Italian Guatemalans

Italian Guatemalans (Italian: italo-guatemaltechi; Spanish: ítalo-guatemaltecos) are Guatemalan-born citizens who are fully or partially of Italian descent, whose ancestors were Italians who emigrated to Guatemala during the Italian diaspora, or Italian-born people in Guatemala. Italians contributed in the construction of the country as monuments, parks and besides contributing at the National Conservatory.

History

The Italian immigration in Guatemala began in a consistent way only in the early Republican era. One of the first Italians to come to Guatemala was Geronimo Mancinelli, an Italian coffee farmer who lived in San Marcos (Guatemala) in 1847. However, the first wave of Italian immigrants came in 1873, under the government of Justo Rufino Barrios, these immigrants were mostly farmers attracted by the wealth of natural and spacious highlands of Guatemala. Most of them settled in Quetzaltenango and Guatemala City.

First migration

During colonial centuries only a few Italians came to what is now Guatemala, mostly religious missionaries with some merchants and a few soldiers under Spanish rule.

Vincenzo Filisola occupies Guatemala on behalf of Agustín de Iturbide and ordered to proclaim its independence in 1823; the general Francisco Morazán, of Italian roots, was the second President of the Guatemala Republic.

The Italian Vincenzo Filisola (born in Ravello, Italy, in 1789) occupied Guatemala City in 1823 after the formation of the "Federal Republic of Central America" (that included Guatemala) and convened the "Central American congress" which forthwith declared its independence.

Filisola was followed by a small group of Italians, who emigrated from Italy to Guatemala in the first half of the 19th century.