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Immigration and the City: Milan and Mass Immigration, 1958–98

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 January 2016

John Foot
John Foot*
Affiliation:
Department of Italian, University College London, Gower Street, London, WC1E 6BT, UK. E-mail: [email protected]
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Summary

The city of Milan has been host to two separate mass migrations over the last fifty years. The first involved Italians in the 1950s and 1960s, the second, non-Italians from the 1980s onwards. Until now little comparison—historical, sociological or otherwise—has been made of these two processes. The first part of this article draws up a theoretical and definitional framework for this comparison, and sets out the possible bases for such a task. The second part looks in detail at three stories concerning non-Italians in Milan in the 1980s and 1990s: the vicissitudes of one important temporary centre for immigrants in Via Corelli in the city; the story of Driss Moussafir, a Moroccan victim of terrorism; and the violence which erupted in Via Meda in the summer of 1998. Through these micro-stories, the article examines a number of historical questions concerning migration and integration and looks to draw comparisons concerning the role of politics, the state and racialization between these two historical periods.

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Italy , Volume 4 , Issue 2: Special Issue: The Italian experience of immigration , November 1999 , pp. 159 - 172
Copyright
Copyright © Association for the study of Modern Italy 

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References

Notes

1. For a detailed analysis of these issues and a bibliography in relation to the internal immigration of the boom years see my ‘Migration and the “miracle” at Milan. The neighbourhoods of Baggio, Barona, Bovisa and Comasina in the 1950s and 1960s’, Journal of Historical Sociology, 10, 2, June 1997, pp. 184–212, which is a kind of companion piece to this article.Google Scholar

2. The best and most detailed work on immigration in Milan in the 1980s and 1990s is to be found in Barile, G. et al., Tra due rive. La nuova immigrazione a Milano, Franco Angeli, Milan, 1994, especially the innovative articles of A. Dal Lago, ‘La nuova immigrazione a Milano. Il caso del Marocco’, pp. 135–240 and Marchetti, A., ‘La nuova immigrazione a Milano. Il caso senegalese’, pp. 241–366. See also the collection edited by Allievi, S., Milano plurale. L'immigrazione fra passato presente futuro, IREF, Milan, 1993. For up-to-date statistics for Milan and Italy see Caritas di Roma, Immigrazione dossier statistico '97, Anterem, Rome, 1997.Google Scholar

3. Marchese, R. and Mancini, B. (eds), Dizionario di politico e scienze sociali. La Nuova Italia, Florence, 1991, pp. 442–3.Google Scholar

4. See Gallino, L., Dizionario di sociologia, UTET-TEA, Turin, 1993, p. 372.Google Scholar

5. Ibid., pp. 405–6.Google Scholar

6. For all these issues see Balbo, L. and Manconi, L., Razzismi. Un vocabolario, Feltrinelli, Milan, 1993.Google Scholar

7. Fofi, G., L'immigrazione meridionale a Torino, Feltrinelli, Milan, 1964; Alberoni, F. and Baglioni, G., L'integrazione dell'immigrato nella società industriale, Il Mulino, Bologna, 1965.Google Scholar

8. ‘Milano invasa per la terza volta’. La Repubblica, 6 June 1998.Google Scholar

9. Balbo, L. and Manconi, L., I razzismi reali, Feltrinelli, Milan, 1992, pp. 27–8, 81.Google Scholar

10. For the history of Corelli, Via see Tosi, A., Immigrati e senza casa. I problemi, i progetti, le politiche, Franco Angeli, Milan, 1993.Google Scholar

11. La Repubblica, 31 March 1993. An estimated 700–800 immigrants were sleeping in an area built for 200–300.Google Scholar

12. La Repubblica, 1 and 6 April 1993.Google Scholar

13. ‘Ruspe in Via Corelli. Raso al suolo il centro accoglienza’, Corriere della Sera, 15 October 1995.Google Scholar

14. Foot, ‘Migration and the “miracle” at Milan’. The classic (if flawed) work on these settlements from the 1950s remains Alasia, F. and Montaldi, D., Milano, Corea: Inchiesta sugli immigrati Nuova edizione accresciuta, Feltrinelli, Milan, 1975 [1960], but see the fascinating research by Meneghetti, L., ‘Immigrazione e habitat nell'hinterland Milanese: i casi di Bollate, Pero, Rho’, in Petrillo, G. and Scalpelli, A. (eds), Milano: anni cinquanta. Franco Angeli, Milan, 1986, pp. 251–359.Google Scholar

15. Much of my material for these sections on immigration in the 1980s and 1990s comes from press articles. I have used this source in two ways. First for basic factual information concerning the events described and analysed here, and second as evidence concerning attitudes and representation of race, immigrants and stereotypes in the city. Of course, newspapers are not necessarily ‘representative’ in any straightforward way of attitudes or opinions in any one area and, moreover, can be just as important in creating or shaping language and attitudes as in merely reflecting those of the population. With such recent events, and in the absence of more systematic research in this area, newspaper sources, if used with care and in conjunction with other sources, are a central origin of information.Google Scholar

16. See ‘Tre bombe, attacco all'Italia’, L'Unità, 28 July 1993.Google Scholar

17. ‘Che tempo fa’, L'Unità, 28 July 1993.Google Scholar

18. ‘Milano non vi dimenticherà’, L'Unità, 29 July 1993.Google Scholar

19. See ‘L'Ambrogino negata a Moussafir? Il razzismo non c'entra’, Corriere della Sera, 13 December 1993.Google Scholar

20. Via Palestro, martedi 27 Luglio 1993, Comune di Milano, Milan, 1993.Google Scholar

21. See Lisbona, F. and Brunasti, M., ‘II paese invisibile nella. città dei sordi’, in Milano, Stadera: immigrazione, leggi e norme sociali, Franco Angeli, Milan, 1998, p. 74.Google Scholar

22. It is worth noting that non-Italian immigrants were already ‘visible’ in the 1970s; see the work of photographer Lucas, Uliano, Emigranti in Europa, Einaudi, Turin, 1977.Google Scholar

23. This link between street-trading and immigration was also made for the southern Italian immigrants in the 1950s and the first Chinese immigrants in the 1930s.Google Scholar

24. ‘Quartiere Spaventa, sorveglianza speciale’, Corriere della Sera, 6 June 1998.Google Scholar

25. Cervi, M., ‘Signor prefetto non è razzismo’, Il Giornale, 6 June 1998. See also Sorge, R., ‘Colpa di pochi teppisti la protesta anti-immigrati’, Il Giornale, 9 June 1998 and Cervi's reply, ‘Ma non si puì ignorare la rabbia dei milanesi’.Google Scholar

26. ‘Quartiere Spaventa, primo sgombero antiabusivi’, Corriere della Sera, 19 June 1998. The first three evictions (the only carried out that day) all involved Moroccans with regular residence permits. According to official figures, there are 160 Italians and 60 non-Italians in the zone without regular rent contracts, ‘Via Spaventa, sfrattati gli abusivi’, La Repubblica, 19 June 1998.Google Scholar

27. See Ambrosini, M., ‘Cittadinanza economica e cittadinanza sociale: il caso lombardo’, in Delle Donne, M., Melotti, U. and Petrilli, S. (eds), Immigrazione in Europa. Solidarietà e conflitto, CEDISS, Rome, 1993, pp. 347–64.Google Scholar

28. See former mayor Tognoli, C., ‘Prefazione’, in Caputo, P. (ed.), Il ghetto diffuso. L'immigrazione straniera a Milano, Franco Angeli, Milan, 1983, pp. 9–10. Part of this stereotype is also linked to a mythical re-working of the immigration of the 1950s and 1960s when the Milanese supposedly accepted southern immigrants with open arms.Google Scholar

29. Underlined with intelligence by both Lago, Dal and Marchetti, (see n. 2 above). See also Pace Ottieri, M., ‘L'insostenibile convivenza’, Diario della Settimana, III, 24, 17–23 June 1998, pp. 36–7.Google Scholar

30. See Lagazzi, M. et al., ‘Immigrazione, comportamento criminale e sanzione penale. Riflessioni sulla figura dell “immigrato spacciatore” nella città di Genova’, Rassegna Italiana di Criminologia, 1, 1996, pp. 145–64, where a comparison is made between the stigmatization of southerners in the 1960s and immigrants today; Coluccia, A. and Ferretti, F., ‘Immigrazione tra disagio sociale e devianza: considerazioni in margine al dibatitto’, Rivista Italiana di Criminologia, 1, 1996, pp. 75–120; Palidda, S., ‘Devianza e criminalità tra gli immigrati. Ipotesi per una ricerca sociologica’, Inchiesta, XXIV, 103, January–March 1994, pp. 25–39; and the essential historical reflections of Dario Melossi, ‘The Other in the new Europe: migrations, deviance, social control’, paper presented at a conference at the Onati International Institute for the the Sociology of Law, May, 1998. For the extent (and nastiness) of the debate see Melotti, U., ‘Quelli che l'immigrazione … Sciocchezze, contradizzioni ed estremismi sull'immigrazione straniera in Italia’, Mondo 3, 1–2, April–August 1996, pp. 448–88. The link between immigration (from the South) and crime was extremely strong in the 1950s and 1960s, and was reinforced by the reporting of the popular (and quality) press. Even today, this link is still sometimes made; for example, in the article ‘In treno senza biglietto e picchio i controllori’, Corriere della Sera, 18 May 1998, the protagonist was described as a ‘thirty-year-old southerner’.Google Scholar

31. See my The family and the “economic miracle”: social transformation, work, leisure and development at Bovisa and Comasina (Milan), 1950–1970', Contemporary European History, 4, 3, November 1995, pp. 315–38.Google Scholar

32. There is a ‘contraddizione tra la profittabilità della loro presenza come attori economici e l'indesiderabilità della loro presenza sociale’, Zolberg, A., cited in Ambrosini, M., ‘Alla scoperta della diversità: un panorama dell'immigrazione in Italia’, in Ambrosiana, Caritas, Il valore della differenza. Tendenza, problemi, interventi sull'immigrazione straniera, Paoline, Milan, 1997, pp. 12–66, p. 49.Google Scholar