NON C'È LAVORO QUA - there is no work here

Everything that comes to mind when someone tells you “I’m spending six months in Italy” has kept me from blogging. Carnevale was memorable—dancing Montemarano’s version of the tarantella and walking around Cairano with everyone in town under 60, trick-or-treating for wine, sausage, and eggs. Daytrips to Naples and Salerno weren’t too bad, either.

I’ve conducted a few more interviews, some with recent immigrants, others with former emigrants back from the Americas. I’m intrigued by a common motif in the comments of many former emigrants.

Most of the people I talk to who went abroad for anywhere from 10 to 40 years speak about their time away in entirely positive terms. They had work, they had food, they had good company. They were not exploited, discriminated against, nor made to feel as outsiders. In fact, most of my interviewees have made emigration sound like a pleasant holiday.

This is not to say that everyone has been so upbeat about their emigration experience, but the majority have. What’s nagging me about these comments is, I don’t quite believe them. What are they leaving out? Am I not spending enough time with them? Could I be asking better questions?

After reviewing the interviews I’ve come to the conclusion that what I’m hearing is in part sentimental musings about youth, in part bella figura, and in part an articulation of the possibility that life abroad, however hard it may have been, was always better than life before emigrating. (Otherwise, one would have to admit regret in having left in the first place, no?)

Nevertheless, I remain a bit “delusa” by these interviews. And something else is bothering me: the same people who offer such starry-eyed pictures have all—without exception—commented disparagingly about contemporary immigrants to Italy. (“They come here not wanting to work; their women come here sick and pregnant; there are no jobs here for our children and they come to take our few jobs, etc.”)