The Italian Diaspora

The term Diaspora means a people who have been spread or been dispersed from their homeland (Oxford Dictionary)

The Italian Diaspora occurred in two phases. Phase one was from the 1800s to the 1920s. While phase two began in the 1940s and concluded in the 1970s.

When The Woman in Red first came out, I was often asked, “What inspired you to write about Italian history or more specifically, Anita Garibaldi?”

The answer was always the same, my family came to the United States in the early 1900s but the question of how they came to the United States soon changed to Why?

There is always a root cause for immigration, especially a mass immigration event such as the one Italians experienced. In the first wave, there was the Italian Unification which left thousands of Southern Italians without homes or means of being able to take care of themselves, and other countries such as The United States and Brazil had many opportunities for those who could escape. And while the immigration continued through WWI, the 1920s brought a wave of immigrant restrictions in the form of the Johnson-Reed Act of 1924. This act said that only two percent of each nationality could be allowed in the country and specifically excluded all Asians, Slavic, and Italian peoples. While parts of this act have been changed, it still shapes a lot of our current immigration laws. It wasn’t until the 1940s that parts of this act were changed allowing people to flee their home countries during and after WW2.

During this time of mass exodus from Italy, The United States was not the only one to receive a large number of Italian immigrants:

• Between 1880 and 1920, more than one million Italians immigrated to Brazil.

• 40% of Uruguans can trace their ancestry to Italy.

• Roughly 60,000 Italians immigrated to Peru between the late 1800’s to WW2.

• Between 1870 and 1960 two million Italians immigrated to Argentina.

These are just some of the statics for North and South America. Many Italians found their way to Australia, The UK, France, and Switzerland. And, as this article suggests, we are currently in the midst of another Italian diaspora.