«Behind the decision to leave one's homeland there are not only stories of pain and detachment. Often these are cycles that can also have a basis of well-being at their base, they are certainly unstoppable." Aldo Aledda says it with the calm of someone who has studied migratory phenomena for over thirty years, ever since, as a novice regional official, he decided to end up in that precise office that closely followed the Sardinians who had left. An experience in the field which over time has also translated into the possibility of dismantling, through knowledge, more than a few clichés about moving from one's place of origin. Aledda is the author of "Sardis on the run in Italy and Italy", a 265-page essay published this year and which can be considered the update of the first volume published in 1991 with the title "Sardis in the world". Aledda, no longer in the Region, is president of Cedise, the European Center that manages and conveys information about our island abroad. He is also coordinator of the "11 October Committee", a permanent body in Rome that deals with departures and returns.

Sardinian emigration: what is the latest photograph?

«In reality you can have more photographs. We are talking about a complex phenomenon that does not only focus on those who yearn to return, as is often said, but also concerns those who have burned ties with their land. One of the myths to dispel is that leaving Sardinia necessarily results in suffering. This, paradoxically, does not happen among first generation emigrants who may be nostalgic for the island, but have no desire to return. Different dynamics for their children or grandchildren who, as second and third generation emigrants, develop a greater curiosity towards their country of origin compared to their parents and grandparents."

How does the attitude of first generation emigrants rank on the scale of pain?

«Whoever "inaugurates" the migratory cycle in a family always preserves the reasons that led to the departure. And it is not necessarily an obligation: one component of the exodus was the desire for redemption, another coincided with liberation, with the need to build an autonomous future. Second and third generations, however, do not even ask themselves the problem of belonging: they feel like citizens of the country where their parents or grandparents arrived. Think of the jihadist terrorists who committed the attacks in France in recent years: they were young Frenchmen in all respects, but curiosity towards their homeland pushed them to embrace the cause of armed struggle."

What happens with the fourth generation of emigrants?

«Normally, everything is lost. But it is necessary to make some distinctions. America, for example, is a highly melting pot reality and as such rapidly incorporates emigrants. I quote former President Trump: he has German ancestry on his father's side and Scottish on his mother's side. All four of his grandparents were born in Europe. But he is very American. Here, the rule is this: in contexts where socio-cultural assimilation is rapid, the desire to have contact with the land of origin also quickly disappears. On the other hand, in situations where the immigrant badge remains for longer, the desire to know the family's place of departure is strong."

How does this reasoning translate when applied to Sardinians?

«As the “October 11 Committee” we are reasoning on a national scale through the bill for the establishment of the permanent visa. We will soon present the regulatory text to the Chamber of Deputies, the aim of which is to facilitate the return of Italians who have emigrated abroad by giving them an unlimited pass. Today the grandson of a Sardinian born in Argentina does not have an Italian passport. And even if he gets it and decides to leave the place where he was born, it is not a given that he will return to Sardinia or Italy. Maybe he chooses Europe but not our country. With a permanent visa, however, you are obliged to return to us. By doing so we do not lose those fellow citizens. Indeed, we can find them again."

Do you believe that Sardinia and Italy should be repopulated?

«In an era in which our region and our country are losing inhabitants and the resident population is increasingly older, the permanent visa can be one of the measures to be implemented to stem depopulation. Of course: we are well aware that a young man of Italian origins with a stable job in Switzerland is unlikely to think of returning. But in Argentina and more generally in Latin America, economic and living conditions are difficult: these are countries in crisis. Here: in these cases, moving to Italy can be an advantageous and convenient opportunity. In Venezuela, to cite another example, two million citizens have Italian origins."

In his book he writes that Sardinia was almost absent from the great migratory flows of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, even if those who then left Italy were registered as "Sardinian" by foreign customs.

«Yes, emigration from our island experienced significant numbers after the Second World War, with the exodus towards the Peninsula or abroad of almost half the population. At the time of the Kingdom of Sardinia, however, the Sardinians indicated in foreign customs documents had not left our island but from other regions. Before the 1950s, yet another phenomenon was recorded: our emigration also involved the elite: think of Emilio Lussu or Grazia Deledda herself, who often stayed in Rome. The same can be said of the Cagliari tenor Mario De Candia, an opponent of the Savoy monarchy and who went into voluntary exile. And then a belief must be dispelled."

Which?

«It is not at all true that all migrants are poor. It's not valid today and it wasn't valid even in the past. Today, Africans who take the sea routes are often graduates. Therefore in their country they do not belong to the lowest social classes. In fact, they speak French, another characteristic that distinguishes them from more disadvantaged contexts. Those who live in absolute poverty in Africa, at most, move towards areas close to home, but do not leave the continent. The same dynamic marked Italian emigration from the nineteenth century onwards: the first Italians to leave were the Genoese, partly dissatisfied with being annexed to the Kingdom of Sardinia, partly moved by their vocation as navigators, as the people of Carloforte later revealed themselves in the context of Sardinian migratory flows. Similar story with the Piedmontese who crossed the ocean urged by Cavour, who considered the exoduses useful to boost trade. Even the Lombards and Venetians who sought their fortune outside Italy cannot be ascribed to the lowest social classes: even their starting economic base was not the worst. Indeed, the push to leave was given precisely by the desire to chase great wealth. There were ambitions behind the exoduses, not simple survival. It is no coincidence that the first Italian emigrants were all from the North. They moved from the South much later. The poverty condition of all emigrants is a beautiful prejudice. After all, how could America have become the first nation in the world if it had only hosted illiterates? From Italy to the USA, artisans have left to set up companies there. The farmers did the same. This explains why between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the Sardinians left to a lesser extent than after the Second World War: we were an extremely poor region. The large migratory phenomena from the island coincide with the beginnings of industrialization. Labor theories are not enough to explain the "Sardinia case".

What else is needed?

«The social aspects mattered as much as the economic ones. Many emigrants left from the Nuoro area because not all the young people of the time agreed to embrace the agro-pastoral society. From that refusal was born the exodus towards Germany. Many miners also packed their bags for France, because with the decline of the mining market the alternative would have been a life in the countryside."

How did you come to this conclusion?

«Studies and interviews. Sardinia at that time was too patriarchal and paternalistic. An emigrant to Australia told me that he left the island because his father, the owner of an agricultural company, rejected all his project proposals. The family that imposed itself against its vocation was the driving force behind many stories of exodus."

The representation of the Southern emigrant is with the cardboard suitcase.

«Only because there weren't any others. Not only that: it is classic that the migrant arrives without money in the country where he lands. Think of Africans: they leave the heart of the Sahara with eight thousand dollars and don't have a cent when they land here. The same happened to the Jews, even the wealthiest ones, when they fled to America from Nazi Germany. To quote Lussu again, despite coming from a wealthy family from Armungia, he was forced to live in hardship in exile in Paris, between frugal meals in the modest room where he was staying and exhausting walks to reach the places of appointments. He had the only cultural satisfaction of becoming a great connoisseur of the Louvre Museum, because there was no entrance fee."

What role did the families who remained in their places of origin play in the exodus?

«Behind the emigrant who left there was always the participation of the families. The song "Mamma mia give me 100 lire that I want to go to America" is the demonstration: to pay for the trip, collections were made between relatives. And the first to arrive in a foreign land led the way. To take the Titanic, you needed between 200 and 300 dollars. Migrations are often family or territorial chains. Word of mouth spreads among relatives and friends of friends. Failure to comply with this unwritten rule has also created some disagreements among the Sardinian circles, whose management structure often proves faithful not only to geographical origin but also to family origin: depending on the country from which one came, one was not welcomed and were not welcomed and introduced."

What is the geography of Italian emigration?

«The northerners largely went towards South America, the southerners mostly followed the North American route. All migrations are based on ties. Think of the Cutro tragedy: many foreigners who live in Germany or Northern Europe have come to Italy to recognize the recovered victims. They were relatives, with whom the new arrivals would be reunited."

What economic impact did the mass exodus have on the state?

«Remittances from emigrants were an important item in the Italian budget until the Second Republic. We're talking about the nineties. In a recent conference of Sardinian clubs in Switzerland, it emerged that once they return to the island, former emigrants support themselves with foreign pensions worth 8 million euros. And as Nando Ceruso, trade unionist and social security expert, as well as director of the Federation of Sardinian clubs and originally from Oschiri, pointed out, if the Italian state implemented a policy of attracting emigrants, it would see a new spending capacity poured into the national economy equal to two billion euros".

In his book he poses a question and wonders whether those who remained or those who left behaved better towards their land. What conclusion did he reach?

«I have always supported those who left. For those who have left. Because he got involved. Those who sit still, no matter how much they read books, will always have a partial view of life. A different level of learning."

We apply the permanent visa to Sardinia: what would happen?

«Today there are around two million people in the world who have Sardinian origins. Or who identify in some way with our island. The same figure on a national scale is worth eighty million citizens. The extent of the phenomenon is very clear to Mattarella who in fact often addresses Italians around the world."

When was this data collected?

«They are projections on migratory movements of the last hundred years. These are numbers obtained by cross-referencing ISTAT data, registrations in the Aire (Register of Italians residing abroad) and registrations in the host countries".

Is there data on how many Sardinians have left the island in the last century?

«According to research carried out by the University of Cagliari, around 800 thousand Sardinians left between the end of the 19th century and the Second World War, with the latter period recording the bulk of the exits, equal to around 550 thousand. These figures exclude departures for the new millennium, which are still being recorded."

How many came back?

«A third returned immediately. This is a fact common to all Italian emigration. But with some peaks: from Germany, for example, half of the Sardinians who left immediately left."

What do you mean by “immediately”?

"Immediately".

Where did the Sardinians go?

«Given that the majority of Sardinians started from the most peripheral areas of the island, there has been a marked tendency to divide the areas of the world, almost by territorial belonging. Thus from Santu Lussurgiu and Pozzomaggiore the exodus moved towards Australia. Even with the creation of small Little Sardinia, like in Melbourne, where Mrs. Fronteddu lived in a neighborhood who never stopped speaking Sardinian and never learned a single word of English. From Trexenta, most of the migrants went to Ontario, Canada, but from Dorgali they headed towards Vancouver. From Cagliari and Ozieri, however, the migratory flows largely headed towards Argentina, also creating some small legends. For example on Perón, considered by some to be Sardinian because that is what he declared at the rally. What is certain, however, was that he surrounded himself with some collaborators originally from our island, such as the tailor Giosuè Castangia or the lawyer Carlos Alberto Falchi, whose family was from Alghero".

How should the new immigration of Sardinian graduates be interpreted?

«In the only possible way: our young people are rightly ambitious and look for work where they are paid and treated better and can also make their dreams come true. And it's not just graduates, but also workers: then it can happen that a young Sardinian is forced to flee from an Italian restaurant in Frankfurt because he is exploited and paid illegally, while in a German restaurant he is hired with a regular contract. And I say this with the awareness of those who belong to that generation that is leaving the bone to their children: skyrocketing public debt and a ruined environment."

How do you manage the nostalgia of migration?

«Coming back periodically. Summers in Sardinia have marked the lives of many Sardinian emigrants in Germany, France and Holland. With the closure of the factories, people reached the island by car. Then we returned home with supplies of Sardinian food. But we must stop making paternalistic speeches about young people, demanding their return home, at any cost. First because you can be happy even far from Sardinia. Secondly, because it still takes time before developing the desire to return. Third, there are no rules that apply to everyone. Paolo Savana and Gavino Sanna were two Sardinian innovators who achieved fame by leaving the island."

Where in the world is the largest Sardinian community located?

«There are large communities in Argentina, Germany, Switzerland and France. In Italy, however, the greatest number of Sardinian emigrants can be found in Rome, but there are also quite a few in Lombardy, Piedmont, Veneto, Tuscany and Emilia Romagna."

The most beautiful phrase that a Sardinian emigrant said to you?

«An old miner in the Netherlands told me that he related to the Belgians in an authoritative way because he came from a land with a thousand-year-old culture».

On the bad side of immigration discrimination is at the top of the list.

"Undeniable. Italian immigrants have long been accused, by local public opinion and sometimes also by trade unions, of accepting indecent working conditions, causing harm to the local workers themselves."

Especially in the past, every election campaign there was a little gift for the Sardinian clubs. What's the atmosphere like today?

«Sardinia has always shown itself to be more attentive towards emigrants, with an annual allocation of two million. Double that of Friuli and Trentino, the second and third most virtuous regions. Our island was also one of the first to legislate: think of guaranteed assistance on the return of bodies or subsidies coinciding with elections. This phase, however, ended in the 1980s and was followed by the season in which the Region asked its emigrants for image returns through the diffusion of culture and typical products. Now a strategy is completely missing: politics must find new common ground with emigrants. Starting from the awareness that the exodus of young people does not stop. It's time to take note of it."

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