Italian Australians - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Characteristics

The 2006 Census counted 199,124 persons who were born in Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

. However, 852,417 persons identified themselves as having Italian ancestry, either alone or in combination with another ancestry (4.29%). Italian is the fifth most identified ancestry in Australia behind 'Australian', 'English', 'Irish' and 'Scottish'. Italian

Italian language

Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...

is the second most utilised language at home, with 316,900 speakers (or 1.6% of the Australian population). Italians arrived most prominently in the decades immediately following World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, and they and their children have had a significant impact on the cultural, social and economic life of Australia.

Demographics

Italians are well represented in every Australian town and region but there is a disproportionate concentration in Victoria (41.6% compared to 25% of the general Australian population) and South Australia

South Australia

South Australia is a state of Australia in the southern central part of the country. It covers some of the most arid parts of the continent; with a total land area of , it is the fourth largest of Australia's six states and two territories.South Australia shares borders with all of the mainland...

(11.3% compared to 7.6%). It is probable that the distribution of their Italian-Australian children mirrors this.

According to 2006 census data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics

Australian Bureau of Statistics

The Australian Bureau of Statistics is Australia's national statistical agency. It was created as the Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics on 8 December 1905, when the Census and Statistics Act 1905 was given Royal assent. It had its beginnings in section 51 of the Constitution of Australia...

, 95% of Italian born Australians recorded their religion as Christian. 79.7% Catholic

Catholic

The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...

, 3.2% Anglican, 5.6% Other Christian, 1.6% Other Religions and 10.0% No Religion.

As the level of immigration from Italy dropped significantly from the 1970s, the Italian-born population is aging. 63% of the Italian-born population was aged sixty years old or older at the time of the 2006 Census. 176,536 or 89% arrived before 1980.

As at the 2006 census 162,107 (81.4%) speak Italian at home. Proficiency in English was self-described by census respondents as very well by 28%, well by 32%, 21% not well (18% didn't state or said not applicable).

Of the Australian residents who were born in Italy, 157,209 or 79% were Australian citizens at the time of the 2006 census.

Return migration

Italian Australians have a low rate of return migration to Italy. In December 2001, the Department of Foreign Affairs estimated that there were 30,000 Australian citizens resident in Italy. These are likely to be returned Italian emigrants with Australian citizenship, and their Italian-Australian children.
Chiara.Josephine

The early years

Italians have been arriving in Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

in a limited number since the last decades of the eighteenth century. Nevertheless, it is only since 1869 that the country witnessed the arrival of a number of educated individuals who had left Italy

Italy

for non-economic reasons, such as missionaries, musicians, artists, professionals and businesspeople . This sprinkling of northern Italian middle class professionals and to Australia probably escaped the persecutions by Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

n authorities - under whose control were most of northern regions of Italy until 1860 - especially after the failure of the revolts in many European cities in the 1840s and 1850s. As stated by D'Aprano in his work on the first Italian migrants in Victoria:

We find some Italian artisans in Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...

and other colonies already in the 1840s, many of whom had participated in the defeated revolts against the despotic rulers of Modena
Modena
Modena is a city and comune on the south side of the Po Valley, in the Province of Modena in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy....

, Naples
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...

, Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

, Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...

, Bologna
Bologna
Bologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of Northern Italy. The city lies between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, more specifically, between the Reno River and the Savena River. Bologna is a lively and cosmopolitan Italian college city, with spectacular history,...

, Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

and other cities. They came to Australia to seek a better and more efficient life.

Through the 1840s and 1850s, the number of Italian migrants of peasant background who came for economic reasons increased. Nevertheless, they did not come from the landless, poverty-stricken agricultural working class but from rural families with at least sufficient means to pay their fare to Australia. Rando reports that a group of artisans skilled in terrazzo

Terrazzo

Terrazzo is a composite material poured in place or precast, which is used for floor and wall treatments. It consists of marble, quartz, granite, glass or other suitable chips, sprinkled or unsprinkled, and poured with a binder that is cementitious, chemical or a combination of both...

work 'apparently' settled in Melbourne, and stonemasons

Stonemasonry

The craft of stonemasonry has existed since the dawn of civilization - creating buildings, structures, and sculpture using stone from the earth. These materials have been used to construct many of the long-lasting, ancient monuments, artifacts, cathedrals, and cities in a wide variety of cultures...

from Lombardy

Lombardy

Lombardy is one of the 20 regions of Italy. The capital is Milan. One-sixth of Italy's population lives in Lombardy and about one fifth of Italy's GDP is produced in this region, making it the most populous and richest region in the country and one of the richest in the whole of Europe...

arrived to build a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

-style village at Hunters Hill near Sydney

Sydney

Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...

. Furthermore, in the late 1850s, some 2,000 Swiss Italians of Australia

Swiss Italians of Australia

Swiss Italians of Australia, are Italian speaking Swiss that settled in Australia during the 1850s and 1860s. The Swiss Italians initially settled in the area around Daylesford, Victoria...

from Northern Italy migrated to the Victorian goldfields.
The number of Italians who arrived in Australia remained small during the whole of the nineteenth century. The voyage was costly and complex, as no direct shipping link existed between the two countries until the late 1890s. The length of the voyage was over two months before the opening of the Suez Canal. Italian migrants who intended to leave for Australia had to use German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

shipping lines that called at the ports of Genoa

Genoa

Genoa |Ligurian]] Zena ; Latin and, archaically, English Genua) is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria....

and Naples no more than once a month. Therefore other overseas destinations such as the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

and the Latin America

Latin America

Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...

n countries proved much more attractive, thus allowing the establishment of migration patterns more quickly and drawing far greater numbers.

Nevertheless, the Victorian gold rush

Victorian gold rush

The Victorian gold rush was a period in the history of Victoria, Australia approximately between 1851 and the late 1860s. In 10 years the Australian population nearly tripled.- Overview :During this era Victoria dominated the world's gold output...

of the 1850s attracted thousands of Italians and Swiss Italians to Australia. The drain on the labor supply occasioned by the gold rush caused Australia to also seek workmen from Europe for land use and the development of cultivation, both in New South Wales

New South Wales

New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...

and Queensland

Queensland

Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...

. Unfortunately, the number of Italians who joined the Victorian gold mines is obscure, and until 1871 Italians did not receive a special place in any Australian Census

Census

A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common...

figures. By 1881, the first year of Census figures on Italian migrants in all States, there were 521 Italians (representing 0.066% of the total population) in New South Wales

New South Wales

, and 947 (0.10%) in Victoria, of whom one-third were in Melbourne and the rest were in the goldfields. Queensland

Queensland

had 250 Italians, South Australia 141, Tasmania

Tasmania

Tasmania is an Australian island and state. It is south of the continent, separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania—the 26th largest island in the world—and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 507,626 , of whom almost half reside in the greater Hobart...

11 and Western Australia

Western Australia

Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...

just 10. Such figures, from Australian sources, correspond to similar figures from Italian sources.

While Italians in Australia were less than 2,000, they tended to increase, because they were attracted by the easy possibility to settle in areas capable of intense agricultural exploitation. In this regard, it must be borne in mind again that in the early 1880s Italy was facing a strong economic crisis, which was going to push a hundred thousand Italians to seek a better life abroad.

In addition, even Australian travellers, like Randolph Bedford

Randolph Bedford

Randolph Bedford was an Australian poet, novelist, short story writer and Queensland state politician.-Early life:...

, who visited Italy in the 1870s and 1880s, admitted the convenience of having a larger intake of Italian workers into Australia. Bedford stated that Italians would adjust to the Australian climate better than the 'pale' English migrant. As the job opportunities attracted so many British people to the colonies in order to be employed in agriculture, certainly the Italian peasant, accustomed to be a hard-worker, "frugal and sober", would be a very good immigrant for the Australia soil.

Since the early 1880s, due to the socioeconomic situation in Italy and the abundant opportunities to settle in Australia as farmers, skilled or semi-skilled artisans and labourers, the number of Italians who left for Australia increased.

In 1881, over 200 foreign immigrants, of whom a considerable number were Italians from Northern Italy, arrived in Sydney

Sydney

. They were the survivors from Marquis de Ray's ill-fated attempt at founding a colony

De Rays Expedition

The Third de Rays Expedition, or simply the de Rays Expedition, was the third New Guinea expedition of Marquis de Rays, a French nobleman who attempted to start a colony in the South Pacific...

, Nouvelle France, in New Ireland

New Ireland (island)

New Ireland is a large island in Papua New Guinea, approximately 7,404 km² in area. It is the largest island of the New Ireland Province, lying northeast of the island of New Britain. Both islands are part of the Bismarck Archipelago, named after Otto von Bismarck, and they are separated by...

, which later became part of Germany's New Guinea

German New Guinea

German New Guinea was the first part of the German colonial empire. It was a protectorate from 1884 until 1914 when it fell to Australia following the outbreak of the First World War. It consisted of the northeastern part of New Guinea and several nearby island groups...

Protectorate. Many of them took up a conditional purchase farm of 40 acres (161,874.4 m²) near Woodburn

Woodburn, New South Wales

Woodburn is a small highway town on the banks of the Richmond River in New South Wales, Australia. The busy Pacific Highway passes through the centre of town...

in the Northern Rivers District at what was subsequently known as 'New Italy'. By the mid-1880s, about 50 holdings of an aggregate area of more than 3,000 acres (12 km²) were under occupation, and the Italian population of New Italy has increased to 250. In this respect, Lyng reports:
"The land was very poor and heavily timbered and had been passed over by local settlers. However, the Italians set to work and by great industry and thrift succeeded in clearing some of the land and making it productive…[…]…Besides, working on their own properties the settlers were engaged in the sugar industry, in timber squaring, grass seed gathering, and other miscellaneous work".

In 1883, a commercial Treaty between the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

and Italy was signed, allowing Italian subjects freedom of entry, travel and residence, and the rights to acquire and own property and to carry on business activities. This Agreement certainly favoured the arrival in Australia of many more Italians.

Italians in working society, 1890–1920

Although Italian settlers and Australians had fairly harmonious relations through most of the nineteenth century, "matters began to change once Italian workers and contadini (peasants) began arriving in greater numbers", as Rando observed. 1891 was the year in Queensland in which over 300 peasants from northern Italy were scheduled to arrive, as the first contingent to replace over 60,000 Kanakas

Kanakas

Kanaka was the term for a worker from various Pacific Islands employed in British colonies, such as British Columbia , Fiji and Queensland in the 19th and early 20th centuries...

brought to north Queensland since the mid-nineteenth century as exploitable labour for the sugarcane plantations. Until the early 1890s, Italians had been practically an unknown—although very modest—quantity in Queensland. As a result of the new White Australia policy

White Australia policy

The White Australia policy comprises various historical policies that intentionally restricted "non-white" immigration to Australia. From origins at Federation in 1901, the polices were progressively dismantled between 1949-1973....

, the Kanakas

Kanakas

Kanaka was the term for a worker from various Pacific Islands employed in British colonies, such as British Columbia , Fiji and Queensland in the 19th and early 20th centuries...

were now being deported. While employment was guaranteed, wages were low and fixed. The deciding factor in the whole matter was the plight of the sugar industry: docile gang labor was essential, and the 'frugal' Italian peasants were perfectly suited for such employment.

The Australian Workers Union (AWU) claimed that Italians would work harder than the Kanakas for lower pay and take away work from Australians, and over 8,000 Queenslanders signed a petition requesting the project to be cancelled. Nonetheless, more Italian migrants arrived and soon nominated friends and relatives still in Italy. They slowly acquired a large number of sugar-cane plantations and gradually set up thriving Italian communities in north Queensland around the towns of Ayr

Ayr, Queensland

Ayr is a town in Queensland, Australia near the delta of the Burdekin River, named after the Scottish town of Ayr by the settlers from the United Kingdom...

and Innisfail

Innisfail, Queensland

Innisfail is a town located in the far north of the state of Queensland, Australia. It is the major township of the Cassowary Coast and is well renowned for its sugar and banana industries, as well as for being one of Australia's wettest towns...

.

A few years later, Italians were again the subject of public discussion in Western Australia. The gold rush of the early 1890s in Western Australia and the subsequent labour disputes at the mines had belatedly attracted Italians in large number, both from Victoria and Italy itself. Most of them were unskilled and therefore usually employed on the surface of the mines, or cutting, loading and carting wood nearby. Pyke so described the situation:

Popular agitation was prompted mainly by growing unemployment; even Italians had begun to write home about it. Italians, however, could still be readily employed, often in preference to other workmen, because of the contract system of employment. They had the virtue of comparative docility and temperance and the ability to work in the hottest of weather; consequently, they were sought after by contractors, a few of whom were Italians themselves.

As previously stated with respect to the temporary migration of Tuscan migrants, Italians worked hard, and most saved steadily, by a simple a primitive mode of life, in order to buy land either in hospitable Australian urban areas or in the Italian community of origin. They were clearly "the better men for the worse job".

The early 1890s is a turning point in the Australian attitude toward Italian immigration.
Pyke states:

The Labour Movement was against Italian immigration to all areas, and particularly to these industries, inasmuch as it swelled the labour market and increased competition, thereby putting employers in the enviable position of being able to pick and choose and giving employees who wanted to labour and needed work, the opportunity of paying for employment and accepting low wages.

Sugarcane activities in Queensland and mining in Western Australia—where most of the Italians were employed—became the targets of the Labour movement. As O'Connor reports in his work on the first Italian settlements, when Italians began to compete with Britains for work on the Kalgoorlie

Kalgoorlie, Western Australia

Kalgoorlie, known as Kalgoorlie-Boulder, is a town in the Goldfields-Esperance region of Western Australia, and is located east-northeast of state capital Perth at the end of the Great Eastern Highway...

goldfields, the Parliament was warned that they, along with Greeks

Greeks

The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....

and Hungarians, "had become a greater pest in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

than the coloured races". In other words, during the 1890s, a political and social alliance was formed between the Australian Labour Party and the Anglo-Celtic Australian

Anglo-Celtic Australian

Anglo-Celtic Australian are citizens of Australia with British and/or Irish ancestral origins.-Demography:From the beginning of the colonial era until the mid-20th century, the vast majority of settlers were British or Irish...

working class in order to react to Italian immigrants, with particular reference to northern and central Italian workers who lowered the level of wages.

Even in the Italian literature of the 1890s and early 1900s on travel reports and descriptions of Australia, there are notes about these frictions. The Italian Geographical Society (Societa' Geografica Italiana) reported as follows about the few Italian settlements in Australia:

Nella maggior parte dei casi l'operaio (italiano) vive sotto la tenda, così chiunque non sia dedito all'ubriachezza (cosa troppo comune in questi paesi, ma non fra i nostri connazionali) può facilmente risparmiare la metà del suo salario. I nostri italiani, economi per eccellenza, risparmiano talvolta anche di più.
(In the great majority of cases, Italian labourers live in tents, so, whoever does not get drunk (which is such a common habit in this country, except amongst Italians) can easily save up to half his wage. Our Italians, extremely thrifty, save even more than that).

Among the many observations about his journey to Australia, the Italian priest and writer, Giuseppe Capra, notes in 1909:

In questi ultimi cinquantacinque anni, in cui l'Italiano emigrò più numeroso in Australia, la sua condotta morale è superiore a quella delle altre nazionalità che qui sono rappresentate, l'inglese compreso. Amante del lavoro, del risparmio, intelligente, sobrio, è sempre ricercatissimo: l'unico contrasto che talvolta incontra è quello dell'operaio inglese, che, forte della sua origine, si fa preferire e guarda al suo concorrente con viso arcigno, temendo, senza alcun fondamento, che l'Italiano si presti a lavori per salari inferiori ai proprii.

(During these recent 55 years, when Italians migrated more to Australia, their moral conduct had been superior to that of the many other nationals here represented, British included. Italians are work and savings-oriented, intelligent, sober and very much sought after. The only hostility comes from the British labourers who, confident of their origin, look at their Italian competitors with a surly mood, because they are afraid—without any evidence—that Italians could work for lower wages than theirs).

Frictions between the established Australian working class and the newcomers suggest that, during periods of economic crisis and unemployment, immigration acted as a 'tool of division and attack' by international capitalism to working class organizations. There were Italians in occupations other than in the sugarcane industry and mining. In Western Australia, fishing was next in popularity, followed by the usual urban pursuits now associated with Italians of peasant origin, such as market gardening, the keeping of restaurants and wine shops and the sale of fruit and vegetables.

As Cresciani has explained in his comprehensive study of Italian settlements in the early decades of the twentieth century, it was the small size and the type of the Italian settlement that also worked against a wider involvement of Italian migrants with organised labour.

"Most Italians were scattered in the countryside, on the goldfields, in the mines. As agricultural workers, fruit pickers, farmers, tobacco growers, canecutters. The distance and the lack of communication prevented them from organising themselves. Those in the cities, mainly greengrocers, market gardeners and labourers, because of the sheer lack of interest and capacity to understand the advantages that a political organisation would bring, kept themselves aloof from any active role in politics and from the people who were advocating it. Also, many migrants were seasonal workers, never stopping for long at any one place, thus making it difficult for them to take part in social or political activities".
By the early 1900s, there were over 5,000 Italians in Australia in a remarkable variety of occupations. In 1911, the Census claimed that there were 6,719 residents who had been born in Italy. Of these, 5,543 were males, while 2,683 had become naturalised. No less than 2,600 were in Western Australia.

One of the most significant policy matters that the new Parliament of Australia

Parliament of Australia

The Parliament of Australia, also known as the Commonwealth Parliament or Federal Parliament, is the legislative branch of the government of Australia. It is bicameral, largely modelled in the Westminster tradition, but with some influences from the United States Congress...

had to consider after it opened in 1901 was immigration. Later that year, the Attorney-General, Alfred Deakin

Alfred Deakin

Alfred Deakin , Australian politician, was a leader of the movement for Australian federation and later the second Prime Minister of Australia. In the last quarter of the 19th century, Deakin was a major contributor to the establishment of liberal reforms in the colony of Victoria, including the...

, introduced and passed into legislation the Immigration Restriction Act 1901

Immigration Restriction Act 1901

The Immigration Restriction Act 1901 was an Act of the Parliament of Australia which limited immigration to Australia and formed the basis of the White Australia policy. It also provided for illegal immigrants to be deported. It granted immigration officers a wide degree of discretion to prevent...

and the allied Pacific Island Labourers Act. The goal was to ensure the White Australia policy by controlling entry into Australia and—by the latter—repatriating coloured labour from the Pacific Islands

Pacific Islands

The Pacific Islands comprise 20,000 to 30,000 islands in the Pacific Ocean. The islands are also sometimes collectively called Oceania, although Oceania is sometimes defined as also including Australasia and the Malay Archipelago....

. The concept was meant to safeguard the social 'white' purity and protect wage standards against cheap coloured labour.

As the Restriction Act passed into legislation, there was some confusion as to whether Italians should be let into the country or kept out by means of the 'Dictation test' provisions, as stated into the Act. The Act did not specify a translation but rather a dictation in a European language, the purpose of the test being to keep non-Europeans out of Australia, as a deterrent to unwanted immigrants. Although the test was initially to be administered in English, it was then tightened to any European language, "mainly through Labour insistence". Such a firmly sustained system to select entries into Australia that it remained on the statute books until 1958, when it was replaced by a system of entry permits.
Nevertheless, in the early 1900s, some Italians calling at Fremantle

Fremantle, Western Australia

Fremantle is a city in Western Australia, located at the mouth of the Swan River. Fremantle Harbour serves as the port of Perth, the state capital. Fremantle was the first area settled by the Swan River colonists in 1829...

and other Australian ports were refused admission under the provisions of the Act. These latter cases might be indicative of the fact that Western Australia shared the xenophobia of the rest of the world. The reaction was certainly associated with the so-called 'Awakening of Asia' and 'Yellow Peril

Yellow Peril

Yellow Peril was a colour metaphor for race that originated in the late nineteenth century with immigration of Chinese laborers to various Western countries, notably the United States, and later associated with the Japanese during the mid 20th century, due to Japanese military expansion.The term...

', which were not exclusively Australian terms.
As reported: "Such concepts combined to produce in Europe a suspicion that the traditional European supremacy around the globe was coming to an end. In Australia that eventually was seen as, or made to appear, a more immediate threatening".

Fuelled both by the British-European feeling of loss of supremacy and the fears of the Australian Labor Party

Australian Labor Party

The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...

in working sectors where labourers were not exclusively Anglo-Celtic

Anglo-Celtic

Anglo-Celtic is a term used to describe people of British and Irish descent. The term today is mainly used outside of Britain and Ireland, particularly in Australia but also in Canada, New Zealand and the United States, where a significant diaspora is located....

s, anti-Italian sentiments gathered momentum in the United States in the early 1900s, in the wake of Italian mass migration. Such attitudes also flourished in Australia, as it has been reported with respect to the Queensland sugar-cane industry and Western Australian mines.
Nevertheless, a new attempt to found an Italian colony in Western Australia took place in 1906, when the western state offered to host about 100 Italian peasant families to settle in the south-western rural corner of Western Australia. A delegation of a few northern Italian farmers led by Leopoldo Zunini, an Italian career diplomat, visited most of these rural areas. Although his report on soil fertility, quality of cattle to graze, transportation and accommodation for the Italian farmers was extremely positive and enthusiastic, the settlement scheme was not carried out. Again, Western Australia public opinion opposed the creation of an exclusively Italian settlement, possibly caused by a mounting anti-Italian sentiment fuelled by the outlined episodes of confrontation between the Labour movement and the cheap labour cost offered by Italian migrants.

The growth of the Italian community, 1921–1945

Italian migration to Australia increased markedly only after heavy restrictions were placed on Italians' entry to the United States. More than two million Italian migrants entered the United States from the turn of the century to the outbreak of the First World War, whereas only about twelve thousand Italians had entered Australia in the same period. In 1917, while war was still on, the United States introduced a Literacy Act

Immigration Act of 1917

On February 4, 1917, the United States Congress passed the Immigration Act of 1917 with an overwhelming majority, overriding President Woodrow Wilson's December 14, 1916 veto...

to curtail its immigration flow—which had reached a high number in the years immediately before the war—and Canada enacted similar legislation two years later. In 1921, United States policy became even stricter, with the establishment of a quota system that limited the total intake of Italian immigrants in any one year to about 41,000 (calculated as 3% of the number of Italians residing in the United States in 1910). Furthermore, in 1924, the figures related to the entry of Italians were cut almost to zero, as they were meant to represent the 2% of the Italian component in the United States in 1890.

Such severe restrictions meant that part of the great post-war stream of migrants from Italy was progressively diverted to Australia. Nevertheless, the way Italian migrants were conceived by Australian society was not going to change after its perception had formed in the early 1900s.
With respect to this attitude, MacDonald wrote:
"Italian immigration became the largest non-British movement after the entry of Melanesians

Melanesians

Melanesians are an ethnic group in Melanesia. The original inhabitants of the group of islands now named Melanesia were likely the ancestors of the present-day Papuan-speaking people...

and Asians was stopped by the new federal government in 1902. This put Italians at the bottom of the Australian 'racial totem pole', just above other southern Europeans http://www.naa.gov.au/Publications/research_guides/guides/immig/chapter04.htm and Aborigines

Indigenous Australians

Indigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of the Australian continent and nearby islands. The Aboriginal Indigenous Australians migrated from the Indian continent around 75,000 to 100,000 years ago....

. The volume of arrivals, the proportion of settlers in the total population of Australia, and the size of Italian agglomerated settlements were trivial by international standards. Yet the establishment of fifty Italian households within a radius of five miles (8 km) or the employment of twenty Italians on a job were cause for alarm in Australian eyes, The 'inferiority' of Italians was generally seen in racist terms as well as specifically in terms of their threatening to compete with labor of British stock because of their 'primitive' way of life".

This attitude was also present in other English speaking countries, as Porter reported for Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

. In his classical study of Italians in North Queensland, Douglass suggests other factors affecting such racist attitudes, and reports a summary of the Commonwealth Parliamentary debate of 1927:
"The image of the Italian was nourished by the stereotype of the southerner, and particularly the Sicilian. Regardless of its veracity, it could be applied to only a minority of the new arrivals since, by Italian Government estimates, fully two-fifths of its emigrants to Australia were from the Veneto

Veneto

Veneto is one of the 20 regions of Italy. Its population is about 5 million, ranking 5th in Italy.Veneto had been for more than a millennium an independent state, the Republic of Venice, until it was eventually annexed by Italy in 1866 after brief Austrian and French rule...

and another two-fifths were drawn from the Piedmont

Piedmont

Piedmont is one of the 20 regions of Italy. It has an area of 25,402 square kilometres and a population of about 4.4 million. The capital of Piedmont is Turin. The main local language is Piedmontese. Occitan is also spoken by a minority in the Occitan Valleys situated in the Provinces of...

, Lombardy

Lombardy

and Tuscany

Tuscany

Tuscany is a region in Italy. It has an area of about 23,000 square kilometres and a population of about 3.75 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence ....

regions. Only one-fifth were from Sicily

Sicily

Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...

and Calabria

Calabria

Calabria , in antiquity known as Bruttium, is a region in southern Italy, south of Naples, located at the "toe" of the Italian Peninsula. The capital city of Calabria is Catanzaro....

".
Here it is only necessary to add that such disposition was hard to change if, as O'Connor reports by citing a previous work by Bromley, "darkness, smallness, noisiness, fatness and smelliness formed an Australian stereotype of the Italians".

Although the Australian attitude towards Italians was not friendly, since the early 1920s Italian migrants began to arrive in Australia in notable numbers. While the Australian Census of 1921 recorded 8,135 Italians residing in the country, during the years 1922–1925 another 15,000 arrived and, again, a similar number of Italians reached Australia during the period 1926-1930.

Together with the entry restrictions adopted by the United States, another factor that increased Italian emigration in the early 1920s was the rise of Fascism in Italy in 1922. Gradually, the arrays of migrants became formed also by a minor component of political opponents to Fascism, generally peasants of the northern Italian regions, who chose Australia as their destination. In his study on Italian migration to South Australia, O'Connor even reports on the presence, in 1926, in Adelaide

Adelaide

Adelaide is the capital city of South Australia and the fifth-largest city in Australia. Adelaide has an estimated population of more than 1.2 million...

of a dangerous anarchist

Anarchism

Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...

'subversive' from the village of Capoliveri

Capoliveri

Capoliveri is a comune on the island of Elba in Italy. Administratively it is part of the Province of Livorno in the Tuscany region, located about 130 km southwest of Florence and about 90 km south of Livorno.-External links:* *...

, in the Tuscan Island of Elba

Elba

Elba is a Mediterranean island in Tuscany, Italy, from the coastal town of Piombino. The largest island of the Tuscan Archipelago, Elba is also part of the National Park of the Tuscan Archipelago and the third largest island in Italy after Sicily and Sardinia...

, one Giacomo Argenti.

The concern of Benito Mussolini

Benito Mussolini

Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....

about the high emigration figures of the mid-1920s pushed the Fascist government's decision in 1927 to stop all migration to overseas countries, with rarely permitted exceptions, apart from female and minor close relatives (under-age sons, unmarried daughters of any age, parents and unmarried sisters without family in Italy) dependent on residents abroad. In the early 1920s Italians had found that it was not difficult to enter Australia, as there were no visa requirements. The Amending Immigration Act of 1924 prohibited the entry of migrants unless they had a written guarantee completed by a sponsor, an Atto di richiamo ('Call notice'). In this case, any migrant could come to Australia free of charge. Without a sponsor, the required landing money was ten pounds until 1924 and forty since 1925. O'Connor states:
"In 1928, as the number of arrivals increased, a 'gentleman's agreement' between Italy and Australia limited the entry of Italians to no more than 2% of British arrivals, amounting to a maximum of 3,000 Italians per year".

Although there were certainly a number of opponents to Fascism amongst Italians in Australia in the form of anti-fascists and anarchists, the Fascist movement was accepted by many Italian-born migrants residing in Australia.
As Cresciani writes:

They seemed to detect a new determination to defend their economic interests and political rights and to counter the threats posed to their religion, language and traditions by a largely hostile social and political environment.

Italian nationalism

Italian nationalism refers to the nationalism of Italians or of Italian culture. It claims that Italians are the ethnic, cultural, and linguistic descendants of the ancient Romans who inhabited the Italian Peninsula for centuries. The origins of Italian nationalism have been traced to the...

acted as an element of reaction and defence to the Australian environment. By the early 1930s, even Italian diplomatic activity in Australia—as a direct expression of the Fascist government—became more incisive and oriented to make more and more Fascist proselytes among Italians. Migrants were invited to become members of the fascist political organisations of Australia, to come to fascist meetings and eventually to return to Italy, to consent to serve in the Italian armed forces, both in view of the Italian war campaign of Ethiopia

Second Italo-Abyssinian War

The Second Italo–Abyssinian War was a colonial war that started in October 1935 and ended in May 1936. The war was fought between the armed forces of the Kingdom of Italy and the armed forces of the Ethiopian Empire...

(1936) and, later, at the outbreak of World War II

World War II

.

Italians had arrived in Australia in consistent numbers all through the 1920s and 1930s, regardless of the internal and external factors affecting either their departure or their stay in Australia. Entry conditions of Italian migrants became stricter in countries of more popular destinations as the United States, and Italian Fascist authorities tightened the departure of migrants. At the same time, in Australia, the attitude towards Italians had been hostile to their settlements and work patterns. In addition, Australia, like the United States and most western countries, was hit by the economic Depression of 1929

Great Depression in Australia

Australia suffered badly during the period of the Great Depression of the 1930s. The Depression began with the Wall Street Crash of October, 1929 and rapidly spread worldwide. As in other nations, Australia suffered years of high unemployment, poverty, low profits, deflation, plunging incomes, and...

, which caused a serious recession during the following years.

Even Australian legislation was changed consequently. Amendments to the Immigration Restriction Act
Immigration Restriction Act 1901
The Immigration Restriction Act 1901 was an Act of the Parliament of Australia which limited immigration to Australia and formed the basis of the White Australia policy. It also provided for illegal immigrants to be deported. It granted immigration officers a wide degree of discretion to prevent...

in 1932 were more drastic and aimed at more effectively controlling the entry of 'white aliens' into Australia. The amendment extended the landing permit system to all categories of immigrants, while before was applicable only to immigrants with a maintenance guarantee. The goal was to limit immigrants from competing in the local labour market to the detriment of the local unemployed. At the same time, the power to apply the dictation test was still available for up to five years to restrict the landing of an immigrant whose admission was not desired.

The economic depression ignited another social tension which fanned into racial hatred again in 1934. In the gold-mining city of Kalgoorlie, Western Australia

Kalgoorlie, Western Australia

, an Australian who had expressed defamatory remarks about Italians in an Italian-owned hotel was knocked dead by the barman. This accident sparked the resentment of many Australian miners against Italians residing in Kalgoorlie, which culminated in two days of riots. A raging crowd of miners devastated and burnt many shops and private adobes of Italians and other southern Europeans in Boulder and Kalgoorlie and pushed hundreds of Italian migrants to shelter in the surrounding countryside. Notwithstanding the condemnation of the fact on media, the riots did not modify the attitude of public opinion toward Italians in general.

In the 1930s, the Australian community maintained a perception of cultural inferiority of Italians that owed much to longer-term racial conceptions and which were confirmed by the lifestyle of the migrants. As observed by Bertola in his study of the riots, racism towards Italians lay in “their apparent willingness to be used in efforts to drive down wages and conditions, and their inability to transcend the boundaries that separated them from the host culture”. Within Australian society there was an opposition to Italian immigration that stemmed from the fact that Italian migrants were often seen as "Mediterranean scum", or as a "grave industrial and political danger", as reported by Lampugnani.

This was the umpteenth episode that without doubt pushed the notable number of Italians now working and residing in Australia to sympathize with Fascism and devote to the narrow circle of the Italian associations and the close relations of the family. In the late 1930s, a Fascist traveller to Australia so describes the life and work of Italians in the Western Australian mines:

E' la dura quotidiana fatica del lavoro e la resistenza alle lotte degli Australiani che essi debbono sostenere per il prestigio di essere Italiani di Mussolini..[…]..Gli Italiani formarono quel fronte unico di resistenza che va considerato una delle piu' belle vittorie del fascismo in terra straniera. Altra cosa e' fare gl'Italiani in Italia altra e' all'estero, dove chi ti da' da mangiare dimentica che tu lavori per lui, e solo per questo crede di essere padrone delle tue braccia e del tuo spirito.

(Italians have to sustain the daily hard work and the resistance to the claims of Australians, in order to bear the prestige to be Italians of Mussolini. ..[…]..Italians formed that strong front of resistance, which can be considered one of the best victories of fascism in foreign land. One thing is to form Italians in Italy and another is abroad, where those who feed you forget that you all work for them, and just for this reason they think to be the owners of your arms and spirits).

Nevertheless, the Australia Census of 1933 claimed that 26,756 (against the 8,000 of 1921) were born in Italy. Since that year, Italy-born residents in Australia began to represent the first non-English speaking ethnic group of the country, replacing Germans and Chinese. Notwithstanding, a very high proportion of them (20,064) was male. Many Italian male migrants, who had in fact left Italy for Australia during the late 1920s and early 1930s, were joined by wives, working-age sons, daughters, brothers and sisters in the late 1930s. This pattern can be interpreted as a 'defense' from both the perceived hostile Australia environment and the political turmoil of pre-war Italy.

Until the outbreak of World War II

World War II

, there was a considerable degree of segregation between Italians and Australians. As an additional reaction, a large proportion of Italians in Australia tended to defer naturalization (which could be granted after a period of five years of residence) until they had finally established their homes in Australia. Consequently, it is not surprising that, with the outbreak of World War II, the Australian opinion of Italian migrants naturally hardened.

The entry of Italy into the war was followed by the large-scale internment

Internment

Internment is the imprisonment or confinement of people, commonly in large groups, without trial. The Oxford English Dictionary gives the meaning as: "The action of 'interning'; confinement within the limits of a country or place." Most modern usage is about individuals, and there is a distinction...

of Italians, especially in Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia. The concern in Queensland was that Italians would somehow join forces with an invading Japanese force and constitute a fifth column

Fifth column

A fifth column is a group of people who clandestinely undermine a larger group such as a nation from within.-Origin:The term originated with a 1936 radio address by Emilio Mola, a Nationalist General during the 1936–39 Spanish Civil War...

. Between 1940 and 1945, most of those who had not been naturalised before the war's outbreak were considered "enemy aliens", and therefore either interned or subjected to close watch, with respect to personal movements and area of employment. There were many cases of Italian-Australians who had taken out Australian citizenship also being interned. This was particularly the case in northern Queensland.

The post-war mass migration to Australia, 1946–1970s

During WWII, more than 18,000 Italian prisoners-of-war were sent to internment camps throughout Australia. Together with the interned 'enemy aliens', after 1942 a large number of them were employed in inland farms without much surveillance. Many prisoners of war and Italian-Australian interned worked hard in farms and cattle stations, thus gaining a favourable opinion as hard and committed workers by their Australian employers. This circumstance contributed to generate an environment more agreeable - than that before the war - for the Italian post-war migration to Australia.
After World War II, the attitude of Australians towards Italians gradually began to change, with the increasing appreciation of the value of Italians in the economic development of Australia. At the same time, the Italian war experience helped to destroy many of the political and sentimental attachments that Italians had previously felt towards their country. As a consequence, the end of the war encouraged the naturalisation of many Italian migrants, who had been caught up as enemy aliens at the outbreak of the world conflict.

At the end of 1947, only 21% of the Italians residing in Australia were not yet naturalized. Many of those becoming naturalized in the late 1940s did so to allay the suspicion caused by the war. Borrie wrote in his fundamental work on the assimilation of Italians and Germans

Germans

The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....

in Australia:
"Naturalization was the obvious first step towards their rehabilitation. The war had also broken many of the links with Italy, and in addition it was still difficult to secure a shipping passage to return there. But while the act of naturalization may have been an irrevocable step which in turn provided an incentive to become socially and culturally assimilated, field investigations show clearly that Italians retained many traits, particularly within the circle of the home, which were not 'Australian'. And naturalized or not, they were still not fully accepted by Australians".

Conversely, after the war experience, the Australian government embarked on the 'Populate or Perish' program, aimed to increase the population of the country for strategically important economic and military reasons. The immigration debate in postwar Australia assumed new dimensions as official policy sought a significant increase in the number and the diversity of immigrants, and to find a place for those coming from a tired and torn Europe. The war had occasioned a shift in migration patterns, pressing the need to place a large number of people who could not return to their own countries for a wide range of reasons. This was the case of over ten million people from Central and North-eastern Europe, such as Poles, Germans, Greeks, Czechs, Yugoslavs and Slovaks.

An important stage in this immigration program began with the Displaced Persons Scheme in 1947, which attracted over 170,000 displaced persons to Australia. MacDonald writes in this regard:

The reservoir of displaced persons who could be recruited for Australia was practically exhausted by 1950. So Italy was the only catchment area which offered more eager candidates than Australia was willing to accommodate and who could then be screened selectively. Italians were still considerably less desirable than Central and Northern Europeans, yet they were preferred to Cypriots, Greeks, and Maltese not only because there were more Italians to choose from but also because it was hoped that a large proportion could be drawn from the 'superior' peoples of Northern Italy. So they were admitted in greater numbers than had previously seemed conceivable, as a 'third-best' type.

Italy's postwar migration certainly grew out of the country's policy of industrial development. Although there had been a significant industrial growth in Italy before the war, the devastation wrought by the conflict left the structure in ruins. This factor and the return of Italian soldiers from the war fronts generated a surplus of population which turned to emigration as an alternative to poverty.

By the early 1950s, Australian authorities negotiated formal migration agreements with the Netherlands

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

(1951), Germany and Austria

Austria

(1952). They also introduced a system of personal nominations and guarantees, opened to Italians, in order to permit families separated by the war to come together again. In addition, the Australian and Italian governments negotiated a scheme of recruitment and assisted passages, which became fully effective in 1952. As extensively outlined by MacDonald, the chain migration process, eased by the personal nomination scheme, seemed to be more flexible than the administrative machinery of the bilateral program. Personal nominees had a guarantee of assistance and contacts at their arrival in Australia, in order to help migrants to evaluate all employment possibilities.

Since the mid-1950s, the Italian flow of migrants to Australia assumed a sort of mass migration. Either nominated by relatives in Australia as a major component, or as assisted migrants, a notable number of migrants left Italy for Australia. Unlike the pre-war movement, most of the migrants of the 1950s and 1960s had planned to settle permanently in Australia. Within these two decades, the number of Italians who came to Australia was so high that their number increased tenfold. Although there are not precise figures, due to the fact that Australian Census refers only to Italian-born, some scholars have suggested that, with their Australian-born children, the Italian ethnic group in Australia could be approaching almost 800,000, thus still ranking it as the first non-English speaking ethnic community of Australia.

A 2009 Australian National University

Australian National University

The Australian National University is a teaching and research university located in the Australian capital, Canberra.As of 2009, the ANU employs 3,945 administrative staff who teach approximately 10,000 undergraduates, and 7,500 postgraduate students...

study showed that respondents to job advertisements with Italian-appearing names needed to send 12% more applications than those with Australian-appearing names to obtain the same number of interviews. However, this was mainly in Sydney as Melbourne has a larger Italian community.

Between June 1949 and July 2000, Italy was the second most common birthplace for settler arrivals in Australia after United Kingdom and Ireland.

	No. of arrivals July 1949 – June 2000	July 1949 - June 1959	July 1959 - June 1970	July 1970 – June 1980
Settlers from Italy	390,810	201,428	150,669	28,800
Total settler arrivals	5,640,638	1,253,083	1,445,356	956,769
Percentage of settlers from Italy	6.9%	16.1%	10.4%	3.0%

Geographical distribution of Italians in Australia

Since the late 1960s the Italian migratory flow towards Australia ceased. At present, the Italian Australian community is numerically stable and well settled. The Australian Census of 1971 indicated over 289,000 people born in Italy, gradually decreasing to about 254,000 in the 1991 Census. Hence, the progressive aging process of its population is an indicator of the lack of turnover with new arrays of migrants from Italy.

Italians still represent almost 5% of the Australian population, more than 10% of the total intake of overseas-born residents, and some scholars count them as almost 1,000,000 including second and third generation Italians with at least one Italian parent or grandparent respectively. Notwithstanding, their percentage in the total Australian population is slowly decreasing due to higher Asian immigration today.

Italy-born migrants are mainly concentrated in urban areas, and within specific suburbs. In his study on ethnic diversity in Melbourne

Melbourne

Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...

and Sydney

Sydney

, Hugo outlines patterns by referencing to previous work by Price:
"The spatial distribution of ethnic groups in Sydney and Melbourne is of particular interest because, as Price demonstrates in his classic study of Southern Europeans in Australia, patterns of settlement are inextricably bound up with a whole range of social and economic elements that impinge upon the well-being of those groups".

Most of the Italian-born are now concentrated in Melbourne (73,799), Sydney (44,562), Adelaide

Adelaide

Adelaide is the capital city of South Australia and the fifth-largest city in Australia. Adelaide has an estimated population of more than 1.2 million...

(20,877) and Perth

Perth, Western Australia

Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia and the fourth most populous city in Australia. The Perth metropolitan area has an estimated population of almost 1,700,000....

(18,815). Unlike other groups, the number of Italians residing in Brisbane

Brisbane

Brisbane is the capital and most populous city in the Australian state of Queensland and the third most populous city in Australia. Brisbane's metropolitan area has a population of over 2 million, and the South East Queensland urban conurbation, centred around Brisbane, encompasses a population of...

is relatively few, with the exception of a notable distribution of Italians in Northern Queensland, as Hempel has described in her research on post-war settlement of Italian immigrants in this state. This circumstance is a consequence of the migration patterns followed by Italians in the earlier stage of their settlement in Queensland, during the 1910s, 1920s and 1930s, when the sugarcane industry and its related possibility of quick earnings attracted more 'temporary' migrants in the countryside.

Conversely, in Australian cities, the Italian village or the region of origin have been significant in the formation of separate settlements or neighbourhood groupings of Italians. The way in which a population 'subgroup' is distributed across an area is of importance because not only can it tell us a great deal about the pattern of life of that group, but it is also crucial in any planning of service delivering to such a community. The Italian community has very distinctive patterns of distribution that differentiate it from the total population.

As Burnley reports in his study on Italian absorption in urban Australia, some Italian concentrations in the inner suburbs of Carlton

Carlton, Victoria

Carlton is an inner city suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 2 km north from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Melbourne...

, the traditional 'Little Italy' of Melbourne, and Leichhardt

Leichhardt, New South Wales

Leichhardt is a suburb in the inner-west of Sydney in New South Wales, Australia. Leichhardt is located 5 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district and is the administrative centre for the local government area of the Municipality of Leichhardt...

, its equivalent in Sydney, were made up of several groups from geographically very circumscribed areas of Italy. Migrants from the Lipari Islands of Sicily, and from a few communities of the Province of Vicenza

Vicenza

Vicenza , a city in north-eastern Italy, is the capital of the eponymous province in the Veneto region, at the northern base of the Monte Berico, straddling the Bacchiglione...

have formed the main Italian community core of Leichhardt, as well as Sicilians from the Province of Ragusa

Province of Ragusa

The Province of Ragusa is a province in the autonomous region of Sicily in Italy, located in the south-east of the island. Its capital is the city of Ragusa, which is the most southerly provincial capital in Italy.-Geography:...

and the Commune of Vizzini

Vizzini

Vizzini is a town and comune in the province of Catania, on the island of Sicily. It is located 60 km from Catania in the Hyblaean Mountains, on the most northwesterly slopes of Monte Lauro....

have formed a large contingent in Brunswick

Brunswick, Victoria

Brunswick is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 6 km north from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Moreland...

, a local government authority of Melbourne now containing over 10,000 Italians.

On a smaller scale, but through similar patterns, other large communities of Italians were formed, since the first notable arrival of Italians of the 1920s and 1930s, in Adelaide, Perth and in minor cities of Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland. Most first-generation Italian migrants came to Australia by the nomination of a close relative or a friend, as forms of chain migration.

With particular reference to Western Australia, as previously stated, Italians began to arrive in more notable number after the discovery of gold in the Eastern Goldfields, in the early 1890s. The Australian Census of 1911 records the presence of over 2,000 Italians in Western Australia. Only two years before, the Italian writer Capra had visited the state and reported:
"L'attuale emigrazione italiana in Australia e' poca cosa, e consta quasi esclusivamente di operai per le miniere e pel taglio della legna nella parte occidentale, e di lavoratori della canna da zucchero nel Queensland".
(Present Italian migration to Australia is negligible, almost exclusively limited to miners and woodcutters in the western state, and sugarcane cutters in Queensland).

Capra details the professional distribution of Italians. Over two-thirds all Italians were employed either in mines or in the mine-related woodcutting industry (respectively about 400 and 800), both in the gold districts of Gwalia, Day Down, Coolgardie and Cue, and the forests of Karrawong and Lakeside. The remaining Italian workers were mainly involved in farming (250) and fishing (150).
This work pattern of Italians in Western Australia did not change much with the more consistent migration flow of the late 1920s and early 1930s. During these two decades, Italian migrants to Australia continued to come from the north and central mountain areas of Italy, thus following a pattern of 'temporary' migration that pushed them to look for jobs with potential quick remuneration, as mining and woodcutting could offer. Changes in such patterns, together with the Italian mass-migration program of the 1950s and 1960s, have already been examined. Hence, the different component of regional origin of Italians in Western Australia and, subsequently, since the late 1950s, a more composite geographical distribution of Italian migrants in both urban and rural areas of the state.

According to the latest Census figures, Italy-born migrants in Western Australia are now over 26,000, with a prevalence of those settled in the Perth Metropolitan Area, unlike the pre-war spatial distribution.

Characteristics

Demographics

Return migration

The early years

Italians in working society, 1890–1920

The growth of the Italian community, 1921–1945

The post-war mass migration to Australia, 1946–1970s

Geographical distribution of Italians in Australia

See also