Ch 2. Partire è un po’ morire?
(“To leave is a bit like to die”, an Italian proverb).
National Cards:
A card about Romania (Apower)
Migrants’ Experience: The National Conditions
Each lived experience is a part of us and reinforces the image that we have about the world and about ourselves. Over the years the personal history of many Romanians was marked by the experience of migration. The need of self-realization and problem overcoming, determined many Romanians to seek a better life, for which they are willing to produce radical changes. For the Romanian migrants, the moment of departure means separation from the rest of the family. In search of a dream, one leaves behind memories about his family, parents, siblings, grandparents and close friends. They are very much aware about the mixed feelings that they have. They leave the country during their youth period (at 25-32 years) or during adolescence (at 14-20 years), when they start to think about themselves as adults, but are still very much connected with the rest of their family. Even so, they leave in order to find a better paid job, to improve their life conditions in a more modern and civilized society or simply to pursue a teenage dream. For many Romanians migration is seen as a temporary solution, but it still remains a permanent condition widespread. It seams that once the road was drawn one can only go ahead.
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A card about Italy (Icsim)
Migrants’ Experience
In the second post war, the Italian emigrants to Belgium were strongly motivated by a sort of social emancipation as well as by the possibility to achieve a decorous life. In fact, they came from an archaic rural world, still weighed down by feudal ties, condemned to misery and lacking working opportunities except land work. Willing to accept the hardest and most disqualified jobs (in the coal mines or in the factories), their expectations for a better future for themselves and their children far exceeded their homesickness, though they missed their homeland’s landscape, atmosphere and relationships. At first, the men usually left, and, once acclimatized, they called on their wives and children to join them. As soon as they arrived in Belgium, they were immediately welcomed by an Italian community, sometimes from the same village, and this made them feel at their ease, above all as far as the language was concerned. Further on, however, their lack of language knowledge could be an obstacle to the relationships with the host community. Other times, instead, their arrival was soon followed by their moving to their work place, without their fellows’ linguistic and emotional mediation. Such a traumatic impact, together with the discriminatory atmosphere towards the migrants, implied great sacrifices for them, but, at the same time, helped them to develop an important awareness of their personal and social condition.
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A card about Slovach Republic
Migrants’ Experience
Massive work and economic migration is typical for Slovakia during the second half of the nineties of the twentieth century and the first decade of the 21st century. Mostly young people who just finished high school or university were leaving to more developed and richer European countries such as Great Britain, Ireland, Germany, even Austria, and also to USA, Canada and Australia because they were finding more successful living here. They were often willing to work on positions below their qualification because they either did not have sufficient knowledge of the new language or their qualification was not recognized. They started almost from zero, with minimal finances and without relatives, friends or social networks they could rely on at home. A lot of them, quite unexpectedly although more intensely, detected longing for home, ordinary things, relatives and parents they left home. Although their decision to leave home was free and voluntary, they did not perceive the new and unknown environment as friendly and missed the feeling of security and safety of home. Finding work, adequate and affordable accommodation as well as getting used to the new environment was very strenuous for each migrant. Not all of them managed to overcome this stage. Quite many of them returned back home after the first negative experience. Most of them stayed in the host countries for a longer time even though working on relatively lower and worse paid positions. In most cases they think of their stay abroad as temporary and have an intention to return home after some time.
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A card about Switzerland
It is used to think that Switzerland is and has always been a very ambitioned destination country. However before WWII that was not the case. Many Swiss nationals migrated abroad due to poor life conditions in some regions. Given the peripheral location and the endemic poverty of their valleys, Ticino and Grisons cantons were among the hardest hit by the exodus of workers mostly since the XIXth century. Ten of thousands of people were pushed to seek alternatives away from home.
Swiss migrants departed for a season, for a few years or forever. They migrated from villages on foot, by car or train, before tackling the long ocean crossing. A journey full of danger that was even more insidious due to the existence of unscrupulous traffickers and smugglers. Among many destinations, both Australia and North America were the main destination countries of those adventurous groups of Swiss nationals. Many kilometres away from their villages of origin they found a new homeland where some of them settled business and created a wealth community.
The last major waves of Swiss emigration were after the great famine of 1816/1817, between 1845-1855, and between 1880-1885. In 1846, there was massive overseas emigration from the canton of Glarus. During the XIXth century, many Jurassiens and Neuchâtelois left Switzerland to start a new life in America.
Advertisements appeared regularly in local newspapers, placed by travel agencies based at Basle, Bern, or Belfort, in neighbouring France. These agencies offered organised crossings of the Atlantic from Le Havre for 80-100 Swiss francs, depending on the number of passengers. Food on board cost 40 Swiss francs, and consisted of biscuits, flour, butter, ham, salt, potatoes and vinegar. With this the emigrants prepared their own meals. In addition, there was the cost of transport to Le Havre (about 60 Swiss francs) and food for the 4 or 5 days spent in the diligence. Clippers such as the "Savanah" and the "Sirius" now crossed the Atlantic in less than 20 days, making the crossing far less of an ordeal than for the earlier pioneers
Towards the middle of the 18th century, a great number of the inhabitants of the valley of Lauterbrunnen emigrated to the United States, and in particular to the state of South Carolina. Worried at this depopulation, Bern ordered a commission to examine the problem and suggest an answer. Their "Responsa prudentum" of 1744 was less than complimentary. They announced that the inhabitants of Lauterbrunnen, Sigriswil, Battenberg, Habkern, Gsteig and Grindelwald were abandoning their fields and their work for delinquency, dragging their children down with them! Although some of the commission's more radical suggestions were not adopted - separating children from their parents until they were 9 or 10 in order to teach them a trade, for instance - one positive result was an encouragement of local craft and industry.
The majority of emigrants came from the agricultural cantons, and mostly preferred to continue a rural existence in their new homeland, rather than accept a subordinate place in the national industries. The colonies of New Glarus in Wisconsin and those founded by Italian-speaking emigrants from the canton of Ticino in California show this spirit of independence.
Sometimes the Swiss authorities took advantage of the situation to get rid of the local undesirables - the indigent poor and the work-shy - by placing them on a boat with the emigration subsidy in their pocket. It is doubtful whether this cheap and effective method of reducing population pressure on the local councils was appreciated at the unwilling emigrants' port of destination.