DE “LABORIOSOS E MORIGERADOS” A EMPECILHOS PARA A NAÇÃO: COLONIZAÇÃO E ESCOLARIZAÇÃO DOS IMIGRANTES POLONESES EM IRATI-PARANÁ (1900-1939)

Abstract

This research has as its theme the education of immigrants and aims to investigate the process of Polish schooling in Irati-Paraná between 1900 and 1939. The temporal cut corresponds to the arrival of the first Polish immigrants until the compulsory nationalization of education. Some schools of Polish colonization were instituted in this municipality, among them, we emphasize Alto da Serra, the Freedom Society and the School of the Sisters of Charity. These schools made education a component of culture, which united and identified these immigrants and their descendants. Immigration was accompanied by a Brazilian nationalist policy and the schools of immigrants were the target of this policy that sought the integration of all regions in function of a common project characterized by the modernization and development of Brazil. The valorization of this proposal had as a hindrance the diversity of interests of workers and immigrants. In this sense, the State needed to strengthen and take control of the process, which implied a series of repressive measures. Polish schooling has been constrained by the nationalist project. Thus, one wonders: why did the Polish immigrants become a hindrance if they were important and necessary for the economic development of Brazil? How did the interaction between the legal aspects and the experiences of the Poles in relation to education occur? The categories of culture, custom and experience of E. P. Thompson bring to the scene the silences of these immigrants by means of a historical logic that questions documentary and bibliographical sources. In order to do so, we present an analysis of immigration policy and the nationalist policy that inserted immigrants into the nation's development project, but considered diversity as an obstacle in these same processes. Then, the ambiguity of the Brazilian State in relation to the Polish immigrants, considered important for the economic development, but seen as obstacles, at the same time, for the Brazilian nation and the education as a nationalist strategy. Finally, we present an investigation of the experiences of Polish immigrants in Irati-Paraná regarding the control and resistance of their schools. The laws intended to institute school groups as a school model and before the legal impositions to insert the immigrants in this model, some experiences of resistance were realized. The research becomes relevant to expand the history of immigrants in Paraná and to deepen the history of education in the First Republic (1889-1930), as well as local-regional history and school institutions of Paraná, through aspects that have been silenced and which compose the processes of resistance of immigrants and their descendants to the policy of nationalization of their schools. The results can provide data and motivate research that involves the schooling of immigrants, especially in the other municipalities colonized by the Poles.