Literary Perceptions of Jewish Gauchas in the Argentine Farming Colonies

Abstract This paper considers the shifts and variations in the depictions of Jewish gauchas (pioneer women immigrants to the Argentine agricultural colonies), a role neglected in previous studies, from their establishment at the turn of the twentieth century to their decline in the 1930s. Some are fictional, some based on direct observation. While Alberto Gerchunoff’s stories romanticize heroines, Rebeca Mactas’s narratives stress their self-sacrificing spirit. Marcos Alpersohn chronicles their vicissitudes with wrenching realism, and Rosalía Rosembuj’s autobiographical memoirs tell of their emancipation after they leave the colonies.