‘Là dove c’era l’erba ora c’è…’ the Threat of Kebab Shops to Italian Culture

Abstract

This article investigates the way in which a section of the Italian press, in order to depict immigrants as out of place in Italy, portrays them as a threat to Italian cultural memory; in particular, the description of a space as a crucial element of Italian identity is often followed by the reasons why this space is now endangered by the presence of migrants in that same area. By using as a paradigmatic example the request for a vincolo paesaggistico in via Gluck, and by analysing a selection of articles from major Italian newspapers and two novels, namely Milano, fin qui tutto bene (2012) by Gabriella Kuruvilla and Contesa per un maialino italianissimo a San Salvario (2013) by Amara Lakhous, I argue that the threat to national identity is just a pretext and that this pattern represents an additional cog in the anti-immigration narrative.