Integration

• The withdrawn and isolated life in the Chaco was partly due to geographical factors. The colonists did not choose it. They wanted to retain their language and cultural identity of course, but they sought no strict separation from the rest of society. Already in 1932 the teachers of Fernheim colony were sent to Asunción for the summer, to learn Spanish and elements of Paraguayan culture. The schools have been bilingual for several decades and today mixed marriages are quite common and accepted. In politics, there has been rapid integration since the coup of 1989, meaning that today there is a considerable measure of participation in local and national politics. Certainly, there are persons who maintain a distance to such steps, who would prefer a slower pace, considering their traditional beliefs and preferences. But the present scene hardly suggests a general conservatism, that would prefer a separate lifestyle and closed communities, over against a controlled process of integration.