The history of emigration in Italy is a rather complex discussion. Some of the reasons include the attitudes of foreign countries towards this location, the conflict between three different perspectives and the state of the country. Moreover, America’s changing perspective on immigrants, including the ones from Italy, has had a great influence on the latter’s policies, as it encouraged a shift in different people’s attitudes.
Many various reasons explain Italian emigration during the beginning of the 20th century. The main ones were poverty, unemployment and diseases (Cometti,1958). Emigrants valued the US for its then easy immigration policies. Unfortunately, the situation started deteriorating, as the American government involved a literacy test for newcomers (Cometti, 1958). Given the fact that most of the people who failed it were Italian, it was seen as a gesture of discrimination. The worst move, however, was the Immigration act of 1924, which banned most Italians from entering the country. This resulted in a shift in Italian various emigration policies.
There were three main attitudes towards immigration: the liberal, the democratic and the nationalist one. The former two were rather similar as they interpreted emigration as a way of easing the burden on the country (Cunsolo, 1993). The nationalist attitude was in favor of restoring the country and interpreting emigration as “demographic colonialism”. The latter would actively respond to America’s discriminative policies and worker exploitation as well.
Due to the similarity in attitudes towards emigration, the liberals and the democrats would cooperate by creating various policies. Unfortunately, they proved to be rather ineffective, as they had two problems. The first was them being rather unrealistic due to the harsh reality of poverty and unemployment in the country (Cunsolo, 1993). The second was lack of valuable knowledge, for example, that rehabilitating the South would be rather ineffective, as it lacked the modern culture required for it. Thus, in spite of good intentions, they further deteriorated Italy’s problems.
The article “Italian Emigration”, although expressing support towards the immigrants’ desire to accept any kind of labor, depicts a set of concerns as well. Not only does it depict concerns about the crime groups from the country, including the Black Hand; and their reluctance to assimilate, it notes a special phenomenon. Although emigrants were sending a lot of money to their relatives at home, the depopulated countries suffered immensely (Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, 1910). Emigration has lead to fewer recruits and the deterioration of agriculture in depopulated areas. This means that the emigration caused more harm than good.
Works Cited
Cometti, Elizabeth. “Trends in Italian emigration.” Western Political Quarterly 11.4 (1958): 820-834.
Cunsolo, Ronald S. “Italian Emigration and Its Effect on the Rise of Nationalism.” Italian Americana 12.1 (1993): 62-72.
“ITALIAN EMIGRATION.”Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, vol. 58, no. 3009, 1910, pp. 814–15. JSTOR.