Migration

Vastesi Migration to Australia

This paper is based on the above documentary. It was delivered at the Royal West Australian Historical Society in 2013.

Vastesi_Migration_RWAHS

Migrant Monument Perth 2007

Italian Migration in the world

The ships depart for distant lands, suitcases full of dreams and nostalgia

By Beniamino Fiore

Since the years after national unification migration to foreign lands represent an important phenomenon tied to the changing demographic, economic & social events of the kingdom. The phenomenon was caused by the survival of the individuals and the families, which became a problem from the drastic reduction in employment opportunities due to the disequilibrium between the demographic growth and the economic development.

In the last decades of the 19^th century Italy finds itself still in the first phase of the demographic transition process: that of declining mortality rates and a continuation of the birth rate, with the consequent natural increase in the population. At the same time changes in the productive structures and in particular the changes of the technologies in the agricultural and industrial sectors created a disequilibrium in the productive sectors, social classes and territorial areas, which caused the disappearance of old professions and an excess of labourers.

The numbers involved were very substantial. The estimates between 1876, when the statistics were begun officially, and 1976 over 24 million people left our national territory. Within this long period there were obviously significant variations. The period when it reached a maximum was between the last decades of the 19^th century and the WW I (with almost 14 million departures).

Migrants newly arrived in Naples, first stage of the long journey to the Americas

Migrant Family Taken by Lewis Hine 1905

Concerning the destination of the migration movements, between 1876 and 1885 the main destination was central Europe (around 64% of the total migrants). The main countries were France, Switzerland, and to a lesser degree Austria-Hungary and Germany. From 1885 until 1920 a greater number went overseas, above all to Argentina, Brazil and the USA.

The emigration was not an even distribution from all over Italy, rather over time there were variations from different areas and various numbers. From a timing point of view it was from the regions of northern Italy that showed the greatest interest in migration.

Towards the end of the 19^th century, by now it had become a mass migration, were influenced by two factors: the creation of a new demand for labourers from the Americas, which was the pulling factor, and the revolution in maritime transport due to the introduction of steamships, which brought about a substantial reduction in time and cost of the voyages.

On the 26th January 1902 the weekly “La Domenica Del Corriere” published some correspondence from the capital of Argentina which described the fate of many Italians who landed in that distant place. One reads, amongst other things: “Every ship that arrives in Buenos Aires unloads onto the wharves of Port Madeiro thousands of Italians, almost all peasants hallucinated by the mirage of America who do not know where it is nor what it is.

Family arriving in New York early 1900s

America for them is a lottery: they play putting their life at stake! The number of new arrivals is published next to the ship’s load, as though it was about import goods.” 

What happens after the disembarkation? There is more on “La Domenica”: “As soon as foot is set on the soil, the poor travellers go to the so called “”Hotel de Immigrantes” which rises on a muddy strip of land between the turbid Rio de la Plata and the city. The hotel is packed. The work of spreading all these people in the whole country happens very quickly. Next to the refuge for the migrants there is “Oficina de Trabajo” which receives requests for workers and distributes the jobs; the migrants with families are taken on site at the expenses of the state”.

It seems a very good thing, but, the correspondent of “La Domenica” points out: “Theoretically the organisation is good, but its function is often inhuman. The jobs for which labourers are needed often are only temporary; when its finished the workers are sacked; these miserable people are left without resources in the middle of an unknown country, alone, unheard and ignored. And they cannot go back; the migrant can travel free on all the lines of the republic, but only in one direction, always forward, towards the outskirts.

Argentina needs to decentralise the population. The law is wise, but pitiless. Arriving inland the hopeful migrants are practically prisoners in the country”.

Between 1901 and 1902 the big flood of our migrants begin to move towards the United States.

The race to embark becomes breathless. There are those that sell, those that make debt, even those that rob, to keep happy the exorbitant demands of the wheelers and dealers (illegal for fifteen years, but still in existence) that beat the countryside to engage migrants: thirty dollars, and then departure. The law number 23 of 31st January 1901 tried to regulate the flow and created a Commissioner General of emigration. But there is need of other things. Hunger is hunger, and by all means, in all manners people flock the wharves to compete for the right to find bread in some other part of the world. Eighty eight percent of those leaving is made up of men (from 14 to 45 years of age), only twelve percent females. These are figures that show the desperation of migration.

Advertising poster “La Veloce”

Ellis Island – “The island of hope” and also “The island of despair”

The slave drivers of the shipping companies make golden deal. They stack men like stock, up to the bridges and the holds, a full boatload can bring sixty thousand dollars, ands after three weeks or a month they let the dumbfounded human flocks onto the wharves along the Hudson River. The worst was yet to come. Big barges loaded the men again, ferried them across the bay, and unloaded them on Ellis Island. On this big rock was erected the anti chamber of the USA. The emigrants are divided in groups of thirty, to each one a small card was given with a name, a letter and a number. Here begins the long wait, made of fear, of hope, of anxieties. In long columns, the men are made to file past two wings of doctors. From a summary visit could depend the destiny of a life. The health officer have a chalk in their hand, often someone writes some signs on the men’s clothing. Mysterious signs, that only a few, in that great mass, for the most part illiterate and no English whatsoever, manage to interpret: CT stands for trachoma, H for heart, G for goitre, PG for pregnant. If the diagnosis was confirmed, very often the bitter compulsory repatriation followed. Statistics say that around 15% of the migrants were affected by some disease.

Ellis Island – Medical checks

With $17 in their pocket (the average value attributed to each migrant) 170,000 Italians leave for the conquest of America. It’s a miserable beginning. The “little bosses” are waiting in ambush, for a mouthful of bread they engage for themselves the newcomers and make them work in desperate conditions, assuring them a miserable abode and just enough food to survive. And yet, despite this introduction, many manage to save money: 300 million lire flow annually to Italy. The history of our migration to the United States, from the beginning of last century, cannot forget all this. One can understand then the tendency of the Italians to flock to the ghettos, their solidarity as poor people (that sometimes lead to a criminal mafia conspiracy), and above all the inextinguishable nostalgia of a generation who could not adapt to this new country.