Past and Present Migration Challenges: What European and American History Can Teach Us

Immigration trends towards Italy have considerably changed in the last decades, modifying our understanding of basic legal and social categories, among which, pre-eminently, citizenship. From a legal perspective, citizenship is a formal status by virtue of which individuals are granted a set of substantive rights, and are subject to certain obligations. From a socio-anthropological point of view, citizenship has to be intended also as the ways in which common values are elaborated in everyday lives, and representations of the self are individually and collectively constructed. Moving from this premise, the contribution aims at connecting the current discussion about migrants’ integration in Italy with older experiences of immigration. Among the first extra-European immigrants to arrive in Italy there were the Chilean diaspora triggered by the military golpe in 1973. This migration’s experience was peculiar because of its historical trajectory, its socio-demographic characteristics, its presence and activism in the public sphere, and its successful integration. Combining secondary analysis of the literature and primary data collected thorough qualitative interviews, this contribution accounts for the historical connection tying together the Italians and the Chileans: the relationship between the two Catholic-Democratic Parties in the 60s; the Italian reaction to the golpe; the affinity between the Chilean ‘democratic path to socialism’ and the formulation of the ‘historical compromise’ by the Italian Communist Party; the importance of Rome for the renovation of the Chilean Socialist Party, hence for the creation of the ‘Concertacion por la Democracia’, a coalition that guided the transition to democracy (1989); and, last but not least, the cultural impact of the Chilean exile on the Italian civil society during and after the 70s. Secondly, the contribution describes the socio-demographic characteristics of the Chilean population living in Italy, also in comparison to other foreign nationality groups. For this purpose, two sources of data are combined: a survey conducted in 2016 by the Chilean National Statistical Agency (INE) with the purpose of gathering information concerning the Chilean population living abroad (Segundo Registro de Chilenos en el Exterior, 2017); and the data collected by the Italian National Statistics Office (ISTAT) in the survey about Non-EU citizens (ISTAT, Report Cittadini Non Comunitari, 2020). Today the Chileans in Italy constitute a quite old (especially if compared to other migrant groups) population, well-educated and well-integrated in the labour market. The successful integration of Chilean migrants and 2G in Italy is surely due to pre-existent socio-economic characteristics, but has also been influenced by representations of proximity and solidarity that facilitated social practices of citizenship. Overall, this historical experience may help us to reflect on both the obstacles and the opportunities for the social inclusion of migrants, and to envisage strategies for enlarging their participation in the Italian civic and public sphere.