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Italian diaspora

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A ship with Italian immigrants in the Port of Santos, Brazil.

The term Italian diaspora refers to the large-scale migration of Italians away from Italy in the period roughly beginning with the unification of Italy in 1861 and ending with the Italian economic miracle in the 1960s.

Poverty was, no doubt, responsible for the diaspora. Italy was until the 1950s a partially rural society where land management practices, especially in the South, did not easily convince farmers to stay on the land and work the soil.[1]

History

There is a history of Italians working and living outside of the Italian peninsula since ancient times. The Italian Maritime Republics during the Middle Ages created colonies in many areas around the Mediterranean sea, mainly in south-eastern Europe and the Levant.

Italian bankers and traders expanded to all parts of Europe and the Mediterranean, sometimes creating outposts. In late medieval times, there was a significant permanent presence in Flanders, Lyon, Paris, and outposts were created throughout the Mediterranean and the Middle East.

Since the Renaissance, the services of Italian architects and artists were sought by many of Europe's royal courts, as far as Russia. This migration, though generally small in numbers, and sometimes ephemeral, pre-dates the unification of Italian states.

Before World War I

Estimates of the number of emigrants from 1876-1900 and 1901-1915, according to their region of origin.[2]

Between 1900 and World War I 9,000,000 Italians left, most from the south and most going to either North or South America.[3] However, another source claims that most Italian emigrants were from Northern Italy.[2]

As the number of Italian emigrants abroad increased, so did their remittances, thus encouraging further emigration even in the face of factors that might logically be thought to decrease the need to leave such as increased wages at home. This has been termed "persistent and path-dependent emigration flow"[3]; that is, friends and relatives who leave first send back money for tickets, and help relatives as they arrive. This tends to support an emigration flow since even improving conditions in the emigrant's country take a while to trickle down to potential emigrants to convince them not to leave. The emigrant flow was stemmed only by dramatic events such as the outbreak of World War I, which greatly disrupted the flow of people trying to leave Europe, or by restrictions on immigration put in place by receiving countries. Examples of such restrictions in the United States were the Emergency Quota Act of 1921 and the Immigration Act of 1924. Restrictive legislation to limit emigration from Italy was introduced by the Fascist government of the 1920s and 30s.[4]

The unification of Italy broke down the feudal land system that had survived in the south since the Middle Ages, especially where land had been the inalienable property of aristocrats, religious bodies, or the king. The breakdown of feudalism, however, and redistribution of land did not necessarily lead to small farmers in the south winding up with land of their own or land they could work and profit from. Many remained landless, and plots grew smaller and smaller and thus more and more unproductive as land was subdivided among heirs.[1]

The Italian diaspora did not affect all regions of the nation equally. In the second phase of emigration (1900 to World War I) most emigrants were from the south and most of them were from rural areas, driven off the land by inefficient land management policies. Robert Foerster, in Italian Emigration of our Times (1919) [5] says, " [Emigration has been]…well nigh expulsion; it has been exodus, in the sense of depopulation; it has been characteristically permanent."

Mezzadria, a form of sharefarming where tenant families obtained a plot to work on from an owner and kept a reasonable share of the profits, was more prevalent in central Italy, which is one of the reasons why there was less emigration from that part of Italy. The south lacked entrepreneurs, and absentee landlords were common. Although owning land was the basic yardstick of wealth, farming in the south was socially despised. People did not invest in agricultural equipment but in such things as low-risk state bonds.[1]

The assumption that emigration from cities was negligible has an important exception, and that is the city of Naples.[1] The city went from being the capital of its own kingdom in 1860 to being just another large city in Italy. The loss of bureaucratical jobs and the subsequently declining financial situation led to high unemployment. In the early 1880s epidemics of cholera also struck the city, causing many people to leave. The epidemics were the driving force behind the decision to rebuild entire sections of the city, an undertaking known as the "risanamento" (literally "making healthy again") a pursuit that lasted until the start of World War I.

During the first few years after the unification of Italy emigration was not particularly controlled by the state. Emigrants were often in the hands of emigration agents, whose job it was to make money for themselves by moving emigrants. Abuses led to the first migration law in Italy, passed in 1888, to bring the many emigration agencies under state control.[6]

On 31 January 1901 the Commissariat of Emigration was created, granting licenses to carriers, enforcing fixed ticket costs, keeping order at ports of embarkation, providing health inspection for those leaving, setting up hostels and care facilities and arranging agreements with receiving countries to help care for those arriving. The Commissariat tried to take care of emigrants before they left and after they arrived. This included dealing with the labor laws in the US that discriminated against alien workers (the US alien contract labor law of 1885) and even suspending, for a while, emigration to Brazil, where many migrants had wound up as virtual slaves on large coffee plantations.[6]

The Commissariat also helped to set up remittances sent by emigrants from the United States back to their motherland, which turned into a constant flow of money amounting, by some accounts, to about 5% of the Italian national product.[7] In 1903 the Commissariat also set the available ports of embarkation as Palermo, Naples and Genoa, excluding the port of Venice which had previously also been used.[8]

Between the World Wars

Although the physical perils involved with transatlantic ship traffic during the First World War obviously disrupted emigration from all parts of Europe, including Italy, the condition of various national economies in the immediate post-war period was so bad that immigration picked up almost immediately. Foreign newspapers ran "scare" stories that, substantially, were not much different than those published 40 years earlier (when, for example, on Dec. 18, 1880, the New York Times ran an editorial, "Undesirable Emigrants," that was full of typical invective of the day against the "promiscuous immigration…[of]…the filthy, wretched, lazy, criminal dregs of the meanest sections of Italy.") Somewhat toned down was a New York Times article of April 17, 1921, which reported under the headline "Italians Coming in Great Numbers" that the "Number of Immigrants Will Be Limited Only By Capacity of Liners" (there was now a limited number of ships available due to recent wartime losses) and that potential emigrants were thronging the quays in the cities of Genoa and Naples. Furthermore:

"…The stranger walking though a city like Naples can easily realize the problem the government has to do with. The side streets…are literally swarming with children, who sprawl in the paved roadway and on the sidewalks. They look dirty and happy…Suburbs of Naples…swarm with children who, for number, can only be compared to those in Delhi, Agra and other cities in the East Indies…"

The extreme economic difficulties of post-war Italy and the severe internal tensions within the nation (which led to the rise of Fascism) "pushed" 614,000 emigrants away in 1920, half of them going to the United States. ("Push" as opposed to the economic "pull" of a foreign nation in need of immigrant labor—the case in earlier decades.) When the Fascists came to power in 1922 there was a general slowdown in the flow of emigrants from Italy—eventually. However, during the first five years of Fascism, one and one-half million people left Italy.[9] That is 300,000 persons per year, a number quite comparable to the early years of the 20th century. Even as late as 1930, 300,000 emigrants left Italy in that single year. By that time, the nature of the emigrants had changed; there was, for example, a marked increase in the rise of relatives of non-working age who were moving to be with their families who had gone before.

In general, the Fascist government spun the entire emigration saga to its own benefit. A 1927 study by the Italian government estimated that there were some 9,200,000 living abroad—one fifth of the Italian nation lived abroad.[9] Thus, on the one hand, the government could claim that the slowdown in emigration was due to the successful economic policies of the government, and, on the other hand, could view the massive presence of Italians abroad as a powerful potential, a kind of cultural colonialism.

1945 to date

In a wave of temporary Italian migration, from 1945 to the early 1970s (peaking in the period after World War II), Italian "guest workers" went mostly to Austria, Belgium, France, West Germany, Switzerland and Luxembourg.[10]

Italy is still suffering from a high rate of brain drain because of little private research, poor state universities management and little incentives for researchers.[11]

Americas

Argentina

Main article: Italian Argentine
Italian Argentines celebrating the Immigrant's Festival in Oberá, Misiones, Argentina.

Italian immigration to Argentina began in the nineteenth century, just after Argentina won its independence from Spain. There are many reasons explaining the Italian immigration to Argentina: Italy was enduring economic problems caused mainly by the unification of the Italian states into one nation. The country was impoverished, unemployment was rampant, certain areas witnessed overpopulation, and Italy was subject to significant political turmoil. Italians saw in Argentina a chance to build for themselves a brand new life.

The Argentine government wanted to populate the new lands they acquired from the wars, such as the Conquest of the Desert and War of the Triple Alliance, to legitimize Argentine claims on those lands from the neighbouring nations. Argentina required a labour force for its growing industrial and agricultural economy. The Argentine government welcomed the immigrants for racial reasons, because many Argentine politicians considered the Indigenous and the Mestizo to be inferior and could not be trusted[12]. These politicians also believed that Argentina should be a White nation, so following 19th century positivist ideas, the Argentine government encouraged and promoted European immigration.

Brazil

Italian Immigrants arriving in São Paulo, 1907
Main article: Italian Brazilian

Brazil is home to over 25 million Italian Brazilians, the largest number of people with full or partial Italian ancestry outside of Italy. The country was in need of workers to embrace the vast coffee plantations, and Italian immigrants became a main source of manpower for its agriculture and industry.

Canada

Main article: Italian Canadian

A substantial influx of Italian immigrants to Canada began in the early twentieth century when over a hundred thousand Italians moved to Canada. These were largely peasants from the poorer southern portion of Italy. They mainly immigrated to Toronto and Montreal, both of which soon had large Italian communities. Smaller communities also arose in Hamilton, Vancouver, Windsor, Niagara Falls, Ottawa, Sherbrooke, Quebec City, Sudbury and the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean area. Many also settled in mining communities in British Columbia, Alberta, Cape Breton Island and Northern Ontario. The Northern Ontario cities of Sault Ste. Marie and Fort William were quite heavily populated by Italian immigrants. In the post-war years (1945-early 1970s) another influx of Italians emigrated to Canada, again from the south but also from Veneto and Friuli and displaced Italians from Istria. There was a Royal Commission appointed to Inquire into the Immigration of Italian Labourers to Montreal and alleged Fraudulent Practices of Employment Agencies in 1905, which exposed the abuses of immigration agents known as padroni.

United States

Main article: Italian American
Mulberry Street, along which New York City's Little Italy is centered. Lower East Side, circa 1900.

Starting in the late 19th century until the 1950s, the United States became a main destination for Italian immigrants, most settling originally in the New York metropolitan area, Boston, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, San Francisco and Chicago. Many Italian Americans still retain aspects of their culture. This includes Italian food, drink, art, annual Italian American feasts, and a strong commitment to extended family. Italian Americans influenced popular music in the 1940s and as recently as the 1970s, one of their major contributions to American culture. In movies that deal with cultural issues, Italian American words and lingo are sometimes spoken by the characters. Although most will not speak Italian fluently, a dialect of sorts has arisen among Italian Americans, particularly in the urban Northeast, often popularized in film and television.

Australia and New Zealand

Main article: Italian Australians
Tuscan emigrants leaving Italy for New Zealand, 1890s, Leghorn.

Italians arrived in Australia most prominently in the decades immediately following the Second World War, and they and their descendents have had a significant impact on the culture, society and economy of Australia. The 2006 Census counted 199,124 persons who were born in Italy, and Italian is the fifth most identified ancestry in Australia with 852,418 responses. Italian Australians experienced a relatively low rate of return migration to Italy.

The first Italian to reach New Zealand was Antonio Ponto, who sailed on the Endeavour with Captain James Cook in 1769.[13] In 1860, nine Italian friars were charged with reviving a Catholic mission to Māori in Hokianga and the Bay of Islands.[13] A small migratory influx of Italian immigrants to New Zealand first began in the late 19th century, as a result of the poor living conditions in the newly united Kingdom of Italy. Italians were primarily employed in fishing, tomato growing, dairy farming, market gardening and mining.[13] There are now 3,636 people of Italian ancestry living in New Zealand.[14]

Europe

See also: Italians in the United Kingdom and Italians in Germany

France

Italian migration into what is today France has been going on, in different migrating cycles, for centuries, beginning in prehistoric times right to the modern age.[15] In addition, Corsica passed from the Republic of Genova to France in in 1770, and the area around Nice and Savoy from the Kingdom of Sardinia to France in 1860.

Initially, Italian immigration to modern France (late 18th to the early 20th C.) came predominantly from northern Italy (Piedmont, Veneto), then from central Italy (Marche, Umbria), mostly to the bordering southeastern region of Provence.[15] It wasn't until after World War II that large numbers of immigrants from southern Italy immigrated to France, usually settling in industrialised areas of France, such as Lorraine, Paris and Lyon.[15] Today, it is estimated that as many as 5 million French nationals have Italian ancestry going back three generations.[15]

Switzerland

Main article: Italian immigration to Switzerland

In Switzerland, Italian immigrants (not to be confused with a large autochthonous population of Italophones in Ticino and Grigioni)[16] reached the country starting in the late 19th century, most of whom eventually came back to Italy after the rise of Italian Fascism.

A new migratory wave began after 1945, favoured by the lax immigration laws then in force.[17] In 1970 there were a million immigrants in Switzerland, 54% of whom were Italians.[17] Italians remain a large minority, numbering in 2007 about 300,000 people, excluding holders of dual citizenship.[18]

Figures

Emigration, 1870-1914

After 1890, Italian contribution to the emigration flow to the New world was significant. By 1870, Italy had about 25,000,000 inhabitants (compared to circa 40,000,000 in Germany and circa 30,000,000 in the United Kingdom).[19]

A preliminary census [4] done in 1861 after the annexation of the South claimed that there were a mere 100,000 Italians living abroad. Early figures such as those are not absolutely reliable and serve only as a general guide.[citation needed] The General Directorate of Statistics did not start compiling official emigration statistics until 1876.[6] Accurate figures on the decades between 1870 and WWI show how emigration increased dramatically during that period:

Italian emigrants per 1,000 population[20]

1870-1879 4.29
1880-1889 6.09
1890-1899 8.65
1900-1913 17.97

The high point of Italian emigration was 1913, when 872,598 persons left Italy.[4]

Extrapolating from the circa 25,000,000 inhabitants of Italy at the time of unification, natural birth and death rates (without considering emigration) would have been expected to produce a population of about 65 million by 1970.[citation needed] Instead, because of emigration earlier in the century, there were only 54 million.[21]

Italian ancestry by country

Country Population (% of country) References Criterion
Brazil Italian Brazilian 25,000,000 (~13-14%) [22][23]
Argentina Italian Argentine 20,000,000 (~50%) [24][25]
United States Italian American 17,800,000 (~6%) [26] Self-description
France Italian French 5,000,000 (~9%) [25][27][28]
Canada Italian Canadian 1,500,000 (~4.5%) [29] Self-description
Uruguay Italian Uruguayan 1,000,000 (~29%) [25]
Australia Italian Australian 850,000 (4%) [30] Self-description
Peru Italian Peruvian 500,000 (3%) [31]
Chile Italian Chilean 150,000 (<1%) [25]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d McDonald, J.S. (1958). "Some Socio-Economic Emigration Differentials in Rural Italy, 1902-1913". Economic Development and Cultural Change. 7 (1): 55–72. doi:10.1086/449779. ISSN 00130079. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  2. ^ a b Fonte: Rielaborazione dati Istat in Gianfausto Rosoli, Un secolo di emigrazione italiana 1876-1976, Roma, Cser, 1978
  3. ^ a b Hatton, Timothy J. and Jeffrey G. Williamson (1994). "What Drove the Mass Migrations from Europe in the Late Nineteenth Century?". Population and Development Review. 20 (3): 533–559. doi:10.2307/2137600. ISSN 00987921. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  4. ^ a b c Monticelli, Giuseppe Lucrezio (Summer, 1967). "Italian Emigration: Basic Characteristic and Trends with Special Reference to the Last Twenty Years". International Migration Review. 1 (3, Special issue, The Italian Experience in Emigration): 10–24. doi:10.2307/3002737. ISSN 01979183. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  5. ^ Cited in Abbott, Edith (1920). "Review of: Italian Emigration of our Times by Robert Foerster (1919)". The American Political Science Review. 14 (3): 523–524. doi:10.2307/1946285. ISSN 00030554. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  6. ^ a b c Cometti, Elizabeth (1958). "Trends in Italian Emigration". The Western Political Quarterly. 11 (4): 820–834. doi:10.2307/443655. ISSN 00434078. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  7. ^ Glazier, Ira (1993). "Review of: The National Integration of Italian Return Migration: 1870-1929, by Dino Cinel, New York Cambridge U. Press, 1991". The American Historical Review. 98 (1): 198–199. ISSN 00028762. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  8. ^ "Italian Emigration Law", New York Times,September 3, 1903.
  9. ^ a b Cannistraro, Philip V. and Gianfusto Rosoli (Winter, 1979). "Fascist Emigration Policy in the 1930s: an Interpretative Framework". International Migration Review. 13 (4): 673–692. doi:10.2307/2545181. ISSN 01979183. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  10. ^ "Economic Growth: From Open labour market to Fortress Europe". Let.leidenuniv.nl. 1997-06-27. Retrieved 2009-05-22.
  11. ^ Articles on Italian braindrain on Science Magazine and Research Paper on Economics site
  12. ^ Eurocentrism in Argentina
  13. ^ a b c "Italians Leaving Italy". Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand. Retrieved 2009-06-28.
  14. ^ Ethnic Group - Statistics New Zealand
  15. ^ a b c d "Cambridge Survey". Books.google.com. Retrieved 2009-05-11.
  16. ^ David Levinson (1998). "Ethnic groups worldwide". Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 88–90. Retrieved 2009-06-27.
  17. ^ a b Template:It La lunga storia dell'immigrazione in Svizzera
  18. ^ Italiani in Svizzera: saldo migratorio nuovamente positivo
  19. ^ http://www.tacitus.nu/historical-atlas/population/italy.htm
  20. ^ Hatton. Cited from I. Ferenczi and W.F. Wilcox (1929). International Migrations, vol. 1, Statistics. New York: National Bureau of Economic Research.)
  21. ^ *Sori, Ercole (1999). Guida all'Italia Contemporanea, vol 4. Comportamenti Sociali e Cultura: "Demografia e Movimenti di Popolazione". Milan: Garzanti. pp. 32–38. ISBN.
  22. ^ "Dati dell'ambasciata italiana in Brasile". Ambbrasilia.esteri.it. Retrieved 2009-05-30.
  23. ^ "italplanet". Italplanet.it. Retrieved 2009-05-30.
  24. ^ "Unos 20 millones de personas que viven en la Argentina tienen algún grado de descendencia italiana - Dossier". Asteriscos.Tv. 2006-09-24. Retrieved 2009-05-30.
  25. ^ a b c d http://www.migranti.torino.it/Documenti%20%20PDF/italianial%20ster05.pdf
  26. ^ American FactFinder, United States Census Bureau. "U.S Census Bureau - Selected Population Profile in the United States". Factfinder.census.gov. Retrieved 2009-05-30.
  27. ^ "italiani in Francia, storie di " ritals "". Archiviostorico.corriere.it. Retrieved 2009-05-30.
  28. ^ http://books.google.com/books?id=BLo2RqGdv_wC&pg=PA143&lpg=PA143&dq=5+million+italians+in+france&source=web&ots=FS8QNMYmoq&sig=dDwUB09FSWcdigHxd0PeG5L94vc
  29. ^ "Ethnocultural Portrait of Canada Highlight Tables, 2006 Census". 2.statcan.ca. 2008-04-02. Retrieved 2009-05-30.
  30. ^ "2914.0 - 2006 Census of Population and Housing - Fact Sheets, 2006". Abs.gov.au. 2007-11-09. Retrieved 2009-05-30.
  31. ^ "Documento sin título". Lucanidelperu.com. Retrieved 2009-05-30.

Bibliography

  • Guerra, Nicola (2001). Partir Bisogna. Storie e momenti dell’emigrazione apuana e lunigianese. Massa: Provincia di Massa Carrara – Comunità Montana della Lunigiana.
  • Moretti, Enrico (Autumn, 1999). "Social Networks and Migrations: 1876-1913". International Migration Review. 33 (3): 640–657. doi:10.2307/2547529. ISSN: 01979183. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  • Tomasi, Silvano M. (Autumn, 1965). "Review of: La Democrazia Italiana e l'emigrazione in America, by Grazie Dore, Brescia, Morcelliania, 1964". International Migration Digest. 2 (2): 221–223. ISSN 05388716. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)


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