Migration, Immigration, and all these potential catchy titles I could use to make money over a polemic

 The italian migration in France, Ciao Italia 

Hi Charlie, I hope you are doing well. Long time no see, but to my defense some other projects took me time like the school’s social sciences workshop…. (yes I know you feel betrayed, I am sorry ˆˆ/ ) This year’s theme was about migrations, so to learn a bit more on this wide topic, we invited some experts to share with us their knowledge and experience. This is how Mr Stephane Mourlane (teacher-researcher at Aix-Marseille University) gave a very interesting conference entitled Ciao Italia about the italian diaspora in France. Not only is the topic itself extremely interesting but it gave us an insight on today’s migrations. If I were to make a thesis statement  (yes I know, OIB conditioned me..) it would be something like : We will see how the italian migration can be considered as the figurehead of mass migrations as it presents a certain number of patterns that are still used in today’s waves of migrations. 

So first of all, we have to remember that the Italian migration in France was a mass migration, until 1968 Italians were the most numerous foreigners in our country. However today in France, the Italian migration tends to be forgotten or idealized. This is why Mr Mourlane started his conference on a point that seems really important to me : in reality this mass migration did not take place as easily as we think. 

For example, Mr Mourlane mentioned the incident of the “Aigues-Mortes” : during the Great Depression, French and Italian workers confronted each other because the first ones thought that migrants were stealing their jobs. This event was a turning point in the French perception of immigrants, the press now sees them as something problematic and catchphrases such as “protest against the invasion of Italians who made our constituency a suburb of Naples” appear on the posters of socialist and far right wing parties. The Italians faced stereotypes like the seductive or knife handler man and sobriquets such as “macaroni”. Even if they were catholics, their different way to practice religion has also been a source of critiques, all the more that Italians were really observant in an already secularised environment.

A second important point for me to make is the fact immigrants come to the host country in order to work. During his presentation, Stephane Mourlane mentioned that 42% of Italians in France were working in the industry, 18% in building and 12% of them were working in agriculture and replaced French people in the countryside at a time of rural to urban migrations. Like for each migratory wave, Italian immigrants accepted to do the hardest and lowest paid tasks all the more that they generally were men of working age. They were used as workforce for projects such as the Canal of Marseille. Nevertheless women migrated as well and not only in order to accompany men. At Grasse, where available jobs were in the perfume industry, workers often were Italian women. In wealthy households of the South of France, it wasn’t rare to find a Piedmontese nanny or governess. 

Once settled in France, Italians often gather to maintain a link with their origin country. Under Mussolini, facist Italy wants to rally to their cause the diaspora, using propaganda like “the 10 commandments of the Italian abroad” or thanks to places such as the Casa d’Italia of Marseille where political meetings as well as Italian classes for kids used to take place. Thus, such as Alfredo Binda, an Italian of Nice who made his sports career in Italy, some Italians turn to their origin country. However, in France a huge cultural transfer takes place : pasta, pizza and others are now part of French popular culture. 

Mr Mourlane ends the conference quoting the song “Paese” of a rapper of Italian origin called Akhénaton (slightly famous, all the more in Marseille ;)) where he pays tribute to his origins. Thanks to this example, he highlights a certain ‘model’ of the relationship to origins : 

• the first generation is strongly imbued with the culture of the origin country but keeps low profile

• the second generation buries these differences 

• the third generation returns to their origins and claims them

This scheme allows Stephane Mourlane to make a parallel between the Italian migration with the other migration waves France witnessed the following years. When we compare the inscription “halt to the Arab invasion” tagged on a wall of Marseille in 1972, and the political posters mentioning “the Italian encroachment” 70 years before, we understand that immigration of any kind can be seen as a process that always involves the same mechanisms that repeat themselves as new waves of immigration arrive. 

Once we have understood that, we can wonder about the so-called “migrant crisis” that we have been hearing about over and over the last decade. First of all, the observation we can make about the Canal of Marseille being built by Italians or Germany opening its doors in 2014 to more than 1 million of refugees because of a low birth rate, is that immigration always brings something to the host country. Secondly, the Italian migration in France that is today considered a success was a lot more important than the migration flows France and (Europe more generally) have been witnessing the last decade. We can thus question the expression “migrant crisis” and -to quote Mr Mourlane once again- replace it with “hospitality crisis”.

That's all for me, I hope you enjoyed this article that was quite long I have to admit ˆˆ/.

I personally LOVED writing it even if it isn't the kind of articles I am used to publish.

Take care of yourselves, don't forget to revise for your exams (instead of reding my article for exemple) and good luck!

Your devoted ILRDM