Images, photographs, video clips, slides depicting sad faces and empty, lost eyes. Portraits of Italian families on board desolate ships sailing towards unknown lands, looking for a job, and better conditions of life. Vintage pictures differing from more recent ones only because of their colour, and show the same frightened and hopeful expressions. The same looks of people wandering towards the same goals. The story of different populations, two sides of the same coin, marked by the same destiny: theyre migrants.
This is the story of Italian migrations as told by the travelling exhibition entitled Emigrazioni - Immigrazioni, recently presented in Rome, which is inspired by the works of Mother Cabrini, who in 1950 was proclaimed "Universal Patron Saint of emigrants." This little woman, who left for faraway shores with eight other nuns, became the voice and guide for thousands of emigrants. For them, she founded schools and colleges, hospitals and social centres. She fought their battles for integration and against discrimination.
Out of her love for migrants she crossed the Atlantic 24 times, rode across the Andes Cordillera, travelled all over the Earth by train, by car, on foot, founding schools in Central America, Brazil, Argentina, in many States of North America and in Europe. She died in Chicago on December 22, 1917, was declared blessed on November 13, 1938, and canonized on July 12, 1946.
The exhibitions initiative was conceived by Manuela Fugenzi, Franco La Cecla, and Lucetta Scaraffia, and coordinated by Lorenzo Romito. It has received the sponsorship of numerous institutions that include the Ministry of Social Solidarity and the Pontifical Council for the Migrants and Nomads, and it intends to compare, as in a metaphorical mirror, Italian emigration with the current much-debated immigration wave to Italy.
According to some historical analyses of Italian migration, there are about 60 million people of Italian origin living outside the national borders. Considering that Italy holds 56 million residents, one can legitimately talk of another Italy, created by the mass migrations that, from 1870 to 1976, sent 25 million Italians, 13 million bound for the Americas and 12 towards Europe. This is one of the most remarkable cases of human mobility and integration.
Millions went to every corner of the continents exporting Italian genius, creativity, and stubbornness. They founded towns in the style of those they had left behind, calling them with the same names. Especially in South America, where towns with Italian names still thrive, created by the aggregation of Northern Italian families, many of them from Veneto, which settled there.
They worked in the fields and in the mines, built railways all over the rest of Europe, brought with them habits, dialects and traditions, collaborating and participating in the enrichment and progress of the countries they lived in. They also played an important role in the construction of international relations between Italy and the rest of the world.
Suffice it to say that there is no family in Italy where no member ever emigrated. The experience of Italian emigration tells us that immigrants are not a burden for their new countries but rather a resource, a challenge, which forces redefinition of the concepts of citizenship and nationality.
Italy, once a country of emigrants, has now become a country where immigrants flock to. Social, economic, and cultural progress turned the peninsula into one of the most desired destinations for many surrounding populations.
They come with any means, challenging any danger, travelling the same roads our fellow nationals travelled many years ago. They have to face diffidence and marginalization by the host towns. There is almost 1.5 million non-EU citizens currently living in Italy, 2.5 percent of the residents, which ranks Italy in fourth place in Europe (behind Germany, France and the United Kingdom). Last year, immigrant residents increased by 240,000; 10,000 children were born from parents who were both foreigners; 80-90,000 new permanent resident arrivals.
The origins of immigrants include European countries where the ranking of specific countries is led by Morocco, followed by Albania, Philippines, Yugoslavia, Rumania, USA, China, Tunisia, Senegal, and Germany. But where are these people going? Over half of them go to Northern Italy, less than one third to Central Italy, and the rest to Southern Italy. In regards to regions, Lombardy receives the largest share of immigrants, then Lazio, Veneto, Emilia Romagna, Tuscany, Piedmont, Campania, and Sicily. They go wherever the offer of jobs is highest, this is why they prefer Northern regions, sometimes raising the discontent of the local population.
The President of Regione Veneto, Giancarlo Galan, even proposed to ask the sons of emigrants of Venetian heritage to return to live in Italy in order to satisfy the demand of skilled labour by local industries. More and more second-, and third-generation Italians, who never cut their connection to Italy, are asking for citizenship of the country of their ancestors. In Brazil alone, 15 million people have asked to reacquire Italian citizenship.