Embarking on a new world!
- katharinaaronis
- Oct 5
- 4 min read
...was the reality for around 20 million Italians who left their homeland for good over the past 150 years. I was confronted with the topic of emigration quite quickly in Calabria. Many of the people I met had already emigrated and returned, had grown up abroad themselves, or had family members all over the world. So I began to wonder how long this phenomenon of emigration had existed — and quickly discovered that, at the beginning, it wasn’t just a problem of southern Italy.
Indeed, this phenomenon is referred to as the Italian mass emigration, which can be divided into three phases: the Great Emigration (1876–1915), the European Emigration (1945–1970), and the current wave, which is driving away a particularly large number of young Italians.In this article, I would like to focus specifically on the first wave of emigration, and in future articles, I will attempt to cover the other two phases as well.
To understand what drove so many people to emigrate, one must first understand how the Italian state was structured at the end of the 19th century.Until 1861, Italy was divided into the Kingdom of Sardinia in the north, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in the south, and various duchies (see my article about the Two Sicilies here: https://www.leduecalabrie.com/en/post/in-naples-the-former-capital-of-the-kingdom-of-the-two-sicilies).When the Kingdom of Italy was founded in 1861, the country had just emerged from a bloody war waged from north to south, aimed at uniting the various kingdoms under one crown.Despite their diversity, all regions of Italy had one thing in common: They were shaped by agriculture. 50% of the gross domestic product and around 60% of the male workforce came from the agricultural sector.
When the Great Depression of 1873 gripped all of Europe, Italy was not spared.Due to the Industrial Revolution, grain prices on global markets dropped so drastically that Italy could no longer compete. This hit the north of the country hardest at first, as grain was primarily grown there.Unlike the south, which was still organized along feudal lines, northern Italy had many small-scale farmers who couldn’t keep up with world market prices. The result was mass unemployment.The situation worsened when the Italian government introduced import tariffs on foreign goods in an effort to protect domestic production — a move that only deepened the downward spiral.Relations with France, which had been a major importer of products from southern Italy, deteriorated due to the tariffs. As a result, it became increasingly difficult to export wine, olives, and citrus fruits, which were traditionally grown in southern Italy, because these were now also subject to tariffs.The consequence was a significant increase in emigration from southern Italy.At first, the feudal system in the south had been able to absorb much of the rural labor force, but now, workers saw no other way to improve their precarious situation than to leave the country.
But where to?Countries most open to immigration at the time included Argentina, Brazil, and the United States — all vast, sparsely populated nations experiencing economic growth and in desperate need of labor. Argentina and Brazil even offered immigrants a piece of land and often covered the cost of the journey to the New World, which typically began in Naples or Genoa and lasted about 2–3 weeks to South America or 10–14 days to the United States. Once they arrived at their destination, many Italians in the United States found work in mines, railroad construction, factories, or as craftsmen, while in Brazil they were often employed on coffee plantations, and in Argentina in agriculture.
The traces of Italian emigration can still be clearly felt in Argentina today.The linguistic similarities between Italian and Argentinian Spanish were certainly a factor that facilitated the integration of Italian immigrants.Even today, Argentinian Spanish carries many influences from Italian vocabulary, and even from Italian dialects — and its pronunciation remains notably reminiscent of Italian.
One can still get a sense of the era of immigration waves in Buenos Aires, for example, in the city’s famous port district La Boca.The many colorful houses were once the first shelters for thousands of migrants from all over the world who lived here under poor and crowded conditions.Out of necessity, people used leftover ship paint to color the wooden and tin shacks — and this gave rise to the distinctive look of La Boca that we see today (see photos above). An absolutely worth-seeing neighborhood in an absolutely worth-seeing city!
The “Hotel de Inmigrantes” at Puerto Madero in Buenos Aires — once a hotel where immigrants could stay for five days free of charge — is now a museum that commemorates the era of mass immigration from around the world.The hotel was organized like a small city, offering everything newcomers might need: a hospital, a bank, a post office, and even an employment agency. This agency not only helped place workers but also taught them practical skills they might not have had, making it easier to find work — for example, how to operate agricultural machinery.What I find especially interesting is that there was also a translation office and a library, where new arrivals could begin to familiarize themselves with their new homeland at their own pace.
What Italian traces around the world do you know?Have you ever been to Little Italy in New York or to Argentina?Do you have Italian ancestors who emigrated?
Feel free to leave your comments or write to me!I would love to hear more about your stories!
I also find the CISEI — International Center for Studies on Italian Emigration very interesting. Here, you can learn more about emigration, but also search for specific names and find details such as the time of emigration, age, place of birth, and the name of the ship the emigrants traveled on: http://www.ciseionline.it/2012/index.asp
Comments