Identità - La vera storia di Juan Piras Perón (2008)

In the summer of 1909, eighteen-year-old Giovanni Piras left his home in Mamoiada, a small village in Barbagia, Sardinia, to seek his fortune in Argentina. Once arrived, he started working as a farm-labourer, sending part of the salary to his family. Thus he would redeem the land his father pawned to buy him the ticket for the New World. However, his letters became less frequent already from 1912, until they broke off definitively a few years later. But news from Giovanni arrived thanks to the emigrants coming back home: everyone assured that he had made his fortune and was in good health, and that he had not sent letters anymore, because if someone knew he was Italian, he would be in trouble, and even lose his job. The family did not surrender and kept on seeking him, although the news were always the same and too often mysterious... until during the 50's, on a Sunday, a nobleman in Mamoiada sent for Giovanni's sister, Caterina, to show her a picture on the magazine "Gente" (People). As soon as she saw it, the woman burst into tears: in the man portrayed she had recognized her brother... but that man made people call him Juan Domingo Perón, and was the President of Argentina. Nowadays, in Sardinia, some still say that, once arrived in Argentina, Giovanni Piras studied and undertook the military career; some also say that he was a very smart, willing and resolute boy and that, climbing to power, he came to a point where his roots and his Italian name would place him in an uncomfortable situation; so that he changed his name from Giovanni to Juan, and from Piras to Perón. There are many supporters to this thesis, and there is a number of coincidences that make these two figures superimpose. Perón launched many mysterious and winking phrases about his origins (he himself declared he did not exactly know neither where, nor when he was born). Lots of assumptions, but no certainties. In fact, to say that Perón was Italian would still make him a "traitor to his country"... a foreigner could never become the President of Argentina. A long time has passed by now, and legend is blurring with reality, and no one has ever had news about Giovanni Piras. So, what happened to the poor emigrant? And who was really Juan Perón?