February 16 2016 Italian Immigration: From Shore to Shore

From Shore to Shore

February 16: Italian Immigration Dr. Franco Gallippi

Italy: Where Romance Meets RealityBloor Hot Docs Italian Lecture 4

February 16 2016: ITALIAN IMMIGRATION

February 16: Italian Immigration: From Shore to ShoreUsing cinema and literature, this talk examines the immigrant experience of yesterday and today. Films such as Pane e Cioccolata (Bread and Chocolate) by Franco Brusati, and Lamerica by Gianni Amelio raise important questions about current events. Where Italy was once a place you escaped from, setting off to achieve a better life in the New World, it is now a destination for migrants and refugees.

Chapter 11: Italian Cinema in the 1980s

Chapter 12: The Italian Cinema Enters the Third Millennium

Peter Bondanella, Italian Cinema: From Neorealism to the Present (New York: Continuum, 2008).

Image related to the immigrant experience: Janus (jā-nus) = gate; (janua) doorway

In origin a numen of bridges, of going forth and returning. Viewed as presiding over beginnings of all kinds; the first month of the year was named after him. In the Roman Forum, a gate without a building: opened when at war, closed at peace.

universalheretic.wordpress.com

The Immigrant experience: Janus (jā-nus) = gate, numen of bridges

• The Roman god of thresholds, of entrances and exits, of beginnings and endings (sowing and reaping). An embodiment of duality.

• He sees ahead and behind, and is associated with wisdom for his ability to see the past and the future.

• The “head of Janus” in some cultures represents the double-edged sword or the knife that “cuts both ways”: the ambiguous, the combination of positive and negative qualities of a situation or an action (Tresidder 258; Biedermann 189).

JHUMPA LAHIRI in “Teach Yourself Italian.” The New Yorker. 7 Dec 2015 Issue.

“In this period I feel like a divided person. My writing is nothing but a reaction, a response to reading. In other words, a kind of dialogue. The two things are closely bound, interdependent. Now, however, I write in one language and read exclusively in another. I am about to finish a novel, so I’m necessarily immersed in the text. It’s impossible to abandon English. Yet my stronger language already seems behind me.I think of two-faced Janus. Two faces that look at the past and the future at once. The ancient god of the threshold, of beginnings and endings. He represents a moment of transition. He watches over gates, over doors, a god who is only Roman, who protects the city. A remarkable image that I am about to meet everywhere.”

Suggested viewing: Island of Hope, Island of Tears (1989) Charles Guggenheim

Island of Hope, Island of Tears is a fascinating look at Ellis Island, the entry point of millions of European immigrants from 1892-1954. This fascinating film tells the moving story of families with dreams of opportunity, leaving their homes with only what they could carry with them so they could start a new and hopefully better life in the United States. This film was directed by Charles Guggenheim and won several awards, including:

CINE - Golden Eagle Award 1990Columbus International Film and Video Festival - Chris Award 1990Earthwatch Institute Film Award - 1991National Educational Film & Video Festival - Bronze Apple 1991

Watch online at:https://archive.org/details/gov.ntis.ava15996vnb1

https://www.thehistoricalarchive.com/articles/island-of-hope.html https://archive.org/details/gov.ntis.ava15996vnb1

https://archive.org/details/gov.ntis.ava15996vnb1



Suggested reading: Island of Hope, Island of Tears (1979) David M. Brownstone, Irene M.

Franck

Between 1892 and the early 1950s, nearly 15 million people streamed through Ellis Island in search of a new life. Here are the stories of those extraordinary immigrants, largely in their own poignant words. Coming primarily from Southern and Eastern Europe, and from widely diverse backgrounds, the émigrés represented in this remarkable volume recount their adventures with dignity, wit, and unflagging honesty.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/399354.Island_of_Hope_Island_of_Tears

CLIP 1 – Nuovomondo (Golden Door 2006) E. Crialese Nuovomondo (Golden Door, 2006) by Emanuele Crialese: Scene 10 (min 1:18:42 – 1:22:40) and Scene 11 (1:29:00 – 1:32:05).

My comments:Read article by A. O. Scott, “Those Tired, Those Poor: A Journey as Important as its Destination.” It is a good overview of the films main themes:• Crialese’s emphasis is on departure and transition, rather than arrival.• The film’s English title comes from the Emma Lazarus poem about the Statue

of Liberty, but the lady in the harbour, like the rest of America (apart from Ellis Island), remains unseen as the director takes us up to the door but not through it.

• The Italian title “Nuovomondo,” means “new world,” but is a bit misleading – it is the OLD WORLD that dominates this chronicle of Italian peasants – the modern viewer is immersed in a way of perceiving the world that has nearly been forgotten.

• THE DECISION TO LEAVE: Salvatore and his son scramble up a mountain with a stone in their mouth, laying down at the shrine of a saint whose supernatural counsel they seek.

• THE MARRIAGE MARKET – mail-order brides: where bachelors who have established themselves in America off themselves – and legal status – to women from back home.

• LUCY (LUCE) PETERS (Charlotte Gainsbourg): stands in striking contrast to the rough rusticity and superstition of Salvatore’s mother Donna Fortunata, who in the OLD WORLD is the town seer and healer. LUCY is the future: the emancipated woman of America.

Nuovomondo (Golden Door 2006) Emanuele Crialese

THE AMERICAN DREAM: After seeing the postcards from America, Salvatore begins having hallucinations.

The American Dream

The American Dream

The American Dream

LO STACCO DALLA TERRA (DETACHMENT)

As the ship separates from land there is no music or dialogue. The viewer hears only the sounds of the ship slowly moving away from the dock.

The silence is broken with the ship’s horn. The camera suddenly shifts to the people on the ship. A piece of Italy has been severed from its source.

Psychological and physical tests: A Modern Vision

Arranging differently shaped blocks in a rectangular tray.




Salvatore does not even attempt to fit the blocks into the tray. He makes a house and a fence for hanging laundry or a fenced area for keeping animals.



Luce asks about the testing. The answer is that science has “proven that lack of intelligence is genetically inherited and it is contagious, in a way.” They are trying to prevent the low average people from mixing with American citizens.


Luce cannot believe what she just heard. Her response is completely ironic: “What a modern vision!” Meaning that the new world is not necessarily superior to the old world in terms of intelligence and vision.

The Marriage Market

Rosa and Rita are mail-order brides preparing to meet their future husbands.

The Marriage Market

The Marriage Market

The Marriage Market

Rita has no choice but to accept her new husband.

The Marriage Market

The Marriage Market

Rosa protests but then she also accepts her new husband.

The Marriage Market

Luce and Salvatore represent something other than what we see with Rita and Rosa. With them there was a courtship and Luce decides to marry Salvatore (a note of romance).

The Marriage Market

Luce is the only one of the women we see smile.

CLIP 2 – Pane e cioccolata (Bread and Chocolate 1973) F. Brusati

Bread and Chocolate (1974) by Franco Brusati: 1:24:00 – 1:29:50 and 1:33:00 – 1:36:30.

My comments:

One of the questions I ask after watching this film is the following: “What is the difference between Nino and the other Italian immigrants we meet in the barracks and the unforgettable chicken coop sequence?” It seems to me that Nino represents those subtleties that sometimes get lost or put aside in general discussions on the hardships of immigration. I think Pane e cioccolata forces us to ask the question concerning material wealth and whether it is the only thing that an immigrant seeks in a foreign land. Nino’s “blond” hair is essentially a statement about what it means to be human and how important it is for us to feel that we belong to a community. There is that famous saying attributed to Jesus: “Man does not live of bread alone.” I think Brusati’s film makes a similar statement and therefore attempts to explore what it is that man lives of beyond bread, and certainly the “chocolate” raises several questions: is “bread” enough for Nino? Is the “chocolate” a sign that there is more to consider?

Chapter 9: Politics and Ideology in the Contemporary Italian Cinema (318-346).

(Pane e cioccolata, 1973)

Peter Bondanella, Italian Cinema: From Neorealism to the Present

(New York: Continuum, 2008).

Pane e cioccolata (Franco Brusati, 1973)

Perhaps the most brilliant comedy of the period. Largely ignored in Italy until it received rave reviews at film festivals around the world (329-30).

www.flickr.com/.../in/set-72157594562058166/ cinemascope85.wordpress.com/.../

First Sequence: Juxtaposition.

Garofoli breaks all the rules of polite Swiss society: he instinctively litters and then on second thought he picks up the wrapping of his “panino” and throws it in the garbage can next to him.

First Sequence: Bread and Chocolate.

Eating bread and chocolate: why bread and chocolate? What meaning can we attribute to Nino’s “panino.”

First Sequence: Bread and Chocolate.

Nino feels he is being observed. While eating bread and chocolate, he feels he is disrupting the order of things around him. He stops chewing as if to make sure he has not crossed the line of Swiss politeness.

Italian emigrants in northern Europe: Germany and Switzerland.

• West Germany, with high economic growth rates, became the country with the largest flow of Italian immigrants (P. Ginsborg, A History of Contemporary Italy, 227).

• In June 1963, of 800,000 foreign workers in the Federal Republic, 297,000 were Italians, 114,000 Spaniards, 103,000 Greeks and 26,000 Turks. 37% of Italians were working on building sites, 25 % in metalworking factories, and another 18 % in factories of other sorts (G. 227).

• In contrast to northern Italy, most Italians in Germany and Switzerland regarded their stay as temporary: they rarely remained more than a year at a time, and even more rarely did their families join them (G. 227).

• The Italian emigrants to northern Europe undoubtedly suffered most. For ten months of the year they did little but work very long hours, living in isolation far away form their homes (G. 227).

• For married men, the strains imposed upon them and their wives were very great, and fathers saw very little of their children as they were growing up (G. 227).

Italian emigrants in northern Europe: Germany and Switzerland.

• In 1964 and 1965 Don Antonio Riboldi, of the village of Santa Ninfa in the Belice (western Sicily), went to visit his parishioners who had gone to work in Switzerland. There were more than 500 of them. At the entrance to a public park in a Swiss city he saw the notice, “No entry for dogs and Italians”: “In those meetings with our immigrants they made me understand the depth of their nostalgia for their villages and their families; many times these feelings were expressed to me in anguishing scenes, but most often simply by the shedding of pent-up tears” (G. 229).

• In West Germany the workforce of the ‘miracle’ was deeply divided between German and foreign workers, in Italy the southern immigrants were of the same nationality and enjoyed the same rights as their northern counterparts. Their entry into the factories of northern Italy produced a new era of collective action, which was denied them in the community (G. 250).

• All accounts confirm the bitterness of the Italians in northern Europe. For them the “economic miracle” was as much tragedy as liberation (G. 229).

Nino’s first attempt to go back home: after peeing in public.

Singing Neapolitans on the train.

Nino’s second attempt to go home: after the barracks.

On opening the door of the train carriage he sees the thing he has grown to hate most: an Italian immigrant singing and playing a guitar.


Singing and playing the guitar: the Italian solution to hardships and to injustice.


Nino accepts the offer from the man at the train station: a possibility to work without a work permit. A showdown between illegal aliens.

Nino’s third attempt to go home: after dyeing his hair blond.

At this point Nino is completely disillusioned and has decided to give up. His hair clearly indicates his identity crisis.


Nino now plays the part of the type of Italian that the Swiss most fear and frown upon. All the stereotypes that are attributed to Southern Italians are now demonstrated in an exaggerated performance by Nino. Ripping a poster and throwing the paper on the floor.


Nino tips over the garbage can he has just place the fragment of poster he ripped of the wall.


Once again, Nino must witness what he most detests: the Italian who sings his troubles away with folk songs.


Look at the expression on Nino’s face as he looks at his fellow Italians singing away.


The train goes into the tunnel and is about to cross the Alps. At this point the film could end. The viewer probably expects it to end. But in a few seconds something will emerge from the tunnel.


From a distance we see the figure of someone walking on the train tracks. At this point we imagine that it might be Nino. In the next shot this is confirmed.


Once again, Nino cannot bring himself to leave. He is standing on the train tracks and is going in the direction of Switzerland. The image is heartbreaking, yet one may feel that Nino will take Elena’s advice and use the six month work permit she has obtained for him.

INTEGRATION: IDENTITY CRISIS

From the steel mesh of the henhouse this family observes a familiar scene.


Shot from behind the steel mesh shows the barrier between one reality and another (objective shot). The hands on the steel mesh seem to reach out and want to touch a beauty and a bliss that is impossible to achieve for this “audience.”


Brusati gives us a shot of the women who are not allowed to look at what the men are observing. The traditions of the old country continue in the new. These Southern Italians seem to live in a time capsule: they have brought with them the Italy they left behind and will probably never blend with the locals.


Nino peers at the Swiss and is captivated by a certain detail that is one of the main characteristics of the local inhabitants: blond hair.


Brusati’s camera gives us several close-ups of blond hair blowing in the wind and spreading over the grass.


This shot clearly indicates where Nino’s attention is directed: blond hair.


In the next sequence we find Nino as a blond haired man. He has dyed his hair to look like a Swiss. His reaction is both comical and tragic because one may feel that he has gone to far and has now set himself up for an inevitable downfall.


This sequence shows Nino prancing around town with his blond hair. Several shots show Nino reflected in the windows of shops and financial institutions. In this shot we see Nino checking out the situation with the world’s currencies. Being “Swiss” this seems natural to him.


Another shot where Nino is reflected in a window. He observes himself and seems content with what he sees. NOTE: later at the sports bar, Nino will break the mirror in which he sees his reflection.


Nino’s reflection in this shot is in a pond. The moving water gives an unclear reflection. What could this symbolize? Does it indicate the fragility of Nino’s Swiss identity?


While the camera is on Nino’s reflection, a Swan comes along and goes right through the water where Nino is reflected. What can we make of this?


The Swan: in swan symbolism, transformation is a persistent theme; derived from the myth in which the Greek god Zeus (Jupiter) disguised himself as a swan to ravish Leda (Tresidder, 459). [The Ugly Duckling].


The moment of truth: Italy vs. Switzerland – a soccer game brings out Nino’s true identity.


Nino struggles to keep his true sentiments to himself, but the next shot will reveal the uselessness of this struggle.


Goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool!!!

CLIP 3 – Lamerica (1994) G. Amelio

Lamerica (1994) by Gianni Amelio: Scene 23 and 24 (1:38:30 – 1:45:30).

My comments: Main theme – Remembering Italy’s emigrant/ immigrant past.

GIAN ANTONIO STELLA’S WORK (next slide for book covers):L’ORDA (2003): Stella aims to provide the true face of Italian emigration. The one Italians should know, in order to understand, respect, and love all those who left. The face Italians have forgotten and replaced with the images of those Italians who found fortune and success in America. Stella is telling the story of the hordes of Italian emigrants of the past as a reaction to the increasing xenophobia he detects in the present situation: “Where we so different? Where we better? More loved?” Stella asks.

ODISSEE (2004): Stella tells the story of our grandparents and great grandparents who left on ships that were not at all smooth sailing. Here he describes in detail the whole process: the trafficking, the swindling, the shipwrecks, the disease, and sometimes death.

GIAN ANTONIO STELLA

L’ORDA (2003) and L’ODISSEE (2004).

CHAPTER 12: GIANNI AMELIO

• Lamerica (1994): Amelio’s examination of the refugee problem that broke out in Albania after the fall of the communist dictatorship there, causing massive migration of clandestine Albanians to Italy, a situation that continues to cause social problems even today (452).

• Contains the same kind of denunciation of injustice so typical of the classic neorealist works of the past, and his film reminds us how much Italy has changed since the days when Rossellini, De Sica, and Visconti were picturing Italy as a country very much like present-day Albania (454).

• Represents an important link between contemporary Italian film and its cinematic heritage in neorealism: attempt to present an accurate accounting of social conditions in both contemporary Italy and the Balkans (454).

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Lamerica (1994)

• Italy, once a country famous for sending its surplus population to work and live in North and South America, has now become rich, a land that attracts emigrants rather than sending them abroad, but as Amelio intends to show the spectator, Italy has forgotten its past (452-53).

• Earlier generations of Italians looked to America for a land of streets paved with gold, and today’s Albanians see Italy as their America (453).

• The Italian title of the film (Lamerica) is spelled without the required apostrophe (L’America) to underscore the kind of non-grammatical Italian the Albanians now speak, an echo of the pidgin English the Italians arriving in New York once spoke (453). In addition, the incorrect spelling underlines the fact that “Lamerica” is Italy and not “L’America” (that is, the USA).

Lamerica (1994)

The film opens with documentary footage from the state archives of Mussolini’s occupation of Albania with a voice-over that announces: “Finally, thanks to Italy, the mature and robust people of Albania are entering civilization” (452).

Lamerica (1994)

Amelio’s camera jumps from the historical footage commemorating Mussolini’s arrival at the port of Durazzo to the same port in 1991, which is teeming with Albanians desperately attempting to flee their country for Italy (452).

Lamerica (1994)

Note the parallel with the arrival of the Italians in 1939 and the arrival in 1991: both arrive with a means of transportation that indicates economic strength – a prosperity that ends up being an illusion in both cases.

Lamerica (1994): newsreel vs. television – illusions?

The 1939 footage and the 1991 Italian TV show are very similar: the former informs Italians at home about the “glory” of Italy’s empire, while the latter informs Albanians about the prosperity of Italy in the late eighties and early nineties.

Just as Italians under Mussolini were manipulated by the regime’s documentary films about their country’s civilizing mission abroad in Africa or Albania, contemporary Albanians are under the spell of the consumer society they see every day on Italian television, which broadcasts the usual quizzes, variety shows, and commercials, all of which underline Italy’s wealth – a kind of mirage just across the Adriatic and even closer than America was to past generations of Italians (453).

Lamerica (1994): newsreel vs. television – illusions?

Main theme: Gino’s Journey.

Note Gino’s appearance at the beginning of the film when this “businessman” is organizing his illegal affairs in Albania. He is insensitive to the Albanians misery and is only looking to take advantage of the situation. His real journey begins when “Spiro Tozai” decides to leave the orphanage.


Gradually, Gino loses something that ties him to his life of material wealth and prestige. The car is the first thing to go.


With no car Gino is forced to travel with the Albanians who are making a run for the boarder so they can eventually get to Italy.


Gino must try to get “Spiro” back to Tirana so they can go about the business of opening a shoe factory. However, Gino now knows that “Spiro” is an Italian who thinks he is in the year 1945. At this point Gino is not very understanding of “Spiro’s” condition.


While the Albanians are singing an Italian song that explicitly states “Sono un Italiano, un Italiano vero!” (I’m an Italian, a true Italian!), the true Italian of the group is not singing. He realizes how deluded the Albanians are and to what extent they will go to flee from their country. Gino may also be asking himself what it means to be a true Italian.


This shot indicates Gino’s viewpoint. The audience may feel that Gino is forced to consider who “Spiro” really is. That is, what he represents in the history of Italy and how the new generation (Gino) has forgotten the sacrifice made by these lost heroes.


At this point, Gino has left “Spiro” at the “hotel” full of desperate Albanians. He has, in a sense, neglected his responsibility for “Spiro” in the same way that the Italian government did in the past. Gino now looks more like an Albanian than an Italian. He has spent a night in jail and no longer has a passport.


With no passport, Gino is forced to make his way back to Italy in the exact same way that the Albanians are travelling to the “promise land.” In this way, Amelio provides a clear message: let us remember that the Albanians of today resemble the Italians of not so long ago.


The overcrowded ships/boats crossing the Adriatic full of Albanian refugees were very risky ventures.


“Spiro” and Gino find each other and what we have is the time of reckoning between past and present. There is no need for the characters to verbalize anything; they represent two eras that don’t know each other and it has taken a journey full of risks and dangers to awaken the truth.


This shot encompasses the past (Spiro) and the present (Gino) at the moment of reconciliation. The desperation of the Italians in the past is now fully recognized by Gino, who had to practically become an Albanian to see that the Albanians are experiencing what his people experienced fifty years ago.

Amelio’s camera pans over half the ship leaving the other half of the frame to the sea. The ship is so crowded it is difficult to see what these people are standing on: a sea of people travelling by sea to Italy.

Lamerica (1994): The faces of hope for a better future.

These faces are looking directly into the camera. Considering Italy’s way of dealing with the Albanian refugees in the 90s, Amelio is forcing Italians to remember their recent past as emigrants themselves before deporting or mistreating these people.

Lamerica (1994): The faces of hope for a better future.

The last shot of the film: Amelio leaves us with the face of Albania travelling to Italy with all its hopes and dreams for a better future. The main characters blend in with the rest of the refugees, suggesting again the similar fates between the Albanians after Communism and the Italians after Fascism.

CLIP 4 – Bianco e Nero (2008) Cristina ComenciniBianco e Nero (2008) by Cristina Comencini: Scene 4 “Il computer” (min 30:00 – 35:00) and Scene 9 “Vestiti nell’armadio” (1:16:20 – 1:18:15).

My comments:This clip was chosen to show the students a recent view of the immigrant situation in Italy. The specific theme is integration. It echoes what was seen with Nino’s situation in Switzerland in the Bread and Chocolate clip (see above). In other words, to what degree do the immigrants integrate or desire to integrate with the local culture? What are the limits posed, not only by the locals but by the immigrants themselves, who often prefer to defend their culture and isolate themselves from the locals for varied reasons. These reasons have stimulated much debate. In this clip, we find that Carlo (the white Italian from Rome) and Nadine (the Black woman from Senegal) fall in love. This love affair is very telling, in that it reveals Carlo’s wife’s true feelings about the immigrants, and the limits she is not prepared to cross or accept. She comes across as someone who will help the immigrants, and the effort to save Africa from starvation, but when her husband falls in love with an African woman, her racist side emerges. She is justified on the one hand because her husband has betrayed her, but on the other hand her comments to her husband are revealing: “I wanted you to support me in my work with the immigrants, not go as far as falling in love with one”. The point is that such things can happen if one gets close enough. Hence the questions: How close does one get? What are the limits of integration? How do cultures interact so that the essential identity of each is respected?

Bianco e Nero (2008) Cristina Comencini

“Cristina Comencini takes on interracial love in Bianco e Nero” by Elisabetta Povoledo (Dec 1 2008).

The first mainstream Italian film to tackle interracial romance.

Expanding melting pot: rise in marriages between Italians and non-Italians.

Black people on Italian TV: they are never Italian, they tend to play immigrants, or housekeepers, and in films black women are cast as prostitutes 90 percent of the time (Mauro Valeri, Sociology, University of Rome).

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CLIP 5 – L’orchestra di Piazza Vittorio (2008) Agostino Ferrente

The Orchestra of Piazza Vittorio (2008) by Agostino Ferrente: min 03:00 – 07:45 and 1:23:20 – 1:25:30.

My comments:

Piazza Vittorio, in Rome, is the place where this documentary is filmed. The mission of the protagonists is to gather the top musicians of this multi-ethnic area of Rome, and start an orchestra that would play the music of Piazza Vittorio, which would be the “sound” of multicultural Rome.The documentary reminded me of a novel by the Algerian-Italian writer Amara Lakhous (see next few slides). Lakhous writes about his experience of living in Piazza Vittorio, and gives his own personal account of Italy in the third millennium and the immigrant experience in Rome.

L’orchestra di Piazza Vittorio

The Orchestra di Piazza Vittorio consists of 16 musicians from 11 countries, 4 continents and 8 different languages who come together to create a novel kind of music (eternallycool.net).

Scontro di civiltà per un ascensore a Piazza Vittorio (Edizioni e/o, 2006) Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio (Europa, 2008)

Original title in Arabic: کيف ترضع من الذ ئبة دون أن تعضك Come farti allattare dalla lupa senza che ti morda (Algiers, 2003)

http://static.blogo.it/06blog/AmaraLakhous.jpg

ebookstore.sony.com

«I Arabise the Italian and Italianise the Arabic.»

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Scontro di civiltà per un ascensore a Piazza Vittorio (Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio)

http://www.amaralakhous.com/wp-content/uploads/wppa/20.jpg

http://www.trailershut.com/movie-posters/Scontro-di-civilta-per-un-ascensore-a-Piazza-Vittorio-Movie-Poster.jpg

Dir. Isotta Toso (2010)

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CLIP 5 – L’orchestra di Piazza Vittorio (2008) Agostino FerrenteThe Orchestra of Piazza Vittorio (2008) by Agostino Ferrente: min 03:00 – 07:45 and 1:23:20 – 1:25:30.

My comments continued:The last entry in Amedeo’s diary, which ends the novel Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio, is important in relation to the immigrant experience described in both Clash of Civilizations and Divorce Islamic Style (the novel Lakhous wrote after Clash). It is a question of finding a new life, and ultimately a story to tell in the new country. Memory can become an obstacle when it stops immigrants from embracing a new life in such a way that one, to put it as Lakhous does, Italianizes the Arabic and Arabizes the Italian. Lakhous uses the figure of Scheherazade to make his point. In The Thousand and One Nights, each story she tells interacts with the previous one and the one that follows, creating thus a chain of stories that are interconnected. Amedeo, like many immigrants, is fighting with his memory, his roots. The point is how to deal with the past so that immigration does not become solely an experience of exile, and consequently Scheherazade’s story is permitted to continue. What this means is related to Italo Calvino’s comment on the art of Scheherazade’s storytelling: “The art that enables Scheherazade to save her life every night consists of knowing how to join one story to another, breaking off at just the right moment – two ways of manipulating the continuity and discontinuity of time. It is a secret of rhythm, a way of capturing time that we can recognize from the very beginning” (Six memos 37-38). Calvino’s words seem to capture the essence of the “recipe” Lakhous’s main characters in Clash of Civilizations and Divorce Islamic Style are seeking for integration – or rather an integration based on interaction – which implies the continuity of one’s essential identity within the context of a new culture, of a new story.

Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II

Piazza Vittorio Emanuele is right at the centre of multi-ethnic Rome. Not far from Termini Railway Station.

Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II

Chinese doing their Tai Chi Chuan gymnastics in the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele Gardens, a magnificent park which occupies the greatest part of this huge rectangular porticoed piazza, the biggest in Rome, built after the unity of Italy between 1882 and 1887.

Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II (December 2008).

Rome is an increasingly multicultural city that is home to people of all religions (eternallycool.net).

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eternallycool.net

A CGIL sponsored poster next to the announcement of the transportation strike (12 December 2008).

The poster shows two identical drops of blood, one labelled “Italian” and the other labelled “Foreigner.” The text below reads: “Skin comes in many colours. Blood only one. Against racism, equal rights of citizenship. For the right to vote, the same civil rights for immigrants.”

eternallycool.net

The posters are meant to combat xenophobia and to protest Italy’s Bossi-Fini laws which so severely limit immigration. They’re going to be appearing across Italy for the next four months–the blood poster was the first of them, a new one will appear each month–with the publicity campaign ending on 21 March 2009, the International Day Against Racism.

eternallycool.net

There’s a smile version (above, left), which declares that smiles come in only one colour while skin comes in many. There’s a sweat version (above, right) which likewise declares the universality of perspiration.

eternallycool.net

And, there’s a tears version, that informs us that CGIL believes that immigrants should have access to the same social services as Italians, as well as equal access to education, and the right to reunite families separated by immigration.

Immigration in Italy

Photo: the suburbs of Padova (2008).Translation of graffiti: “Enough with immigration”

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October 3 2013: A boat from Libya crammed with more than 500 mostly Eritrean migrants, capsized at night in the waters of Lampedusa; 366 drown (Vice News).

Suggested viewing for Lampedusa October 3 2013 and immigration in Italy

Documentary by VICE NEWS: “Fortress Italia” https://news.vice.com/video/fortress-italia-full-lengthOctober 14, 2014 | 4:15 pm

Milan is often the last stop for migrants trying to get out of Italy and into other parts of Europe. Milan's central station, with its daily trains bound for the other side of the border, is a key strategic gateway out of the country.

European Union immigration law prevents asylum seekers from being able to simply buy a ticket and hop on a train. The Dublin Regulation stipulates that migrants have to stay in the country where they first claimed asylum. As a result, Italy is filling up with migrants who came by boat and don't want to stay there, as the country is notoriously bad at integrating immigrants into society.

VICE News is an international news organization created by and for a connected generation. We provide an unvarnished look at some of the most important events of our time, highlight under-reported stories from around the globe, and get to the heart of the matter with reporters who call it like they see it.

https://news.vice.com/video/fortress-italia-full-length

https://news.vice.com/video/fortress-italia-full-length

http://www.france24.com/en/20110306-elusive-door-europe-lampedusa-italy-north-africa-immigration-europe

The tale of Lampedusa’s migrants, those who made it and those who didn’t, can be read in the monuments and cemeteries that dot the island, from the wrecked boats dumped on the shore to the monumental “Door of Europe” dedicated to those who died along the way. A memorial by the Italian artist Mimmo Paladino (2008).

The memorial, unveiled on June 28, has been built using refractory ceramics in the shape of an enormous open door that is five meters (16 feet) high and three meters wide on the island of Lampedusa, which lies 205 kilometers (127 miles) south of Sicily.

PORTA DI LAMPEDUSA – PORTA D’EUROPA

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/africans-remembered-a-memorial-for-europe-s-lost-migrants-a-560218.html

Le ferie di Licu (2007)di Vittorio Moroni

trovacinema.repubblica.it Vittorio Moroni

news.cinecitta.com

ocf.berkeley.edu

Suggested viewing

La sconosciuta (The Unknown Woman, 2006) by Giuseppe Tornatore

copertinedvd.org Suggested viewing

Saimir (2005) by Francesco Munzi

copertinedvd.org Suggested viewing

Documents

February 16 2016 Italian Immigration: From Shore to Shore