Italian Migrants Research Articles

Family language policy and dialect-Italian dynamics: across the waves of Italo-Australian migrant families

Abstract In this article I adopt a family language policy approach and a diachronic perspective to explore how the dialect-Italian dynamics unfolds differently within different cohorts of Italian migrants due to the hierarchical position of the two heritage languages. I highlight three main issues that emerge across time in the language policies in the home; the relevance of linguistic stratification in the migrants’ repertoires, especially with regard to the interplay between language ideologies, beliefs and practices; the extent to which we can talk of agency of choice vis-à-vis linguistic stratification; and the role of education. The tension between the two languages generally plays out in favour of Italian, in spite of the emotional attachment to dialect that persists across generations. The language policies of Italo-Australian families call attention to the challenges that migrants, and dialect speakers in particular, have to face regarding language maintenance, while the diachronic perspective highlights the dynamic and contextual nature of such policies.

Disrupted and Unsettled: An Introduction to Monuments, Memorials, and Italian Migrations

Disrupted and Unsettled: An Introduction to Monuments, Memorials, and Italian Migrations

Italian migrants study: An HCV and HBV micro-elimination pilot project

BackgroundMigrants represent a key target population for viral hepatitis micro-elimination programs and are important targets for specific prevention, screening and treatment programs. AimsTo raise awareness on viral hepatitis among migrants and key stakeholders, assess the prevalence of HBV and HCV among migrants, and determine an optimal and scalable viral hepatitis screening and treatment protocol. Material and methodsUnselected, consecutive migrants reaching the costs of Italy were screened for HBV, HCV, HDV and HIV markers. Anagraphic and anamnestic information were used to identify viral hepatitis endemic hotspots in the countries of birth or transit. Personal data, including migration route, test results and treatment, were collected and stored in a dedicated database Results362 patients were recruited in 2019; median age was 28 years, 71% were male. Most of the patients were African (54%) or Asian (40%). 49% positive for at least one HBV marker: 2.2% HBsAg (asymptomatic carriers with low viremia); 10.6% anti-HBs; 28.5% anti-HBs and anti-HBc, 1.7% anti-HCV, 0.6% anti-HIV, with low or undetectable viral load. Libya was the nexus shared by most of the positive, reactive cases. HCV and HIV markers were only found in migrants already resident in Italy for more than 6–12 months. ConclusionLow to moderate prevalence of hepatitis B markers were observed in African and Asian first arrival migrants. Migrants positive for HCV and HIV likely acquired the infection after arrival in Italy, suggesting migrants are at risk of contracting viral infections once in Italy, highlighting the importance of ensuring access to prevention for migrant communities.

Shifting Undesirability: Italian Migration, Political Activism and the Australian Authorities from the 1920s to the 1950s

ABSTRACT Between the 1920s and the 1950s, hundreds of thousands of Italians emigrated to Australia, with fewer restrictions placed upon them than other continental European migrants. However, Italian migrants, especially from southern Italy, were often seen as ‘undesirable’. This was due to both their ethnicity and the view that Italians were attracted to extreme political ideologies, such as Fascism and communism. This combination led the Australian authorities to treat Italian migrants as a‘suspect community’, which meant prolonged surveillance of Italian communities, as well as efforts to prevent entry, deny citizenship to or deport certain undesirable individuals. The policing of Italians in Australia intensified in the Second World War, which resulted in many being interned, regardless of political affiliation. But at other times, the political persuasion of the Italian migrants did play apart in how they were viewed by the authorities, with communists being monitored more heavily in the 1920s and 1950s and fascists being the focus in the 1930s and 1940s. This article looks at the shifting undesirability to Italian political activists in Australia over four decades and how ethnicity alongside ideology informed their policing by the authorities across several periods of political upheaval.

Italian emigration and Italian Language in Costa Rica

In the following article, I present a summary of several aspects of the Italian migration in Costa Rica. First, the typology of Italian migrants, second, a brief description of the language they spoke, third, the diglossic position of languages in their repertoire, fourth, the Italians in Costa Rica, their location of origin in Italy, fifth, their original languages, finally the influence of Spanish and some conclusions found in Franceschi.

Place identity, hope and expectations of decent work in Italian youths moving to London

This study reconstructed London’ (UK) place identity in young Italian immigrants who have settled in this metropolitan city. The aim was to detect their representation of the hosting society and to investigate their migration experience. Interviews to 10 young Italian migrants (mean age: 27.7; SD: 4.084) were collected and analyzed through thematic analysis. The interviews showed that their individual and social identity had been influenced by the attitudes of the hosting context and its specific feature, highlighting the cultural richness of the town and its relational and work opportunities. Their hope for a decent job and the multicultural richness of the receiving town supported their settlement decision. However, their poor knowledge of the language and the little opportunity for effective acceptable decent work together with homesickness made this experience just a long-term temporary solution.

Materialising Migration

This paper studies Italian migrants to Greece from the third to the first century BCE and their involvement in Egyptian cults. I focus on two case study sites: Delos and Thessaloniki. At both sites, Italians played a small but active role through introduction of new structures and objects that helped them integrate into local social and religious communities. These migrants, then, saw integration as an often-desirable process. But the evidence also indicates that Italians strove to preserve their membership in Italian communities as well as Greek ones, suggesting that integration here is episodic, situational, and does not erase existing cultural identity.

A disavowed community: the case of new Italian migrants in London

Abstract This paper reports on a study of the language ideologies and practices of the post-2008 crisis Italian migrants in London. It explores how the traditional idea of a national migrant community is challenged by these practices. While the Italian post-2008 crisis migration continues a long tradition and has captured the attention of the media, it is understudied from a sociolinguistic point of view. Using a qualitative research approach, two sets of data were collected: recordings of social interactions in spontaneously organised gatherings, and interviews with 15 post-crisis migrants. The data show the multilingual practices of post-2008 migrants and their attitudes towards these practices. Participants recognise translanguaging as the main practice defining the community language. This seems to contrast with the disavowal of their national migrant community. They refuse to engage with traditional community sociocultural practices, challenge their membership of the Italian community in London and, in some cases, even deny the existence of the community by highlighting the internal diversity that characterises this group. Nevertheless, although the participants refuse to be seen as members of a national community, they describe their engagement with translanguaging as a community practice that determines their belonging to a migratory group. The paper argues that, through the practice of translanguaging, migrants negotiate and shape their migratory identities, and reflect on the concept of the community and its dynamics.

Income redistribution and self-selection of immigrants

We analyze the effects of governmental redistribution on migration patterns, using registry data that includes almost the universe of Italian citizens living abroad. Since Italy takes a middle ground in terms of redistribution, both the welfare-magnet effect and the propensity of high-skilled to settle in countries with lower taxes can be studied. Our findings confirm that destination countries with more redistribution receive a negative selection of Italian migrants. Policy simulations are run in order to gauge the magnitude of these effects. We find that sizable increases in redistribution in Italy have small effects on the skill composition of the resident population.

Re-conceiving territory in Eastern Crimea: the impact of the Italian community on Kerch's urban and rural transformation

This article deals with the impact that Italian migrants, both individually and as a community, had on the rural and urban environment of Kerch, in Eastern Crimea (Russian Empire), during the1820s and 1920s. Occupying a strategic position in the Black Sea for Russia's geopolitics and for the whole European commercial system, this territory's transformation was activated by Russia's imperial re-visioning of the Crimea and by spontaneous foreign immigration. Within this context, the Italian community's contribution to the transformation of the local environment had an important economic impact, relevant also on a wider scale. Some of these changes would have a long-lasting effect but none of them would ever be officially recognised. The aim of this article is to shed light on these processes.

A tale of two plains: migrating landscapes between Italy and Argentina 1870–1955

This article offers an analysis of the encounter between the two natural environments of the Italian Po Plain and the Argentinian Pampa Gringa through the migration of Italian rural workers. Notably, we focus on the migration micro-histories of Emiliano-Romagnoli, who moved from Italy to Argentina during Italian Great Migration Era (1870–1955). Building on oral histories gathered in Italy and Argentina between 2005 and 2007, these micro-histories show how place-based landscapes of Italianness hybridised with the local landscape of the South American plains through Italian migrants’ embodied memories, labour, and socio-environmental transformation practices. By focusing on Po Plain migrants’ memories and experiences of the lowlands of northern Italy and the Argentinian pampas, we aim to offer a micro-historical perspective on the environmental history of migration.

Conceptualizing Motives for Migration: a Typology of Italian Migrants in the Athens Area

Migration flows from a southern European country to another one have received scarce attention so far. This is especially true for Italians migrating to Greece or, more specifically, the Athens area. Thus, there are limited insights as to the reasons why Italians are leaving and why they have been choosing Greece as their destination. This paper looks at their motives for migrating and their destination choice in order to understand the diversity of migratory trajectories through a typology. In order to do this, we carried out in-depth interviews to Italians living, both permanently and temporarily, in the Athens area, employing snowball sampling. As a result, we have identified 5 types of Italian immigrants in Athens: Mediterranean, nomadic, work, entrepreneurial, and marriage migrants. Mediterranean migrants are driven by the typically Mediterranean character of climate, landscape, food, and culture in their deliberate choice of Athens. Nomadic migrants have casually chosen Athens to satisfy their need of continuous physical mobility and multiple moorings as a defining aspect of their identity. Work migrants are motivated by the search of a job regardless of the place and work content. Entrepreneurial migrants are motivated by a vocation for a professional career in Athens. Finally, for marriage migrants, the choice of Athens is a consequence of a couple choice and shared life projects.

The coloniality of distinction: Class, race and whiteness among post-crisis Italian migrants

This article explores how strategies of class distinction reproduce racialised hierarchies between ‘modern’ and ‘backward’ European populations. Drawing on 57 interviews with Italian migrants who moved to England after the 2008 economic crisis, and combining Bourdieusian class analysis and decolonial critique, the article shows that migrants in different social positions are equally concerned with claiming closeness to the UK’s meritocratic culture and with distancing themselves from Italy’s backwardness. However, they mobilise unequal forms of capital to sustain this claim. More resourceful migrants use economic and cultural capital to demonstrate fit with British culture and to racialise less resourceful co-nationals as too ‘Southern’ to belong. The latter stress self-resilience and Italianness as sources of distinction, but more frequently report exploitation and stigma in the context of insecure professional fields. The article advances research on class, racialisation and European whiteness, unravelling the coloniality of distinction, namely how class helps more resourceful migrants to symbolically claim North European whiteness while displacing ‘race’ – in the forms of laziness, lack of rationality and self-restraint – onto less resourceful migrants. This reveals how, in the post-2008 context, enduring narratives of South–North difference legitimise class inequalities, exploitation and neoliberal forms of self-governance.

Turismo religioso en Uruguay. El caso de la festividad de San Cono

Although Uruguay is from its origins a secular state, most Uruguayans profess some kind of religion or participate in some religious demonstration. Within the framework of this phenomenon is that we present a study focused on popular catholic celebrations. Through qualitative methodologies, we analyze a phenomenon where mobility and religious tourism are combined, with feelings, faith and devotion. This case study is located in the city of Florida, Uruguay where the Chapel of San Cone is located. It is an Italian Saint born in the city of Teggiano: image introduced by Italian migrants in the late nineteenth century, it wakes up great devotion, being associated with luck and money, attributing miracles and healings to it.

The Experience of Access to Welfare of New Italian Migrants in Frankfurt and Leeds

The Experience of Access to Welfare of New Italian Migrants in Frankfurt and Leeds

Italian Migrants Study: An HCV and HBV Micro-Elimination Pilot Project

Italian Migrants Study: An HCV and HBV Micro-Elimination Pilot Project

Not only for work: Italian migrants in the Athens area

ABSTRACTAccording to the official Italian administrative data, the community of Italians living in Athens went on growing over the years, including the last decade. What are the drivers of Italian immigration in a less‐developed country than Italy, a country which recently has also experienced a more serious crisis than the Italian one? To answer this question, we followed a research strategy based on in‐depth interviews to Italians living in the Athens area. After reviewing the features of the Italian community and those of the group of interviewees, we focus on the respondents who found a job in Athens, both as independent workers and as employees. Our results show that a great number of drivers are at work in producing a migration flow from Italy to Greece. They support the idea that contemporary international migration (more specifically, intra‐European migration) cannot be fully understood by relying exclusively on an economic approach.

The descendants of Italian migrants in Germany. Integration and discrimination at school

The descendants of Italian migrants in Germany. Integration and discrimination at school

Nationalism and nation-building in the dietary consumption of Italian migrants in the United States: a transnational perspective

This article employs a transnational perspective to examine the relationship between food and drink consumption by Italians in the United States in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and Italy's process of nation-building. The phenomena of emigration and colonisation were often interlinked, especially after Italy's defeat at Adua, Ethiopia, in 1896. This threw prime minister Francesco Crispi's form of colonialism into crisis and launched a different approach, based on the creation of a ‘Greater Italy’: a sort of Commonwealth based on cultural and economic ties between the Kingdom of Italy and Italian communities abroad. They were asked to be the bridgehead for Italy's economic and cultural expansion by consuming its exports, especially food and drink products. This required the development of shared feelings of national belonging among the emigrants, by breaking down the local identities that still prevailed and were particularly evident in the sphere of diet, as well as in religion, social life and language. The article analyses the promotional material that reflected the drive to foster Italian national sentiment in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and which helped to create an Italy both within and outside national borders.

Il controllo delle coscienze nel Nuovo Mondo: missionari e anarchici alla conquista degli emigranti italiani nel Brasile della Republica Velha

The action of “control of consciences” of Italian migrants in Brazil by the workers' movement and the Italian clergy began in the 80s of the twentieth century, with the great transoceanic migratory wave, and ended in 1919, the year that symbolically closed the experience of the colony of anarchist immigrants in Brazil, and therefore also its relations with the Italian clergy. These are two different approaches in eternal conflict in the common attempt to attract migrants each to their own cause. The relationship created between these two conflicting ideal universes constituted the socio-political space on which the new Brazilian citizen was formed. This essay tries to explore the dynamics of this conflict.