“My Good Italian Friends”: Vida Scudder and Boston's Circolo Italo-Americano

The Circolo Italo-Americano, a Progressive-era group of educated Italian immigrants and affluent Bostonians, was founded by settlement movement pioneer Vida Dutton Scudder to integrate Italians into American life through “friendly personal contacts,” social events, and educational opportunities. The Circolo included Italian leadership and focused on immigrants’ contributions, not on “assimilation.”

BRAZIL AND THE SECOND WORLD WAR: CIVIC DEMONSTRATIONS AND NATIONALIZATION

Background: During World War II (1939 - 1945), the National Defense League organized, in Porto Alegre, a series of commemorations with the objective of civic exaltation and patriotic mobilization. Aim: This work aimed to analyze civic solemnities of the week of the fatherland, highlighting how a campaign of patriotic exaltation was carried out, in addition to the mobilization for the nationalization of German and Italian immigrants and the acculturation of their children, the so-called coloninhos. Methods: Analysis of a work edited by the National Defense League, called Activities of 1943. Analysis of the mobilization of society around civic commemorations, organized by the National Defense League. Analysis of the speeches made by the state interventor at the time, General Cordeiro de Farias. Results and Discussion: The National Defense League made an intense mobilization of Brazilian society around the patriotic celebrations in the week of the Fatherland (September 1st to 7th), in 1943, when the Getúlio Vargas government was preparing troops to fight in Europe alongside the Allies and against the Axis countries during World War II. The images, photos, and speeches given at the festivities were edited and later published in a book. In Porto Alegre, there was a campaign for the population to participate in the celebrations actively. Parades were also held in Porto Alegre with children, sons, and daughters of German and Italian immigrants. Furthermore, the Defense League spoke about the acculturation of the children of immigrants (coloninhos), as they supposedly could become spies for enemy countries. Despite Brazil being under the dictatorial government of the Estado Novo, clearly fascist inspired and inaugurated by Getúlio Vargas in 1937, the Defense League defended that it was a democratic and receptive government. Conclusions: Due to the actions of the Defense League, it was necessary that it actively participate in activities, that it was willing to fight against Brazil s enemies. It would also be necessary to nationalize and acculturate the children of German and Italian immigrants, to demonstrate that Brazil was open to receiving them.

Photography and the Concept of Return: A Personal View

As a photographer of the immigrant experience, the yearning for return to a homeland has been a central theme of my research. In this paper, I explore both my personal and collective experience of displacement and uprooting (Not Paved with Gold), the annual return to Canada of temporary migrant farm workers from Mexico and the Caribbean (Harvest Pilgrims), and the metaphorical return of Italian immigrants to a spiritual homeland through the annual re-enactment of the Via Crucis on the streets of Toronto’s Little Italy (Ritual). The paper poses the question of whether the immigrant, having abandoned his homeland, can truly return to it.

Nostos and Nineteenth-Century Italian-Canadian Immigration: Mapping the Earliest Latin Quarters

In this article, I examine the formation of the first Latin Quarter in London (ON) at the end of the nineteenth century, and thus at the dawn of modernity. I analyse how these first (mostly Southern) Italian immigrants attempted to soothe their need for a sense of belonging, how they negotiated their collective nostos and, concomitantly, how they dealt with the palpable nostalgia for a return to their Mediterranean homeland.

Physical Activity Levels and Perceived Changes in the Context of Intra-EEA Migration: A Study on Italian Immigrants in Norway

As mobility within the European Economic Area (EEA) is on the rise, it is important to understand migrants' health-related behaviors (such as physical activity [PA]) within this context. This study investigated i) the extent to which Italian immigrants in Norway perceive that moving had a negative or positive impact on their PA; ii) possible differences between the PA of the Italian immigrants compared with the Norwegian population; and iii) possible associations of the Italian immigrants' PA with key sociodemographic characteristics (gender, age, region of residence, and educational level). The data were retrieved from the Mens Sana in Corpore Sano study. In order to enhance the sample's representativeness, the original dataset (n = 321) was oversampled in accordance with the proportion of key sociodemographic characteristics of the reference population using the ADASYN method (resampled n = 531). The results indicate that a large majority of Italian immigrants perceived that they were as or even more physically active in Norway than they would have been if they continued living in Italy, while 20% of the Italians perceived instead a negative impact. No significant differences were found in the PA levels of the Italians in comparison with the Norwegian population, though some differences were found in relation to specific modes of PA. After controlling for multiple sociodemographic characteristics, men, those with lower educational levels and, to a certain extent, older adults tended to perceive a more negative impact and be less physically active than their respective counterparts. Compared with those living in the most urbanized regions, a larger proportion of those living in less urbanized regions perceived a negative impact, though no differences were observed in terms of PA levels. The findings are discussed in light of acculturation, gender, and social gradient. The knowledge generated by this study sheds light on an important health-related behavior among Italians in Norway, which can inform initiatives that aim at promoting PA in this specific group as well as other similar contexts of intra-EEA migration.

Southern (American) Hospitality: Italians in Argentina and the US during the Age of Mass Migration

Argentina and the US were the principal destinations for Italian immigrants during the Age of Mass Migration. I assemble data following Italians from passenger lists to censuses in Argentina and the US, enabling me to compare the economic outcomes of migrants with similar pre-migration characteristics but who moved to different countries. Italians assimilated faster in Argentina, and this advantage was unlikely to be due to selection. A higher human capital relative to natives and the Italian-Spanish similarity largely explain Italians’ advantage in Argentina. These findings highlight the importance of the fit between migrants’ characteristics and those of the receiving country.

107 Days and Counting...

It has been roughly six months since my family and I started our quarantine in João Pessoa, Brazil, and to this day we are still at home trying to avoid physical proximity with people from outside. As Italian immigrants (proudly not “expats”) in Latin America, we experienced two main phases of the Covid-19 global crisis: in March and April, with shock and despair, we were following the daily death bulletins coming from Italy; from May onwards, the progressive easing of the situation in Italy coincided with the escalation of contagions and deaths in Brazil. In this essay, written from one of the current epicentres of the pandemic, I draw upon Achille Mbembe and Denise Ferreira da Silva in order to reflect both on the necropolitical governmental machine that literary seems to extract pleasure from this sustained tragedy, and on the self-destructive colonial logic that inscribes the ongoing trivialisation of deaths in Brazil. I discuss the self-inflicted racialised logic that makes such a reasonment possible and diffused, as well as the multiple layers of whiteness and privilege that permit the naturalisation and oblivion of these deaths both from internal (Euro-descendant) and external points of view. I conclude the essay by making reference to my track 107 jorna (107 days), written on the last 1 July (and to be premiered online by the Glasgow-based Lights Out Listening Group), where I combine Sicilian speech and electronic noise in order to articulate my own astonishment, impatience and indignation with the current situation.