Italian diaspora
Encyclopedia
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. The Italian diaspora concerned nearly 25 million Italians and it is considered the biggest mass migration of contemporary times.
Poverty was the main reason for the diaspora. Italy was until the 1950s a partially rural society where land management practices, especially in the South and North-East, did not easily convince farmers to stay on the land and work the soil.
Another characteristic was related to the overpopulation of southern Italy after the improvements of the socio-economic conditions, following the unification process. Indeed southern Italian families after 1861 started to have access (for the first time) to hospitals, improved hygienic conditions and normal food supply.
This created a demographic boom and forced the new generations to emigrate in mass at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century, mostly to the Americas. The emigration was minimal only when Fascism
moved to the Italian colonies
the excessive Italian population in order to colonize Libya
and the horn of Africa. After World War II the process started again in huge numbers, because of the destruction during the war of Italy and its economy.
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 court
s, as far as Russia. This migration, though generally small in numbers, and sometimes ephemeral, pre-dates the unification of Italian states.
.
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"; 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.
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.
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 north-east and most of them were from rural areas, driven off the land by inefficient land management, lawlessness and sickness (pellagra in the north-east and cholera in the south). Robert Foerster, in Italian Emigration of our Times (1919) 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.
The assumption that emigration from cities was negligible has an important exception, and that is the city of Naples. 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 beforethe 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.
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.
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. 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.
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. 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. 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.
s" went mostly to Austria, Belgium, France, West Germany
, Switzerland and Luxembourg.
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.
Italian immigration to Argentina
began in the 19th 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, therefore people was kin to emigrate, and presented with the choice, Italians might had found that a country with a name such as "Argentina" (the silvered one) could be a perfect place to start anew.
Brazil
is home to 25 million Italian Brazilian
s, 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. Nowadays, it's possible to find millions of descendants of Italians, from the southeastern state of Minas Gerais
to the southernmost state of Rio Grande do Sul
, with the majority living in São Paulo
and the highest percentage in the southeastern state of Espírito Santo
(60-75%). Small southern Brazilian towns, such as Nova Veneza
, have as much as 95% of their population of Italian descent.
The majority of Italians emigrated to Venezuela
after World War II. In the forties and fifties, more than 300,000 Italians came through the port of La Guaira, creating the largest "colony" European Venezuela. Initially many were sent to agricultural communities (like the "Colonia Turen" in Portuguesa
state), but most ended up working in trade and services industries major Venezuelan cities. The Italians arrived in Venezuela mainly from the poor regions of southern Italy (as Sicily
), but also from the industrialized north (as Emilia Romagna and Veneto
). The Italian Consulate in Caracas said in an official publication in 1977 - the 210.350 Italians who arrived in Venezuela
, 39.855 were from Sicily
, Campania
35.802, 20.808 Abruzzo
, Apulia
18.520, and also (of the industrialized North) came 8.953 Veneto
, Emilia-Romagna
7.650 and 6.184 Friuli-Venezia Giulia
. The Italians - according to the same source - were concentrated mainly in the north central region of Venezuela, near Caracas
and Valencia
. During the same year, 98,106 Italians living in the Federal District of Caracas, Miranda
State 39,508, 14,203 in Maracaibo
, 8.104 12,801 in Aragua and Carabobo
, and even had some 66 Italians in the Amazonas
Federal Territory. According to official data of Ministero degli Affari Esteri 124,133 Italians living in Venezuela, born in Italy. [1] With this figure, Venezuela
has the third largest Italian community in Latin America
, however, the descendants of Italians born in Italy, exceeded 900,000.
In Mexico, a sizable community can trace its origins back to 19th century Italian immigration to Mexico. Significant numbers of Italian settlers arriving in the late 19th century and early 20th century received land grants from the Mexican government. Towns founded by Italian immigrants lie in the states of Veracruz
(Huatusco, Gutierrez Zamora, etc.), San Luis Potosí
, Jalisco
, and Mexican D.F., among others. Places such as Chipilo
, Puebla
(founded by immigrants from the northern Italian region of Veneto
), and Nueva Italia, Michoacán
also contain large numbers of Mexicans of Italian descent. A Chipilo Venetian dialect
can be found amongst the descendants in Chipilo.
A substantial influx of Italian immigrants to Canada began in the early 20th century when over a hundred thousand Italians moved to Canada. 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
. Almost 1,000,000 Italians reside in Ontario. Making it a strong global representations of the Italian Dispora. Toronto holds a strong Italian Community, as well as Vaughan Ontario.
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, Chicago
, Cleveland, Detroit, Buffalo, NY, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, and New Orleans. Many Italian American
s still retain aspects of their culture
. In movies that deal with cultural issues, Italian American words and lingo are sometimes spoken by the characters. Although many do not speak Italian fluently, over 1 million speak Italian at home according to the 2000 US Census.
" went mostly to Austria, Belgium, France, West Germany
, Switzerland and Luxembourg.
Italian migration into what is today France has been going on, in different migrating cycles from the end of the 19th century to nowadays. In addition, Corsica
passed from the Republic of Genoa
to France 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
. 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
. Today, it is estimated that as many as 5 million French nationals
have Italian ancestry going back three generations.
In Switzerland, Italian immigrants (not to be confused with a large autochthonous population of Italophones in Ticino
and Grigioni) reached the country starting in the late 19th century, most of whom eventually came back to Italy after the rise of Italian Fascism
. Future Fascist leader Benito Mussolini
emigrated in Switzerland in 1902, only to be deported
after becoming involved in the socialist movement. A new migratory wave began after 1945, favoured by the lax immigration laws then in force.
(50,000 Italian settlers in 1935), Somalia
and Libya
(150,000 Italians settled in Libya, constituting about 18% of the total population). A significant portion of the pied-noir
community of French Algeria
was also of Italian descent, though much of this population naturalized as French citizens, and most migrated to France after Algerian independence.
Today, there are still some Italian descendants remnant in African nations since colonial days, although most returned to Italy or moved elsewhere after the second world war. There is a significant post-colonial immigrant community, however, in South Africa.
A photographic record of the migrant experience in Australia can be seen in a collection of images held at the National Museum of Australia
, created by Sicilian-born Carmello Mirabelli. Mirabelli arrived in Sydney on the ship Assimina in 1951. He worked as an itinerant seasonal fruit-picker and cane-cutter across Australia, taking photographs with a Zeiss Ikon Nettar camera to send to his mother to show what life was like in Australia.
refers to the migration of Calabria
ns between the unification of Italy in 1861 and the beginning of World War I in 1914, a second mass-migration in the interwar period
and the last period from 1945 until the 1980s.
Bedford
is home to one of the largest concentrations of Italian
immigrants in the United Kingdom
. According to a 2001 census, 2 in 7 (almost 30%) of Bedford's population are of at least partial Italian descent. This is mainly as a result of labour recruitment in the early 1950s by the London Brick Company in the southern Italian regions of Puglia, Campania
, Calabria
, Molise
, Abruzzo
and Sicily
.
traditionally most affected by emigration were today's provinces of Lucca
and Massa-Carrara
. Tuscans were among the first contemporary inhabitants of the Italian peninsula to emigrate in significant numbers: already in the second half the 17th century, lumberjacks, coalmen and farmers began to leave the Garfagnana
for Corsica
, while figurinai (figurine makers) left for France, England and Spain.
By the early 19th century, Tuscan figurinai could be found in every corner of the globe, being present in Düsseldorf
, Montreal
, New York City, Chicago
, Caracas
, Pernambuco
and even New Zealand.
Large-scale migrations for the new world only began in the 1880s. Most Tuscans worked abroad just for the time necessary to save enough money to buy landholdings back in Tuscany and marry. Mass-migrations from Tuscany largely ended after the Great Depression
, with the exception of a migratory wave towards Australia, which was however far smaller than the preceding ones.
Source:
n migratory flux was insignificant, never reaching more than 35-40 emigrants per year. Emigrated Umbrian men predominantly worked as miners, owing to the experience that many accumulated in the sector by working in the Lignite
mines near Spoleto
, and possibly from a cultural influence from the neighbouring regions of Marche
and Romagna
, who already had a tradition of working as miners abroad.
After World War I, the migratory flux resumed to the usual destinations (with the exception of Germany) from 1919 until the onset of the Great Depression
, without ever reaching the pre-1914 levels again. The Umbrian contribution to the Italian settlements in Africa was also modest.
Source:
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).
A preliminary census 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. The General Directorate of Statistics did not start compiling official emigration statistics until 1876. Accurate figures on the decades between 1870 and World War I show how emigration increased dramatically during that period:
Italian emigrants per 1,000 population
The high point of Italian emigration was 1913, when 872,598 persons left Italy.
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. Instead, because of emigration earlier in the century, there were only 54 million.
Diaspora
A diaspora is "the movement, migration, or scattering of people away from an established or ancestral homeland" or "people dispersed by whatever cause to more than one location", or "people settled far from their ancestral homelands".The word has come to refer to historical mass-dispersions of...
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. The Italian diaspora concerned nearly 25 million Italians and it is considered the biggest mass migration of contemporary times.
Poverty was the main reason for the diaspora. Italy was until the 1950s a partially rural society where land management practices, especially in the South and North-East, did not easily convince farmers to stay on the land and work the soil.
Another characteristic was related to the overpopulation of southern Italy after the improvements of the socio-economic conditions, following the unification process. Indeed southern Italian families after 1861 started to have access (for the first time) to hospitals, improved hygienic conditions and normal food supply.
This created a demographic boom and forced the new generations to emigrate in mass at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century, mostly to the Americas. The emigration was minimal only when Fascism
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
moved to the Italian colonies
Italian Empire
The Italian Empire was created after the Kingdom of Italy joined other European powers in establishing colonies overseas during the "scramble for Africa". Modern Italy as a unified state only existed from 1861. By this time France, Spain, Portugal, Britain, and the Netherlands, had already carved...
the excessive Italian population in order to colonize Libya
Libya
Libya is an African country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west....
and the horn of Africa. After World War II the process started again in huge numbers, because of the destruction during the war of Italy and its economy.
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 AgesMiddle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
created colonies in many areas around the Mediterranean sea, mainly in south-eastern Europe and the Levant
Levant
The Levant or ) is the geographic region and culture zone of the "eastern Mediterranean littoral between Anatolia and Egypt" . The Levant includes most of modern Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian territories, and sometimes parts of Turkey and Iraq, and corresponds roughly to the...
.
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
Flanders
Flanders is the community of the Flemings but also one of the institutions in Belgium, and a geographical region located in parts of present-day Belgium, France and the Netherlands. "Flanders" can also refer to the northern part of Belgium that contains Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp...
, Lyon
Lyon
Lyon , is a city in east-central France in the Rhône-Alpes region, situated between Paris and Marseille. Lyon is located at from Paris, from Marseille, from Geneva, from Turin, and from Barcelona. The residents of the city are called Lyonnais....
, 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 court
Royal court
Royal court, as distinguished from a court of law, may refer to:* The Royal Court , Timbaland's production company*Court , the household and entourage of a monarch or other ruler, the princely court...
s, 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
Between 1900 and World War I 9,000,000 Italians left, most from the south and most going to either North or South America. However, another source claims that most Italian emigrants were from Northern ItalyNorthern Italy
Northern Italy is a wide cultural, historical and geographical definition, without any administrative usage, used to indicate the northern part of the Italian state, also referred as Settentrione or Alta Italia...
.
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"; 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
Emergency Quota Act
The Emergency Quota Act, also known as the Emergency Immigration Act of 1921, the Immigration Restriction Act of 1921, the Per Centum Law, and the Johnson Quota Act restricted immigration into the United States...
and the Immigration Act of 1924
Immigration Act of 1924
The Immigration Act of 1924, or Johnson–Reed Act, including the National Origins Act, and Asian Exclusion Act , was a United States federal law that limited the annual number of immigrants who could be admitted from any country to 2% of the number of people from that country who were already...
. Restrictive legislation to limit emigration from Italy was introduced by the Fascist government of the 1920s and 30s.
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
Feudalism
Feudalism was a set of legal and military customs in medieval Europe that flourished between the 9th and 15th centuries, which, broadly defined, was a system for ordering society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour.Although derived from the...
, 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.
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 north-east and most of them were from rural areas, driven off the land by inefficient land management, lawlessness and sickness (pellagra in the north-east and cholera in the south). Robert Foerster, in Italian Emigration of our Times (1919) 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.
The assumption that emigration from cities was negligible has an important exception, and that is the city of Naples. 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
Risanamento
Risanamento is a name given to the large scale re-planning of Italian cities following unification. Particular examples are the Risanamento of Florence and Naples....
" (literally "making healthy again") a pursuit that lasted until the start of World War I.
During the first few years beforethe 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.
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.
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. 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.
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. 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. 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 workerGastarbeiter
Gastarbeiter is German for "guest worker." It refers to migrant workers who had moved to West Germany mainly in the 1960s and 70s, seeking work as part of a formal guest worker programme...
s" went mostly to Austria, Belgium, France, West Germany
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
, Switzerland and Luxembourg.
Italy is still suffering from a high rate of brain drain
Brain drain
Human capital flight, more commonly referred to as "brain drain", is the large-scale emigration of a large group of individuals with technical skills or knowledge. The reasons usually include two aspects which respectively come from countries and individuals...
because of little private research, poor state universities management and little incentives for researchers.
Americas
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
began in the 19th century, just after Argentina won its independence from Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
. There are many reasons explaining the Italian immigration to Argentina: Italy was enduring economic problems caused mainly by the unification of the Italian states
Italian unification
Italian unification was the political and social movement that agglomerated different states of the Italian peninsula into the single state of Italy in the 19th century...
into one nation, therefore people was kin to emigrate, and presented with the choice, Italians might had found that a country with a name such as "Argentina" (the silvered one) could be a perfect place to start anew.
Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
is home to 25 million Italian Brazilian
Italian Brazilian
-Italian immigration to Brazil:The Italian government claims there are 25 million Brazilians of Italian descent, which would be the largest population of Italian background outside of Italy itself. There are no actual surveys, or even verifiable calculations supporting such claims. According to...
s, 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
Coffee
Coffee is a brewed beverage with a dark,init brooo acidic flavor prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant, colloquially called coffee beans. The beans are found in coffee cherries, which grow on trees cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia,...
plantations, and Italian immigrants became a main source of manpower for its agriculture and industry. Nowadays, it's possible to find millions of descendants of Italians, from the southeastern state of Minas Gerais
Minas Gerais
Minas Gerais is one of the 26 states of Brazil, of which it is the second most populous, the third richest, and the fourth largest in area. Minas Gerais is the Brazilian state with the largest number of Presidents of Brazil, the current one, Dilma Rousseff, being one of them. The capital is the...
to the southernmost state of Rio Grande do Sul
Rio Grande do Sul
Rio Grande do Sul is the southernmost state in Brazil, and the state with the fifth highest Human Development Index in the country. In this state is located the southernmost city in the country, Chuí, on the border with Uruguay. In the region of Bento Gonçalves and Caxias do Sul, the largest wine...
, with the majority living in São Paulo
São Paulo
São Paulo is the largest city in Brazil, the largest city in the southern hemisphere and South America, and the world's seventh largest city by population. The metropolis is anchor to the São Paulo metropolitan area, ranked as the second-most populous metropolitan area in the Americas and among...
and the highest percentage in the southeastern state of Espírito Santo
Espírito Santo
Espírito Santo is one of the states of southeastern Brazil, often referred to by the abbreviation "ES". Its capital is Vitória and the largest city is Vila Velha. The name of the state means literally "holy spirit" after the Holy Ghost of Christianity...
(60-75%). Small southern Brazilian towns, such as Nova Veneza
Nova Veneza, Santa Catarina
Nova Veneza is a Brazilian town located in Santa Catarina, Southern Brazil. It has 12,703 inhabitants and was settled by Italian immigrants from Venice in 1891.People of Italian descent make up 95% of the population....
, have as much as 95% of their population of Italian descent.
The majority of Italians emigrated to Venezuela
Venezuela
Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...
after World War II. In the forties and fifties, more than 300,000 Italians came through the port of La Guaira, creating the largest "colony" European Venezuela. Initially many were sent to agricultural communities (like the "Colonia Turen" in Portuguesa
Portuguesa
Portuguesa, Portuguese for something which is Portuguese and Female, may refer to:*Portuguese language*A Portuguesa, the Portuguese national anthem*Portuguesa , a state of Venezuela...
state), but most ended up working in trade and services industries major Venezuelan cities. The Italians arrived in Venezuela mainly from the poor regions of southern Italy (as 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,...
), but also from the industrialized north (as Emilia Romagna and 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...
). The Italian Consulate in Caracas said in an official publication in 1977 - the 210.350 Italians who arrived in Venezuela
Venezuela
Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...
, 39.855 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,...
, Campania
Campania
Campania is a region in southern Italy. The region has a population of around 5.8 million people, making it the second-most-populous region of Italy; its total area of 13,590 km² makes it the most densely populated region in the country...
35.802, 20.808 Abruzzo
Abruzzo
Abruzzo is a region in Italy, its western border lying less than due east of Rome. Abruzzo borders the region of Marche to the north, Lazio to the west and south-west, Molise to the south-east, and the Adriatic Sea to the east...
, Apulia
Apulia
Apulia is a region in Southern Italy bordering the Adriatic Sea in the east, the Ionian Sea to the southeast, and the Strait of Òtranto and Gulf of Taranto in the south. Its most southern portion, known as Salento peninsula, forms a high heel on the "boot" of Italy. The region comprises , and...
18.520, and also (of the industrialized North) came 8.953 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...
, Emilia-Romagna
Emilia-Romagna
Emilia–Romagna is an administrative region of Northern Italy comprising the two historic regions of Emilia and Romagna. The capital is Bologna; it has an area of and about 4.4 million inhabitants....
7.650 and 6.184 Friuli-Venezia Giulia
Friuli-Venezia Giulia
Friuli–Venezia Giulia is one of the twenty regions of Italy, and one of five autonomous regions with special statute. The capital is Trieste. It has an area of 7,858 km² and about 1.2 million inhabitants. A natural opening to the sea for many Central European countries, the region is...
. The Italians - according to the same source - were concentrated mainly in the north central region of Venezuela, near Caracas
Caracas
Caracas , officially Santiago de León de Caracas, is the capital and largest city of Venezuela; natives or residents are known as Caraquenians in English . It is located in the northern part of the country, following the contours of the narrow Caracas Valley on the Venezuelan coastal mountain range...
and Valencia
Valencia, Venezuela
Valencia is the capital city of Carabobo State, and the third largest city of Venezuela.The city is an economic hub that contains Venezuela's top industries and manufacturing companies. The population of Valencia reached some 1.5 million in the year 2003, and it is expected to grow dramatically...
. During the same year, 98,106 Italians living in the Federal District of Caracas, Miranda
Miranda
-Places:Australia* Miranda, New South Wales, a community in Sutherland Shire, New South Wales* Miranda railway station, a railway station in Sutherland Shire, New South WalesBrazil* Miranda, Mato Grosso do Sul, a município in the State of Mato Grosso do Sul...
State 39,508, 14,203 in Maracaibo
Maracaibo
Maracaibo is a city and municipality located in northwestern Venezuela off the western coast of the Lake Maracaibo. It is the second-largest city in the country after the national capital Caracas and the capital of Zulia state...
, 8.104 12,801 in Aragua and Carabobo
Carabobo
Carabobo State is one of the 23 states of Venezuela, located in the north of the country, about two hours by car from Caracas. The capital city of this state is Valencia, which is also the country's main industrial center. The state's area is 4,650 km² and had an estimated population of...
, and even had some 66 Italians in the Amazonas
Amazonas (Venezuelan state)
Amazonas State is one of the 23 states into which Venezuela is divided.The state capital is Puerto Ayacucho. The capital until the early 1900s was San Fernando de Atabapo. Although named after the Amazon River, most of the state is drained by the Orinoco. Amazonas State covers a total surface...
Federal Territory. According to official data of Ministero degli Affari Esteri 124,133 Italians living in Venezuela, born in Italy. [1] With this figure, Venezuela
Venezuela
Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...
has the third largest Italian community in 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...
, however, the descendants of Italians born in Italy, exceeded 900,000.
In Mexico, a sizable community can trace its origins back to 19th century Italian immigration to Mexico. Significant numbers of Italian settlers arriving in the late 19th century and early 20th century received land grants from the Mexican government. Towns founded by Italian immigrants lie in the states of Veracruz
Veracruz
Veracruz, formally Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave , is one of the 31 states that, along with the Federal District, comprise the 32 federative entities of Mexico. It is divided in 212 municipalities and its capital city is...
(Huatusco, Gutierrez Zamora, etc.), San Luis Potosí
San Luis Potosí
San Luis Potosí officially Estado Libre y Soberano de San Luis Potosí is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 58 municipalities and its capital city is San Luis Potosí....
, Jalisco
Jalisco
Jalisco officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Jalisco is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is located in Western Mexico and divided in 125 municipalities and its capital city is Guadalajara.It is one of the more important states...
, and Mexican D.F., among others. Places such as Chipilo
Chipilo
Chipilo is a small city in the state of Puebla, Mexico. It is located twelve kilometers south of the state capital Puebla, Puebla, at a height of 2,150 meters above sea level. Its official name is Chipilo de Francisco Javier Mina...
, Puebla
Puebla
Puebla officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Puebla is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 217 municipalities and its capital city is Puebla....
(founded by immigrants from the northern Italian region of 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 Nueva Italia, Michoacán
Nueva Italia, Michoacán
Nueva Italia is a city in the state of Michoacán, is located in the so-called Tierra Caliente Michoacana.- History :The town was founded in the year 1909 by Italian Dante Cusi to become the leading producer of cotton rice melon and maize of all of Mexico because it introduced these arid and...
also contain large numbers of Mexicans of Italian descent. A Chipilo Venetian dialect
Chipilo Venetian dialect
Chipilo Venetian or Chipileño is a diaspora language currently spoken by the descendants of some five hundred Venetian 19th century immigrants to Mexico. The Venetians settled in the State of Puebla, founding the city of Chipilo...
can be found amongst the descendants in Chipilo.
A substantial influx of Italian immigrants to Canada began in the early 20th century when over a hundred thousand Italians moved to Canada. In the post-war years (1945-early 1970s) another influx of Italians emigrated to Canada, again from the south but also from 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 Friuli
Friuli
Friuli is an area of northeastern Italy with its own particular cultural and historical identity. It comprises the major part of the autonomous region Friuli-Venezia Giulia, i.e. the province of Udine, Pordenone, Gorizia, excluding Trieste...
and displaced Italians from Istria
Istrian exodus
The expression Istrian exodus or Istrian-Dalmatian exodus is used to indicate the departure of ethnic Italians from Istria, Rijeka, and Dalmatia , after World War II. At the time of the exodus, these territories were part of the SR Croatia and SR Slovenia , today they are parts of the Republics of...
. Almost 1,000,000 Italians reside in Ontario. Making it a strong global representations of the Italian Dispora. Toronto holds a strong Italian Community, as well as Vaughan Ontario.
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
New York metropolitan area
The New York metropolitan area, also known as Greater New York, or the Tri-State area, is the region that composes of New York City and the surrounding region...
, Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
, Philadelphia, Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, Cleveland, Detroit, Buffalo, NY, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, and New Orleans. Many Italian American
Italian American
An Italian American , is an American of Italian ancestry. The designation may also refer to someone possessing Italian and American dual citizenship...
s still retain aspects of their culture
Culture
Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...
. In movies that deal with cultural issues, Italian American words and lingo are sometimes spoken by the characters. Although many do not speak Italian fluently, over 1 million speak Italian at home according to the 2000 US Census.
Europe
In a wave of temporary Italian migration, from 1920 to the early 1970s (peaking in the periods of World War I and World War II), Italian "guest workersGastarbeiter
Gastarbeiter is German for "guest worker." It refers to migrant workers who had moved to West Germany mainly in the 1960s and 70s, seeking work as part of a formal guest worker programme...
" went mostly to Austria, Belgium, France, West Germany
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
, Switzerland and Luxembourg.
Italian migration into what is today France has been going on, in different migrating cycles from the end of the 19th century to nowadays. In addition, Corsica
Corsica
Corsica is an island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is located west of Italy, southeast of the French mainland, and north of the island of Sardinia....
passed from the Republic of Genoa
Republic of Genoa
The Most Serene Republic of Genoa |Ligurian]]: Repúbrica de Zêna) was an independent state from 1005 to 1797 in Liguria on the northwestern Italian coast, as well as Corsica from 1347 to 1768, and numerous other territories throughout the Mediterranean....
to France in 1770, and the area around Nice
Nice
Nice is the fifth most populous city in France, after Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Toulouse, with a population of 348,721 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Nice extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of more than 955,000 on an area of...
and Savoy
Savoy
Savoy is a region of France. It comprises roughly the territory of the Western Alps situated between Lake Geneva in the north and Monaco and the Mediterranean coast in the south....
from the Kingdom of Sardinia
Kingdom of Sardinia
The Kingdom of Sardinia consisted of the island of Sardinia first as a part of the Crown of Aragon and subsequently the Spanish Empire , and second as a part of the composite state of the House of Savoy . Its capital was originally Cagliari, in the south of the island, and later Turin, on the...
to France in 1860. Initially, Italian immigration to modern France (late 18th to the early 20th C.) came predominantly from northern Italy (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...
, 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...
), then from central Italy (Marche
Marche
The population density in the region is below the national average. In 2008, it was 161.5 inhabitants per km2, compared to the national figure of 198.8. It is highest in the province of Ancona , and lowest in the province of Macerata...
, Umbria
Umbria
Umbria is a region of modern central Italy. It is one of the smallest Italian regions and the only peninsular region that is landlocked.Its capital is Perugia.Assisi and Norcia are historical towns associated with St. Francis of Assisi, and St...
), mostly to the bordering southeastern region of Provence
Provence
Provence ; Provençal: Provença in classical norm or Prouvènço in Mistralian norm) is a region of south eastern France on the Mediterranean adjacent to Italy. It is part of the administrative région of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur...
. 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
Lorraine (région)
Lorraine is one of the 27 régions of France. The administrative region has two cities of equal importance, Metz and Nancy. Metz is considered to be the official capital since that is where the regional parliament is situated...
, Paris and Lyon
Lyon
Lyon , is a city in east-central France in the Rhône-Alpes region, situated between Paris and Marseille. Lyon is located at from Paris, from Marseille, from Geneva, from Turin, and from Barcelona. The residents of the city are called Lyonnais....
. Today, it is estimated that as many as 5 million French nationals
French people
The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...
have Italian ancestry going back three generations.
In Switzerland, Italian immigrants (not to be confused with a large autochthonous population of Italophones in Ticino
Ticino
Canton Ticino or Ticino is the southernmost canton of Switzerland. Named after the Ticino river, it is the only canton in which Italian is the sole official language...
and Grigioni) reached the country starting in the late 19th century, most of whom eventually came back to Italy after the rise of Italian Fascism
Italian Fascism
Italian Fascism also known as Fascism with a capital "F" refers to the original fascist ideology in Italy. This ideology is associated with the National Fascist Party which under Benito Mussolini ruled the Kingdom of Italy from 1922 until 1943, the Republican Fascist Party which ruled the Italian...
. Future Fascist leader 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....
emigrated in Switzerland in 1902, only to be deported
Deportation
Deportation means the expulsion of a person or group of people from a place or country. Today it often refers to the expulsion of foreign nationals whereas the expulsion of nationals is called banishment, exile, or penal transportation...
after becoming involved in the socialist movement. A new migratory wave began after 1945, favoured by the lax immigration laws then in force.
Africa
Italian communities once thrived in the former African colonies of EritreaEritrea
Eritrea , officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa. Eritrea derives it's name from the Greek word Erethria, meaning 'red land'. The capital is Asmara. It is bordered by Sudan in the west, Ethiopia in the south, and Djibouti in the southeast...
(50,000 Italian settlers in 1935), Somalia
Somalia
Somalia , officially the Somali Republic and formerly known as the Somali Democratic Republic under Socialist rule, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. Since the outbreak of the Somali Civil War in 1991 there has been no central government control over most of the country's territory...
and Libya
Libya
Libya is an African country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west....
(150,000 Italians settled in Libya, constituting about 18% of the total population). A significant portion of the pied-noir
Pied-noir
Pied-Noir , plural Pieds-Noirs, pronounced , is a term referring to French citizens of various origins who lived in French Algeria before independence....
community of French Algeria
Algeria
Algeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria , also formally referred to as the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of Northwest Africa with Algiers as its capital.In terms of land area, it is the largest country in Africa and the Arab...
was also of Italian descent, though much of this population naturalized as French citizens, and most migrated to France after Algerian independence.
Today, there are still some Italian descendants remnant in African nations since colonial days, although most returned to Italy or moved elsewhere after the second world war. There is a significant post-colonial immigrant community, however, in South Africa.
Oceania
Italians arrived in Australia most prominently in the decades immediately following the Second World War, and they and their descendants 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.A photographic record of the migrant experience in Australia can be seen in a collection of images held at the National Museum of Australia
National Museum of Australia
The National Museum of Australia was formally established by the National Museum of Australia Act 1980. The National Museum preserves and interprets Australia's social history, exploring the key issues, people and events that have shaped the nation....
, created by Sicilian-born Carmello Mirabelli. Mirabelli arrived in Sydney on the ship Assimina in 1951. He worked as an itinerant seasonal fruit-picker and cane-cutter across Australia, taking photographs with a Zeiss Ikon Nettar camera to send to his mother to show what life was like in Australia.
By region of origin
The immigration patterns of the Italian diaspora varied, sometimes radically, from a region of Italy to another. As with many other immigrant groups, Italians tended to emigrate along with or after relatives or friends, often emigrating by the hundreds from the same village for the same destination, which led to great divergences in the composition of the diaspora in different countries and also within the different regions of larger countries such as the United States.Calabria
The Calabrian diasporaCalabrian diaspora
The term Calabrian Diaspora refers to the migration of Calabrians away from Calabria in the period after the unification of Italy in 1876 and the beginning of World War I in 1914. The second period between both world wars and the last period after 1945 .-Numbers:For the first period of migration,...
refers to the migration of 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....
ns between the unification of Italy in 1861 and the beginning of World War I in 1914, a second mass-migration in the interwar period
Interwar period
Interwar period can refer to any period between two wars. The Interbellum is understood to be the period between the end of the Great War or First World War and the beginning of the Second World War in Europe....
and the last period from 1945 until the 1980s.
Bedford
Bedford
Bedford is the county town of Bedfordshire, in the East of England. It is a large town and the administrative centre for the wider Borough of Bedford. According to the former Bedfordshire County Council's estimates, the town had a population of 79,190 in mid 2005, with 19,720 in the adjacent town...
is home to one of the largest concentrations of Italian
Italian people
The Italian people are an ethnic group that share a common Italian culture, ancestry and speak the Italian language as a mother tongue. Within Italy, Italians are defined by citizenship, regardless of ancestry or country of residence , and are distinguished from people...
immigrants in 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...
. According to a 2001 census, 2 in 7 (almost 30%) of Bedford's population are of at least partial Italian descent. This is mainly as a result of labour recruitment in the early 1950s by the London Brick Company in the southern Italian regions of Puglia, Campania
Campania
Campania is a region in southern Italy. The region has a population of around 5.8 million people, making it the second-most-populous region of Italy; its total area of 13,590 km² makes it the most densely populated region in the country...
, 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....
, Molise
Molise
Molise is a region of Southern Italy, the second smallest of the regions. It was formerly part of the region of Abruzzi e Molise and now a separate entity...
, Abruzzo
Abruzzo
Abruzzo is a region in Italy, its western border lying less than due east of Rome. Abruzzo borders the region of Marche to the north, Lazio to the west and south-west, Molise to the south-east, and the Adriatic Sea to the east...
and 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,...
.
Tuscany
The areas of TuscanyTuscany
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 ....
traditionally most affected by emigration were today's provinces of Lucca
Province of Lucca
The Province of Lucca is a province in the Tuscany region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Lucca.It has an area of 1,773 km², and a total population of 372,244...
and Massa-Carrara
Province of Massa-Carrara
The Province of Massa and Carrara , until 2009 Province of Massa-Carrara, is a province in the Tuscany region of Italy. It is named after the two main towns in its territory: Carrara and Massa, its capital.-History:...
. Tuscans were among the first contemporary inhabitants of the Italian peninsula to emigrate in significant numbers: already in the second half the 17th century, lumberjacks, coalmen and farmers began to leave the Garfagnana
Garfagnana
Garfagnana is an historical region of Italy, today part of the province of Lucca in the Apennines, in northwest Tuscany, but before the unification of Italy it belonged to the Duchy of Modena and Reggio, ruled by the Este family. For a short time, in the 16th century, it was governed by the poet...
for Corsica
Corsica
Corsica is an island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is located west of Italy, southeast of the French mainland, and north of the island of Sardinia....
, while figurinai (figurine makers) left for France, England and Spain.
By the early 19th century, Tuscan figurinai could be found in every corner of the globe, being present in Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf is the capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and centre of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region.Düsseldorf is an important international business and financial centre and renowned for its fashion and trade fairs. Located centrally within the European Megalopolis, the...
, Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
, New York City, Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, Caracas
Caracas
Caracas , officially Santiago de León de Caracas, is the capital and largest city of Venezuela; natives or residents are known as Caraquenians in English . It is located in the northern part of the country, following the contours of the narrow Caracas Valley on the Venezuelan coastal mountain range...
, Pernambuco
Pernambuco
Pernambuco is a state of Brazil, located in the Northeast region of the country. To the north are the states of Paraíba and Ceará, to the west is Piauí, to the south are Alagoas and Bahia, and to the east is the Atlantic Ocean. There are about of beaches, some of the most beautiful in the...
and even New Zealand.
Large-scale migrations for the new world only began in the 1880s. Most Tuscans worked abroad just for the time necessary to save enough money to buy landholdings back in Tuscany and marry. Mass-migrations from Tuscany largely ended after the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
, with the exception of a migratory wave towards Australia, which was however far smaller than the preceding ones.
| Country | Regional destinations | Cities and towns with high concentrations | Emigrants | Time frame | Notes | References |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Corsica |
Bastia Bastia Bastia is a commune in the Haute-Corse department of France located in the northeast of the island of Corsica at the base of Cap Corse. It is also the second-largest city in Corsica after Ajaccio and the capital of the department.... , rural areas |
2,500 by 1760; over 10,000 by the 1870s |
1650s–1870s | Mostly seasonal agricultural workers | ASEI | |
| Provence Provence Provence ; Provençal: Provença in classical norm or Prouvènço in Mistralian norm) is a region of south eastern France on the Mediterranean adjacent to Italy. It is part of the administrative région of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur... |
second half of the 19th century | young men, also young women of peasant origin, who worked as nannies | ASEI | |||
 Brazil |
South, Southeast | São Paulo São Paulo São Paulo is the largest city in Brazil, the largest city in the southern hemisphere and South America, and the world's seventh largest city by population. The metropolis is anchor to the São Paulo metropolitan area, ranked as the second-most populous metropolitan area in the Americas and among... |
1880–1898 | farmers in the coffee plantations in Brazil's interior, a 1898 crisis in coffee prices forced many back to Tuscany | ASEI | |
| Northern California Northern California Northern California is the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. The San Francisco Bay Area , and Sacramento as well as its metropolitan area are the main population centers... |
San Francisco and neighbouring rural areas | 1860s - 1920s | In San Francisco, agricultural commerce, transport and sale of fruit and vegetables. | ASEI | ||
| Philadelphia and Chicago metropolitan areas | Tuscans worked in many economic sectors in every part of the country, from Montana Montana Montana is a state in the Western United States. The western third of Montana contains numerous mountain ranges. Smaller, "island ranges" are found in the central third of the state, for a total of 77 named ranges of the Rocky Mountains. This geographical fact is reflected in the state's name,... to the Panama Canal Zone Panama Canal Zone The Panama Canal Zone was a unorganized U.S. territory located within the Republic of Panama, consisting of the Panama Canal and an area generally extending 5 miles on each side of the centerline, but excluding Panama City and Colón, which otherwise would have been partly within the limits of... |
Source:
Umbria
Before the 20th century, the UmbriaUmbria
Umbria is a region of modern central Italy. It is one of the smallest Italian regions and the only peninsular region that is landlocked.Its capital is Perugia.Assisi and Norcia are historical towns associated with St. Francis of Assisi, and St...
n migratory flux was insignificant, never reaching more than 35-40 emigrants per year. Emigrated Umbrian men predominantly worked as miners, owing to the experience that many accumulated in the sector by working in the Lignite
Lignite
Lignite, often referred to as brown coal, or Rosebud coal by Northern Pacific Railroad,is a soft brown fuel with characteristics that put it somewhere between coal and peat...
mines near Spoleto
Spoleto
Spoleto is an ancient city in the Italian province of Perugia in east central Umbria on a foothill of the Apennines. It is S. of Trevi, N. of Terni, SE of Perugia; SE of Florence; and N of Rome.-History:...
, and possibly from a cultural influence from the neighbouring regions of Marche
Marche
The population density in the region is below the national average. In 2008, it was 161.5 inhabitants per km2, compared to the national figure of 198.8. It is highest in the province of Ancona , and lowest in the province of Macerata...
and Romagna
Romagna
Romagna is an Italian historical region that approximately corresponds to the south-eastern portion of present-day Emilia-Romagna. Traditionally, it is limited by the Apennines to the south-west, the Adriatic to the east, and the rivers Reno and Sillaro to the north and west...
, who already had a tradition of working as miners abroad.
After World War I, the migratory flux resumed to the usual destinations (with the exception of Germany) from 1919 until the onset of the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
, without ever reaching the pre-1914 levels again. The Umbrian contribution to the Italian settlements in Africa was also modest.
| Country | Regional destinations | Cities and towns with high concentrations | Emigrants (1900–1914) | Emigrants (per year) | Notes | References |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| North-Eastern Pennsylvania Pennsylvania The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to... |
Jessup Jessup, Pennsylvania Jessup is a borough in Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 4,676 at the 2010 census.-Geography:Jessup is located at .... , Old Forge Old Forge, Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania Old Forge is a borough in Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 8,313 at the 2010 census.-Geography:Old Forge is located at . The borough has a total area of 3.5 square miles which is all land..-History:The history of Old Forge can be traced back to the creation of... , Pittston, Reading Reading, Pennsylvania Reading is a city in southeastern Pennsylvania, USA, and seat of Berks County. Reading is the principal city of the Greater Reading Area and had a population of 88,082 as of the 2010 census, making it the fifth most populated city in the state after Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Allentown and Erie,... and its suburbs |
over 30,000 | The most popular destination for Umbrians immigrating to the US, who mostly worked as miners | ASEI | ||
| Michigan Michigan Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake".... and Minnesota Minnesota Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state... |
Iron Mountain Iron Mountain, Michigan Iron Mountain is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 8,154. It is the county seat of Dickinson County, in the state's Upper Peninsula.... , Hibbing, Chisholm Chisholm, Minnesota As of the census of 2000, there were 4,960 people, 2,178 households, and 1,287 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,129 people per square mile . There were 2,375 housing units at an average density of 540/sq mi... , Virginia Virginia, Minnesota As of the census of 2000, there were 9,157 people, 4,333 households, and 2,270 families residing in the city. The population density was 486.1 people per square mile . There were 4,692 housing units at an average density of 249.1 per square mile... , Eveleth |
Mostly working in iron mines | ASEI | |||
| Côte d'Azur, Alpes Maritimes | 37.000 | 2,000-3,000 | Migrations began in the 1870s, mostly seasonal agricultural workers from the Upper Tiber Valley; also tourist sector (working in hotels, cafés); women worked as nannies | ASEI | ||
| Meurthe-et-Moselle Meurthe-et-Moselle Meurthe-et-Moselle is a department in the Lorraine region of France, named after the Meurthe and Moselle rivers.- History :Meurthe-et-Moselle was created in 1871 at the end of the Franco-Prussian War from the parts of the former departments of Moselle and Meurthe which remained French... |
Longwy Longwy Longwy is a commune in the Meurthe-et-Moselle department in north-eastern France.The inhabitants are known as Longoviciens.-Economy:Longwy has historically been an industrial center of the Lorraine iron mining district. The town is known for its artistic glazed pottery.-History:Longwy initially... , Villerupt Villerupt Villerupt is a commune in the Meurthe-et-Moselle department in north-eastern France.... |
Iron mines, steelworks | ||||
 Germany |
Bavaria Bavaria Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany... , Baden Baden Baden is a historical state on the east bank of the Rhine in the southwest of Germany, now the western part of the Baden-Württemberg of Germany.... |
32,000 | bricklayers, manual labourers, nannies | ASEI | ||
| Lorraine Alsace-Lorraine The Imperial Territory of Alsace-Lorraine was a territory created by the German Empire in 1871 after it annexed most of Alsace and the Moselle region of Lorraine following its victory in the Franco-Prussian War. The Alsatian part lay in the Rhine Valley on the west bank of the Rhine River and east... , Rhineland Rhineland Historically, the Rhinelands refers to a loosely-defined region embracing the land on either bank of the River Rhine in central Europe.... , Westphalia Westphalia Westphalia is a region in Germany, centred on the cities of Arnsberg, Bielefeld, Dortmund, Minden and Münster.Westphalia is roughly the region between the rivers Rhine and Weser, located north and south of the Ruhr River. No exact definition of borders can be given, because the name "Westphalia"... , Ruhr Ruhr The Ruhr is a medium-size river in western Germany , a right tributary of the Rhine.-Description:The source of the Ruhr is near the town of Winterberg in the mountainous Sauerland region, at an elevation of approximately 2,200 feet... |
Mostly miners (miners predominantly came from the Gubbio Gubbio Gubbio is a town and comune in the far northeastern part of the Italian province of Perugia . It is located on the lowest slope of Mt. Ingino, a small mountain of the Apennines. See also Mount Ingino Christmas Tree.-History:... –Gualdo Tadino Gualdo Tadino Gualdo Tadino, an ancient town of Italy, in the province of Perugia in northeastern Umbria, on the lower flanks of Mt. Penna, a mountain of the Apennines. It is 47 km NE of Perugia and 30 km SE of Gubbio.... Apennine), also steel workers |
ASEI | ||||
| Basel Basel Basel or Basle In the national languages of Switzerland the city is also known as Bâle , Basilea and Basilea is Switzerland's third most populous city with about 166,000 inhabitants. Located where the Swiss, French and German borders meet, Basel also has suburbs in France and Germany... , Arbon Arbon Arbon may refer to:* Arbon, Haute-Garonne, French commune* Arbon, Switzerland* Arbon , in Switzerland* Arbon Valley, Idaho... , St. Gallen St. Gallen St. Gallen is the capital of the canton of St. Gallen in Switzerland. It evolved from the hermitage of Saint Gall, founded in the 7th century. Today, it is a large urban agglomeration and represents the center of eastern Switzerland. The town mainly relies on the service sector for its economic... , Rorschach |
27,000 | Bricklayers, agricultural workers, also women aged 14–20 from Perugia Perugia Perugia is the capital city of the region of Umbria in central Italy, near the River Tiber, and the capital of the province of Perugia. The city is located about north of Rome. It covers a high hilltop and part of the valleys around the area.... and the Trasimeno region, who worked in the textile and manufacturing industries |
ASEI |
Source:
Emigration, 1870-1914
After 1890, Italian contribution to the emigration flow to the New worldNew World
The New World is one of the names used for the Western Hemisphere, specifically America and sometimes Oceania . The term originated in the late 15th century, when America had been recently discovered by European explorers, expanding the geographical horizon of the people of the European middle...
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).
A preliminary census 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. The General Directorate of Statistics did not start compiling official emigration statistics until 1876. Accurate figures on the decades between 1870 and World War I show how emigration increased dramatically during that period:
Italian emigrants per 1,000 population
- 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.
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. Instead, because of emigration earlier in the century, there were only 54 million.
Italian ancestry by country
| Country | Population (% of country) | References |
|---|---|---|
 Argentines of Italian descentItalian Argentine An Italian Argentine is a person born in Argentina of Italian ancestry. It is estimated up to 25 million Argentines have some degree of Italian descent... |
20,000,000 (~50%) | |
 Australians of Italian descent |
850,000 (4%) | |
 Belgians of Italian descent |
250,000 (~2,5%) | |
| Brazilians of Italian descent Italian Brazilian -Italian immigration to Brazil:The Italian government claims there are 25 million Brazilians of Italian descent, which would be the largest population of Italian background outside of Italy itself. There are no actual surveys, or even verifiable calculations supporting such claims. According to... |
25,000,000 (15%) | |
 Canadian people of Italian descent |
1,500,000 (~4.5%) | |
 Chileans of Italian descent |
150,000 | |
 Italian FrenchItalians in 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. In addition, Corsica passed from the Republic of Genoa to France in 1770, and the area around Nice and Savoy from the Kingdom of... |
5,000,000 (~9%) | |
 Peruvian people of Italian descentItalian Peruvian An Italian Peruvian is a Peruvian citizen of Italian descent. The phrase may refer to someone born in Peru of Italian descent or to someone who has immigrated to Peru from Italy... |
860,000 (<3%) | |
 Venezuelans of Italian descent |
1,000,000 (~3,5%) | http://www.ambcaracas.esteri.it/Ambasciata_Caracas/Menu/I_rapporti_bilaterali/Cooperazione_politica/Storia/ |
 Uruguayans of Italian descentItalian settlement in Uruguay An Italian Uruguayan is an Uruguayan citizen of full or partial Italian ancestry. Almost half of the population is of Italian origin or has some degree of Italian descent... |
1,000,000 (~29%) | |
 Americans of Italian descentItalian American An Italian American , is an American of Italian ancestry. The designation may also refer to someone possessing Italian and American dual citizenship... |
17,800,000 (~6%) |
Italian ancestry by regions in Brazil
| Brazilians of Italian descent by states or regions as of 2000 estimatives | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Region | State | Total population (millions) | Italian Brazilians | ||||||
| Population (millions) | Percentage | ||||||||
| Southeastern | São Paulo São Paulo (state) São Paulo is a state in Brazil. It is the major industrial and economic powerhouse of the Brazilian economy. Named after Saint Paul, São Paulo has the largest population, industrial complex, and economic production in the country. It is the richest state in Brazil... |
33.1 | 9.9 | 29.9% | |||||
| Espírito Santo Espírito Santo Espírito Santo is one of the states of southeastern Brazil, often referred to by the abbreviation "ES". Its capital is Vitória and the largest city is Vila Velha. The name of the state means literally "holy spirit" after the Holy Ghost of Christianity... |
2.6 | 1.7 | 65.4% | ||||||
| Minas Gerais Minas Gerais Minas Gerais is one of the 26 states of Brazil, of which it is the second most populous, the third richest, and the fourth largest in area. Minas Gerais is the Brazilian state with the largest number of Presidents of Brazil, the current one, Dilma Rousseff, being one of them. The capital is the... |
15.8 | 1.3 | 8.2% | ||||||
| Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro (state) Rio de Janeiro is one of the 27 states of Brazil.Rio de Janeiro has the second largest economy of Brazil behind only São Paulo state.The state of Rio de Janeiro is located within the Brazilian geopolitical region classified as the Southeast... |
14.1 | 0.60 | 4.3% | ||||||
| Southern | Paraná Paraná (state) Paraná is one of the states of Brazil, located in the South of the country, bordered on the north by São Paulo state, on the east by the Atlantic Ocean, on the south by Santa Catarina state and the Misiones Province of Argentina, and on the west by Mato Grosso do Sul and the republic of Paraguay,... |
9.4 | 3.7 | 39.4% | |||||
| Rio Grande do Sul Rio Grande do Sul Rio Grande do Sul is the southernmost state in Brazil, and the state with the fifth highest Human Development Index in the country. In this state is located the southernmost city in the country, Chuí, on the border with Uruguay. In the region of Bento Gonçalves and Caxias do Sul, the largest wine... |
9.5 | 2.1 | 22.1% | ||||||
| Santa Catarina Santa Catarina (state) Santa Catarina is a state in southern Brazil with one of the highest standards of living in Latin America. Its capital is Florianópolis, which mostly lies on the Santa Catarina Island. Neighbouring states are Rio Grande do Sul to the south and Paraná to the north. It is bounded on the east by... |
4.5 | 2.7 | 60.0% | ||||||
| Northern Brazil | All | 8.9 | 1.0 | 11.2% | |||||
| Central-western | All | 10.4 | 0.40 | 3.8% | |||||
| Northeastern | All | 42.8 | 0.15 | 0.4% | |||||
| Total in Brazil | 151.1 | 23.6 | 15.6% | ||||||
External links
biancas darty- Italian Diaspora
- Reassessing what we collect website–Italian London History of Italian London with objects and images
- National Museum of Australia Possessions, photographs and equipment owned by Carmelo Mirabelli, an Italian migrant in Australia in the 1950s