Unlikely Connections: Italy's Cultural Formations between Home and the Diaspora
- Unlikely Connections:Italy's Cultural Formations between Home and the Diaspora1
Clarissa Clo is writing her dissertation, "Italy in the World and the World in Italy: Tracing Alternative Cultural Trajectories," at the Literature Department of the University of California, San Diego. She is the author of several forthcoming articles, including an essay in Studies in Literature on Ama Ata Aidoo's Our Sister Killjoy and an essay in a volume edited by Robert Cancel and Winifred Woodhull on the film "The Battle of Algiers."
Teresa Fiore received her PhD from the Literature Department of the University of California, San Diego in June 2002, with a dissertation titled "Preoccupied Spaces: Re-configuring the Italian Nation through Its Migrations." She will begin teaching next year at California State University, Long Beach. She is the author of two book reviews.
Notes
1. We sincerely thank Professor Rosemary Marangoly George of the Department of Literature at the University of California, San Diego, for her encouragement and advice throughout the project. We would also like to express our gratitude to Khachig Tölölyan for giving us the opportunity to "scatter" our ideas in the journal he edits, and for providing precious suggestions during the writing process. Finally, we are very grateful to Donna Gabaccia, Graziella Parati, and Pasquale Verdicchio for their inspiring work.
A section of this article has previously appeared in two different versions written by Teresa Fiore: a review essay about Parati's Mediterranean Crossroads entitled "Mediterranean Voices in the Revised Italian Canon," Forum Italicum 34.2 (Fall 2000): 556-561; and "Diasporic Crossroads: 'Italian' Transnational Migrations and the Redefinition of the Nation"/ "Crocevia della diaspora: Come le migrazioni transnazionali hanno contribuito alla ridefinizione dell'Italia come Nazione," included in Leggendaria: Libri, Letture, Linguaggi 23 (Settembre 2000): Special issue on Women's Studies. 17-19.
2. In Italian, internal migrants are called "emigrati," that is, people who left their region of origin (usually the South, but also some depressed areas of the North) and went to work and live elsewhere in Italy. The same term is used, as in English, for people who migrated outside national borders.
3. See for instance, Balbo and Manconi; Cesarani and Fulbrook; Dal Lago, Macioti and Pugliese; and Martinetti,Jesus, and Genovese.
4. See for instance, Aihwa Ong's article "The Gender and Labor Politics of Postmodernity," in Lowe and Lloyd 61-97.
5. Important publications in this endeavor are Allen and Russo; Forgacs and Lumley; and Matteo.
6. Nativist sentiments produced several forms of restrictions in the US: particularly rigid immigrant quotas were introduced between the 1910s and 1920s. Yet, already in 1899, the US applied different listings for Northern and Southern Italians as if they belonged to two separate races (Gabaccia 132), thus echoing theories of racial difference previously articulated by Italian scholars.
7. The "secret story" is the metaphor referring to the measures applied by the American government against Italian-Americans during World War II. The curator of the historical research based on this experience, Lawrence Di Stasi, aided by several witnesses and collaborators, has gathered precious material for a unique traveling exhibit that "brings together details about the WWII restrictions, evacuation, and internment of Italian-Americans on the homefront" (Di Stasi, jacket, Italian Americans). An expanded collection of essays on this experience is now available as well.
8. This legacy is retraceable in the maintenance of institutions and associations dating back to the fascist regime (Casa d'Italia, Dante Alighieri), but also in the current rekindling of state interest in the Italian communities abroad as potential repositories of political votes (see the recent institution of the Ministry of Italians Abroad in 2001, and the Right-wing parties campaigning in the US as revealed by Franzina, 26).
9. For a useful discussion of...
