, one-sixth in Trujillo and there were respectable showings in Bolivar, Carabobo, and Monagas. Zulia, with its port of Maracaibo, had gained in importance...... The "Societa' Fratellanza Italiana" was a mutual benefit society founded in Caracas in 1883. Other organizations of the small Italian community included the "Associazione Nazionale Combatenti", the "Lega Navale Italiana", the "Camera di Comercio Italiana in Venezuela", a section of the "Croce Rossa Italiana" and, founded in 1923, the "Partito Nazionale Fascista", with over two hundred members and organizations in four cities:Caracas, Valencia, Puerto Cabello and Barquisimeto (Duaca).....Two Italian newspapers, "Eco de Italia", followed by "El Eco de la Patria", were published in the early 1920s. The first attempts to provide schooling in the Italian language date from the late 1930s, as do the beginnings of the first social club, "La Casa de Italia" (officially founded in 1937 with the patronage of the Italian minister). The Casa co-sponsored an Italian school, a cultural institute and several sports teams, notably in soccer and cycling.Susan Berglund[4]
In the 1940s and 1950s the Venezuelan President Marcos Pérez Jiménez promoted European immigration to his depopulated country, and more than 300,000 Italians emigrated to Venezuela (although many later returned to Italy).
Marcos Evangelista Pérez Jiménez was a Venezuelan military and general officer of the Army of Venezuela and the President of Venezuela from 1952 to 1958. He took part in the 1948 coup d'état, becoming part of the ruling junta. He ran in the 1952 election, but the junta cancelled the election when early results indicated that the opposition was ahead, and declared Jiménez provisional president. He became president in 1953 and instituted a constitution that granted him dictatorial powers.
The Italians in the 1961 Venezuelan census were the biggest European community in Venezuela (ahead of the Spanish). In 1976 the "Dirección de Estadísticas" of Venezuela registered 210,350 Italians residents and 25,858 Italians "naturalised" (who had obtained Venezuelan citizenship).[5] In 2001, 126,553 Italians were living in Venezuela.[6]
Marisa Vannini calculated that in the 1980s Italian-Venezuelans made up almost 400,000 of Venezuela's population, including second-generation descendants of immigrants. The Italian language in Venezuela is influencing Venezuelan Spanish with some modisms and loanwords and is experiencing a notable revival between the Italian-Venezuelans of second and third generation.
The Italian language in Venezuela has been present since colonial times in the areas around Caracas, Maracay, Valencia, Maracaibo and the Andes mountains. The language is found in many idiomatic sentences and words of Venezuelan Spanish. There is around 200,000 Italian-speakers in the country, turning it in the second most spoken language in Venezuela, after Spanish.
Venezuelan Spanish refers to the Spanish spoken in Venezuela.
Santander Laya-Garrido estimated that the Venezuelans with at least one grandparent from Italy can be nearly one million at the beginning of the 21st century (like the former president of Venezuela, Raul Leoni, whose grandfather was an Italian mason refugee of the 19th century).
Currently, Italian citizens residenced in Venezuela are reduced to less than 50,000 due mainly to demographic mortality and to their return to Italy (because of a Venezuelan political and economic crisis in the 2000s).[7] The Ambassador of Italy in Venezuela, estimated that 5-6% (1,44 to 1,73 million) of the current Venezuelan population is of Italian origin.[3]
Italian population in Venezuela
Census Year
Venezuelan population
Italian population
% Italians over foreigners
% Italians over total population
1881
2,075,245
3,237
6.6
0.15
1941
3,850,771
3,034
6.3
0.07
1950
5,091,543
136,705
31.1
3.01
1961
7,523,999
113,631
24.6
1.51
1971
10,721,522
213,000
22.3
1.99
2001
23,054,210
49,337
4.86
0.21
Professions
Initially, agriculture was one of the main activities of the Italian community in Venezuela. In the 1950s, entire Italian families were moved from Italy to special agricultural areas, like the "Colonia Turén" of the Portuguesa region.[8]
However, most Italians concentrated in commercial, building and services activities during the second half of the 20th century. In those sectors, Italians reached top positions in the Venezuelan economy.
The community's main Italian newspapers are Il Corriere di Caracas and La Voce d'Italia, both published in the Capital, and the main Italian school is the Agustin Codazzi of Caracas (with courses from elementary to high school). Since 2002, the Italian government has become the promoter for a provision which makes it mandatory to teach the Italian language as a second language in a consistent number of public and private schools within Venezuela.[9]
Most of the Italian community in Caracas but even in the rest of Venezuela followed Deportivo Italia football club, as its own representative team.[10]
Indeed, the Italian-Venezuelans have obtained significant results in the contemporary society of Venezuela. The Italian Embassy calculates that 1/4 of the Venezuelan industries, not related to the oil sector, are directly or indirectly owned and/or managed by Italian-Venezuelans.[11]
Areas of Venezuela where the Italian community is concentrated
The Italians who migrated to Venezuela came mainly from the regions of South Italy, like Abruzzo, Campania, Sicily, and Apulia, but there were also migrants from the north, such as from Emilia-Romagna and Veneto.
The Italians are concentrated mainly in the north-central region of Venezuela around Caracas. The Consulate stated that in the same 1977 there were 98,106 Italians in the Distrito Federal of Caracas, 39,508 in Miranda State, 14,203 in Maracaibo, 12.801 in Aragua State and 8,104 in Carabobo State, as well as 66 in the Amazonas equatorial region.
In the 2000s, it was determined that nearly 90% of the Italo-Venezuelans were concentrated in the northern coastal section of Venezuela facing the Caribbean sea. Approximately 2/3 of them are residents of the metropolitan areas of the three main Venezuelan cities: Caracas, Maracaibo and Valencia.
There is also a considerable number of Italian residents that live in the city of San Cristóbal and in the Andes region.
Demographics
Population
Percentage of population born in Italy through Venezuela
States with the highest proportions of Italian-born population tend to be those of the North-central coastal area (Capital and Central Region), the Andean Region (Mérida) and the Insular Region.
At the 2011 census, this was the breakdown of Italian-born population by state
Transport in Venezuela revolves around a system of highways and airports. Venezuela is connected to the world primarily via air and sea. In the south and east the Amazon rainforest region has limited cross-border transport; in the west, there is a mountainous border of over 1,375 miles (2,213 km) shared with Colombia. The Orinoco River is navigable by oceangoing vessels up to 400 km inland, and connects the major industrial city of Ciudad Guayana to the Atlantic Ocean.
The State Railways Institution is a state-run organization of Venezuela that manages the railway systems of the country. Its headquarters are located in Caracas, Venezuela.
Petare Fútbol Club is a Venezuelan football club based in Caracas. Formed in 1948 as "Deportivo Italia F.C.", the club after fifty years merged with "Deportivo Chacao F.C." in 1998, and was called Deportivo Italchacao for eight years. The club has won the Primera División Venezolana five times and the Copa de Venezuela three times.
Adolfo Dollero, son of Tancredi Dollero and Ernestina Cane, was an Italian Mexican historian who travelled and lived in many countries in Latin America. He married Maria Luisa Paoletti, countess of Rodoretto, from the region of Piemonte in Italy. He authored various books among them:
Pompeo D'Ambrosio.
Siderúrgica del Turbio S.A. (Sidetur) was a subsidiary of Siderúrgica de Venezuela S.A. (Sivensa), the biggest - wholly private - Venezuelan steel corporation. Their main products are rebars, bars, beams, angles and flats. Sidetur develops their exporting activity in more than 25 countries in the markets of America, Africa, Asia and Europe. Their seven operating plants are located in the states of Bolívar, Carabobo, Miranda, Lara and the Capital District. Additionally, Sidetur has 14 ferrous material collection centers located in various cities.
The 2008-09 Primera División season is the 27th professional season of Venezuela's top-flight football league.
Carmelo Fernández Páez was a Venezuelan engineer, soldier, cartoonist, lithographer and watercolorist. He was born in the town of Guama, Yaracuy State, on June 30, 1809 and died in Caracas on February 9, 1887.
German Venezuelans are Venezuelan citizens who descend from Germans or German people with Venezuelan citizenship. Most of them live in Caracas, Maracaibo, Valencia, Colonia agrícola de Turén, El Jarillo, and Colonia Tovar where a small and reduced minority of people speak the Colonia Tovar dialect, a German-derived dialect from their ancestry, and the Spanish language.
The first aerial flight over Venezuela was carried out in Caracas on 29 September 1912, by the American pilot Frank E. Boland and his assistant Charles Hoeflich, in a biplane designed by Boland, constructed of wood and fabric with a 60 hp (45 kW) engine and weighing 300 kg (660 lb).
Colegio Agustín Codazzi is an Italian international school in La Florida, Caracas, Venezuela.
Colegio Amerigo Vespucci is an Italian private school in Caracas, Venezuela.
Colegio Antonio Rosmini is an Italian private & religious school in Maracaibo (Venezuela), created in the 1960s by the Rosminians.
Colegio NS de Pompei is an Italian private & religious school in Caracas (Venezuela).
Italy–Venezuela relations refers to the diplomatic relations between Italy and Venezuela. Both nations enjoy friendly relations, the importance of which centers on the history of Italian migration to Venezuela. There are approximately over 140,000 Italians living in Venezuela with more than a million Venezuelans of full or partial Italian descent.
Cassani Pironti, Fabio. Gli italiani in Venezuela dall’Indipendenza al Secondo Dopoguerra. Roma, 2004
Favero L. e Sacchetti G. Un secolo di emigrazione italiana:1876 - 1976. Centro Studi Emigrazioni. Roma, 1978
Mille, Nicola. Veinte Años de "MUSIUES". Editorial Sucre. Caracas, 1965
Santander Laya-Garrido, Alfonso. Los Italianos forjadores de la nacionalidad y del desarrollo economico en Venezuela. Editorial Vadell. Valencia, 1978.
Vannini, Marisa. Italia y los Italianos en la Historia y en la Cultura de Venezuela. Oficina Central de Información. Caracas, 1966
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