Collaborating on whiteness: representing Italians in early White Australia1

Abstract

This article examines the experience of Italian migrants as ‘ethnic whites’ in the period before World War I through two foreign language newspapers, L'Italo-Australiano (1905–1909) and the Oceania (1913–1915). The social history that emerges from these newspapers provides insight into Australia's national history and is complemented by views from the mainstream press. Italian community leaders used resistance and compromise to validate the whiteness of Italians, appealing to nationalistic values. The editors engaged with the polemics of Italian immigration by articulating a counter-ideology to Australia's obsession with creating a homogenous society which frequently relegated Italians to the periphery. Their attempt to promote an Italian agricultural village illustrates this ideological stance. Its failure to take hold in the manner they had envisaged suggests the contradictions inherent in the processes of nation-building, especially regarding the discourse of whiteness. Italians were central to a lively debate over preferential migrants – a debate still relevant today.