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We are old, Chevalley, very old. For over twenty-five centuries we’ve been bearing the weight of superb and heterogeneous civilizations, all from outside, none made by ourselves, none that we could call our own. We’re as white as you are, Chevalley, and as the Queen of England; and yet for two thousand five hundred years we’ve been a colony. I don’t say that in complaint; it’s our fault. But even so we’re worn out and exhausted. (145) —Giuseppe di Lampedusa, The Leopard In this passage from Lampedusa’s classic Italian novel, the Prince tries to explain to the Chevalley (the representative of Garibaldi’s new government of a unified Italy) something of the character of Sicilians and by extension southern Italians in general. The description is useful here for two reasons: first, because it provides a capsule history of colonialism in southern Italy and its impact on the collective consciousness of southern Italians; and secondly, because it points us toward important but uncertain issues of how writing by and about Italian immigrants to Canada figures into the question “Is Canada postcolonial?” One way to approach the question is to reframe it in the context of immigrant writing and to ask: How is Canada postcolonial for immigrants whose experiences of colonialism may be quite distinct and varied? This essay discusses the trilogy of novels by Nino Ricci as one example of contemporary Canadian fiction that examines shifting notions of exile and the cultural identity1 of one of Canada’s largest ethnic minorities. Ricci’s characters, Italians and Italian-Canadians, carry the baggage of Notes are on page 267. 252 J I M Z U C C H E R O What’s Immigration Got to Do with It? Postcolonialism and Shifting Notions of Exile in Nino Ricci’s ItalianCanadians their cultural and colonial past into an uncertain and open-ended future in Canada; they are, like all immigrants, required to refashion themselves , to create viable new identities out of their cultural heritage in the context of their new surroundings. Theories of hybridity and ambivalence emerging out of current postcolonial studies provide useful models and methods for examining the liminal features of their immigrant experience, and for rethinking Canadian narratives of immigration by reorienting us to ideas about diaspora, cultural identity and cultural belonging.2 Furthermore, analysis of these texts contributes to the discussion of postcolonialism in Canada because they help us move beyond the particularist/universalist gap in fresh ways. I will argue that in Ricci’s novels sexual transgression, in the form of adultery and incest, functions metaphorically as well as literally. These transgressions reflect the shifting orientation of individuals to authority, the reversal of patterns of domination, and the prospect of reconciling the influence of the past with the possibilities of the future. Ricci’s novels contribute to current discussions about identity politics, multiculturalism as a strategy of containment, and the problems of binaristic construction of margin/centre and universal/particularist debates in postcolonial theory. One of the major functions of postcolonial theory is to help us examine the translatability of culture across borders. These borders are not only national but also linguistic, cultural, religious, and ethnic. Any response to the question “Is Canada postcolonial?” must be qualified, contextual, and relative. The specific conditions relating to immigration by Italians, most of them from the south of Italy, to Canada during various waves of migration over the twentieth century, form the backdrop against which Italian-Canadian writing has evolved and against which the question of Canadian postcoloniality must be measured here. While conditions in Canada may have seemed agreeable to most Italian immigrants, still the discrepancy between the ideal fostered through official government policies of multiculturalism and the realities of their social struggles (with language acquisition and prejudice , for example) must have resulted in some measure of dissonance and for many a feeling of living in exile. Eva Hoffman, in her essay “Wanderers by Choice” suggests: “In recent years, great shifts in the political and social landscape have affected the very notion of exile. Cross-cultural movement has become the norm, which means that leaving one’s Native country is not as dramatic or traumatic as it used to be” (46-47). While Hoffman’s notion of our shifting concept of exile may be valid, it does not follow that because cross-cultural movement What’s Immigration Got to Do with It? 253 [3.142.197.198] Project MUSE (2024-04-25 09...

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