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Jan 12 - Jan 19,2003 |
An enduring uphill battle for rights
How multiculturalism helped early Italian immigrants overcome discrimination
By Irene Zerbini
Originally Published: 2001-12-16
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Professor Elio Costa
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What do Italian construction workers, who built Canada, share with Giovanni Caboto, who discovered it? Maybe nothing, but who, then, contributed more to this nation?"
This is not entirely a provocation. Gabriele Scardellato, professor of Italian Studies at the University of Toronto, is very serious in asking that question. Within the context of our report on multiculturalism, a question on the contribution of Italians cannot be avoided. Today, when discussing this issue, Italians are often used as an example of successful integration, but it wasn't always like this.
"I remember that when I was in high school, in the eyes of school authorities being Italian was decisive for my future. I was paternally encouraged to pursue a trade such as car mechanic, or something similar. Just because I was Italian. My vocation, my individual aspiration, mattered nothing. However, I had no interest in becoming a mechanic. I liked the idea of teaching, but my aspiration was 'out of place' for a son of immigrants."
Today, Gabriele Scardellato's dream has come true, and he's been asked by the Mariano Elia Chair to compile an historical atlas of Italian-Canadians, with details on the various migratory waves and the communities where they settled down. His experience as a young man only sharpened his curiousity towards the history of Italian-Canadians, their progress, their struggle, their conquests.
"This is a living curiosity, being passed from a generation to the next. Just consider the success of university classes in Italian Studies. The youngsters want to understand their parents and grandparents, the social structure that drove them here. It's a vital need of human beings," states Scardellato.
"There was no question that we, as Italians, felt discriminated against," declares Elio Costa, professor of Italian Studies at York University and director of the Mariano Elia Chair. "We were treated in a different way. Being accepted into the mainstream was very difficult at the time. Being encouraged to attend vocational schools was just an example of what we had to face. Nowadays the same goes for blacks, Vietnamese or other ethnic groups. Back then I was a teacher and I toured all the departments of the Toronto school board in order to stop that practice, raising awareness on the civil rights of immigrants. This was before Trudeau established multiculturalism as Canada's official policy, in 1971. They replied, very candidly, that the proof of our full integration in the school system was the large number of Italian caretakers. What's more, they said, these caretakers were used as interpreters between the teachers and kids freshly arrived from Italy knowing little or no English."
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