The Cultures Of Italian Migration

The Cultures of Italian Migration allows the adjective "Italian" to qualify people's movements along diverse trajectories and temporal dimensions. Discussions on migrations to and from Italy meet in that discursive space where critical concepts like"home," "identity," "subjectivity," and "otherness" eschew stereotyping. This volume demonstrates that interpretations of old migrations are necessary in order to talk about contemporary Italy. New migrations trace new non linear paths in the definitionof a multicultural Italy whose roots are unmistakably present throughout the centuries. Some of these essays concentrate on topics that are historically long-term, such as emigration from Italy to the Americas and southern Pacific Ocean. Others focus on the more contemporary phenomena of immigration to Italy from other parts of the world, including Africa. This collection ultimately offers an invitation to seek out new and different modes of analyzing the migratory act.

In terms of migration, Italy is often thought of as a source country - a place from which people came rather than one to which people go. However, in the past few decades, Italy has indeed become a destination for many people from poor or war-torn countries seeking a better life in a stable environment. Graziella Parati's Migration Italy examines immigration to Italy in the past twenty years, and explores the processes of cultural hybridization that have occurred. Working from a cultural studies viewpoint, Parati constructs a theoretical framework for discussing Italy as a country of immigration. She gives special attention to immigrant literature, positing that it functions as an act of resistance, a means to talk back to the laws that regulate the lives of migrants. Parati also examines Italian cinema, demonstrating how native and non-native filmmakers alike create parallels between old and new migrations, complicating the definitions of sameness and difference. These definitions and the complexities inherent in the different cultural, legal, and political positions of Italy's people are at the heart of Migration Italy, a unique work of immense importance for understanding society in both modern-day Italy and, indeed, the entire European continent.

This second volume of New Italian Migrations to the United States explores the evolution of art and cultural expressions created by and about Italian immigrants and their descendants since 1945. The essays range from an Italian-language radio program that broadcast intimate messages from family members in Italy to the role of immigrant cookbook writers in crafting a fashionable Italian food culture. Other works look at how exoticized actresses like Sophia Loren and Pier Angeli helped shape a glamorous Italian style out of images of desperate postwar poverty; overlooked forms of brain drain; the connections between countries old and new in the works of Michigan self-taught artist Silvio Barile; and folk revival performer Alessandra Belloni's reinterpretation of tarantella dance and music for Italian American women. In the Afterword, Anthony Julian Tamburri discusses the nomenclature ascribed to Italian American creative writers living in Italy and the United States.

The history of Italian culture stems from multiple experiences of mobility and migration, which have produced a range of narratives, inside and outside Italy. This collection interrogates the dynamic nature of Italian identity and culture, focussing on the concepts and practices of mobility, memory and translation. It adopts a transnational perspective, offering a fresh approach to the study of Italy and of Modern Languages.

The Italian mass migration from Italy happened during a period of political and economic upheaval. Many Italian immigrants faced isolation, discrimination, and fear as they worked to learn English and assimilate to their new home. Despite such obstacles, they also created neighborhoods that continued their cultural traditions as they worked to adapt. Readers will learn why Italian immigrants left Italy, where they settled in America once they arrived, and how they became one of the most influential cultures on American society. The story of Italian immigration comes alive in this volume written by someone whose family endured it.

This edited collection explores the notion of Italianness - or Italianità – through migration history. It focuses on the interaction between Italians circulating around the world, and their relationship with Italy from a political and cultural perspective. Answering the important question of how migration affects Italianness, the authors explore the ways in which migrants retained their Italian culture, customs and practices during and after their travels. Spanning a long period from the Risorgimento up until the 1960s, the book sheds light on the institutions and social structures that contributed to the construction of cultural links between Italian migrants and their country of origin. Not only broad in its temporal scope, the volume covers a wide geographic area, examining the lives of Italian migrants in North America, South America, Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. Bringing together a wealth of research on Italians, alongside the different migratory routes taken by these men and women, this book provides new insights into Italian culture and seeks to strengthen our understanding of Italian migration history.