 |
Mar 26,2006 - Apr 2,2006 |
10 - In praise of the new immigration
New York-based teacher Stefano Albertini talks about the Italians of the future
By Antonio Maglio
Originally Published: 2002-09-29
 |
|
Head of Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimó Stefano Albertini
|
Gioacchino Lanza Tomasi, Director of New York's Istituto Italiano di Cultura, had foreseen it. In that period (around 1996) Italy was beginning to pay attention to the "other Italy" that existed out of the national borders. The law that six years later would recognize the right to voting abroad suddenly accelerated its timetable and raised curiosity and interest about those who had left and had been forgotten. Forgotten Italy, in fact, was the title of a report I wrote to try and understand whether "the other Italians" were a lobby in the countries that had accepted them.
While preparing that report, I met with Gioacchino Lanza Tomasi. He spoke of the past, but did so looking ahead: "The challenge is the future of Italian character," he said. "This means that our reflections must deal with global problems, not the nostalgia of Little Italy mothers. In 30 years, nostalgia will only be a stereotype of memory, and the diaspora will have been perfectly integrated. Then, the Italian character will only be retrievable in colleges, through education, not nostalgia."
I asked Lanza Tomasi if voting abroad will help in this. He smiled. "Do you really think," he retorted, "that the problem of the future Italian character can depend on the vote of immigrants? The problem is another."
Which is? "I wonder," he replied, "whether on the eve of the third millennium this talking of emigration, diaspora, and fatherland has any meaning. The real strength of the idea of Italy can be seen in New York, in that crowd of young intellectuals and managers who arrived here in the past 20 years. The fact that they aren't allowed to vote abroad is a blatant injustice [this conversation took place six years ago, before the law was passed]. The rest, those who've been separated from Italy for a century, will have to be won back by using our best intelligence, a certain amount of resources, and hopefully blocking the export of demagoguery. The new emigration does not speak to the old. As long as this separation will last, the idea of Italy will appear as schizoid: a society of intellectuals on one side, and a society of emigrants on the other."
Page 1/...Page 2
|
| Home / Back to Top |
|
|
 |
|
|
</ td>
