The Italian community in Latin America and the Great War. Migrant associations and the voluntary participation in the conflict

The statue of Cristoforo Colombo in Piazza Castello in Turin, designed by the sculptor Dino Soma, celebrates the participation of the Italian emigrants in Latin America in the First World War. The monument is one of the few examples dedicated to the extraordinary enthusiasm with which the Italian community joined the call for the Great War. The armed conflict represented a turning point for the Italian communities abroad; emigrants redefined their relationship with their mother country through an awareness of their otherness as an ethnic community and started various dynamics of interaction with the hosting states, influenced by their involvement in the conflict. For the first time, a global event involved directly the emigrants, who directly participated in Italian politics and in many cases favored a dynamic assimilation into the hosting states. The conflict also caused the end of the era of mass emigration to America.