Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
CHAPTER
6
Who Gets to Be Italian?
Black Life Worlds and White Spatial Imaginaries
HEATHER MERRILL
From 1876 to the early 1980s, approximately 26 million Italians principally from the
south and northeast emigrated to industrialized parts of Europe, the United States, and
other parts of the globe where they frequently encountered a version of racism. This is
poignantlyportrayedinthe1974film,
Bread and Chocolate
inwhichFrancoBrusatiuses
humor to tell the painful story of an Italian guest worker who colors his hair blonde in
a desperate attempt to be treated with respect as he seeks to build a life in Switzerland.
In European spatial imaginaries, Italians have frequently been perceived as of a differ-
ent shade of whiteness, closer to the Global South. Until recently seen predominantly as
transgressors inother parts ofEurope, Italian migrants were excluded fromthe privileges
of whiteness associated with the Western and Northern European captains of modernity.
However, Northern Italian political and corporate leaders have long sought alliances and
cultural identifications with Europe. The Italian public and elites alike were among the
most enthusiastic supporters of European integration and have been regarded as the most
Europhile in Europe.
1
In the 1990s, Italy transformed from a country of immigrant export to a key immigrant
destination for people from Africa, Latin America, Central, and Eastern Europe. Since
1990 the shift in Italian demographics has been spectacular. There has been a fourteen-
foldincrease intheforeignresidentpopulationfromroughly330,000in1990toalmost5
million in 2011 (ISTAT n.d.) representing some 7.5 percent of the population, not includ-
ing the undocumented (Bonifazi et al. 2009). The bodies of immigrants are not evenly
distributed, with 87 percent residing in the densely populated northern and central indus-
trialized zones of the country (Contini 2011). This includes the north and northeastern
regions, home to the Northern League, a populist central-right, anti-immigrant, and fre-
quentlyanti-SouthernItalianpolitical party.AlthoughthePiedmontprovince,whoseseat
is in Turin has historically been center-left, it has not been unaffected by the Northern
