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Wikipedia

Italian Australians

Italian Australians (Italian: italo-australiani) are Australian-born citizens who are fully or partially of Italian descent, whose ancestors were Italians who emigrated to Australia during the Italian diaspora, or Italian-born people in Australia.

Italian Australians
Italo-australiani (Italian)
Memorial in New Italy, New South Wales (list of family names)
Total population
1,108,364 (by ancestry, 2021)[1]
(4.4% of the Australian population)[1]
171,520 (by birth, 2021)[1]
Regions with significant populations
Melbourne, Sydney, Perth, Adelaide, Brisbane, and other urban areas
Griffith, Ingham, New Italy
Languages
Australian English · Italian and Italian dialects · Italo-Australian dialect
Religion
Christianity (predominantly Roman Catholic)
Related ethnic groups
Italians, Italian New Zealanders, Italian Americans, Italian Canadians, Italian South Africans, Italian British

Italian Australians constitute the sixth largest ancestry group in Australia, and one of the largest groups in the global Italian diaspora. At the 2021 census, 1,108,364 Australian residents nominated Italian ancestry (whether alone or in combination with another ancestry), representing 4.4% of the Australian population. The 2021 census found that 171,520 were born in Italy.[1]

In 2021, there were 228,042 Australian residents who spoke Italian at home.[1] The Italo-Australian dialect is prominent among Italian Australians who use the Italian language.

History edit

Early history edit

Italians have been arriving in Australia in a limited number since before the first fleet. Two individuals of Italian descent served on board the Endeavour when Captain James Cook arrived in Australia in 1770. Giuseppe Tuzi was among the convicts transported to Australia by the British in the First Fleet.[2] Another early notable arrival, for his participation in Australian politics, was Raffaello Carboni who in 1853 participated with other miners in the uprising of Eureka Stockade and wrote the only complete eye-witness account of the uprising.[3][4] This migration of northern Italian middle class professionals to Australia was spurred by the persecution from Austrian authorities – who controlled most of the northern regions of Italy until 1860 – especially after the failure of the revolts in many European cities in the 1840s and 1850s. As stated by D'Aprano in his work on the first Italian migrants in Victoria:

We find some Italian artisans in Melbourne and other colonies already in the 1840s, and 1841s, many of whom had participated in the defeated revolts against the despotic rulers of Modena, Naples, Venice, Milan, Bologna, Rome and other cities. They came to Australia to seek a better and more efficient life.[5]

Through the 1840s and 1850s, the number of Italian migrants of peasant background who came for economic reasons increased.[citation needed] Nevertheless, they did not come from the landless, poverty-stricken agricultural working class but from rural families with at least sufficient means to pay their fare to Australia. Furthermore, in the late 1850s, some 2,000 Swiss Italians of Australia from Northern Italy migrated to the Victorian goldfields.[citation needed]

The number of Italians who arrived in Australia remained small during the whole of the nineteenth century. The voyage was costly and complex, as no direct shipping link existed between the two countries until the late 1890s.[citation needed] The length of the voyage was over two months before the opening of the Suez Canal. Italian migrants who intended to leave for Australia had to use German shipping lines that called at the ports of Genoa and Naples no more than once a month.[citation needed] Therefore, other overseas destinations such as the United States and the Latin American countries proved much more attractive, thus allowing the establishment of migration patterns more quickly and drawing far greater numbers.[citation needed]

Nevertheless, the Victorian gold rush of the 1850s attracted thousands of Italians and Swiss Italians to Australia. The drain on the labour supply occasioned by the gold rush caused Australia to also seek workmen from Europe for land use and the development of cultivation, both in New South Wales and Queensland.[citation needed] Unfortunately, the number of Italians who joined the Victorian gold mines is obscure, and until 1871 Italians did not receive a special place in any Australian census figures. By 1881, the first year of census figures on Italian migrants in all States, there were 521 Italians (representing 0.066% of the total population) in New South Wales, and 947 (0.10%) in Victoria, of whom one-third were in Melbourne and the rest were in the goldfields.[citation needed] Queensland had 250 Italians, South Australia 141, Tasmania 11 and Western Australia just 10. Such figures, from Australian sources, correspond to similar figures from Italian sources.[citation needed]

While Italians in Australia were less than 2,000, they tended to increase, because they were attracted by the easy possibility to settle in areas capable of intense agricultural exploitation.[citation needed] In this regard, it must be borne in mind again that in the early 1880s Italy was facing a strong economic crisis, which was going to push a hundred thousand Italians to seek a better life abroad.[citation needed]

In addition, even Australian travellers, like Randolph Bedford, who visited Italy in the 1870s and 1880s, admitted the convenience of having a larger intake of Italian workers into Australia. Bedford stated that Italians would adjust to the Australian climate better than the "pale" English migrant. As the job opportunities attracted so many British people to the colonies to be employed in agriculture, certainly the Italian peasant, accustomed to be a hard-worker, "frugal and sober", would be a very good immigrant for the Australia soil. Many Italian immigrants had extensive knowledge of Mediterranean-style farming techniques, which were better suited to cultivating Australia's harsh interior than the Northern-European methods in use previous to their arrival.[6]

Since the early 1880s, due to the socioeconomic situation in Italy and the abundant opportunities to settle in Australia as farmers, skilled or semi-skilled artisans and labourers, the number of Italians who left for Australia increased.[citation needed]

 
Anthony Albanese, Prime Minister of Australia since 2022

In 1881, over 200 foreign immigrants, of whom a considerable number were Italians from Northern Italy, arrived in Sydney.[citation needed] They were the survivors from Marquis de Ray's ill-fated attempt at founding a colony, Nouvelle France, in New Ireland, which later became part of Germany's New Guinea Protectorate. Many of them took up a conditional purchase farm of 16 hectares (40 acres) near Woodburn in the Northern Rivers District at what was subsequently known as New Italy. By the mid-1880s, about 50 holdings of an aggregate area of more than 1,200 hectares (3,000 acres) were under occupation, and the Italian population of New Italy has increased to 250. In this respect, Lyng reported: "The land was very poor and heavily timbered and had been passed over by local settlers. However, the Italians set to work and by great industry and thrift succeeded in clearing some of the land and making it productive. ... Besides, working on their own properties the settlers were engaged in the sugar industry, in timber squaring, grass seed gathering, and other miscellaneous work".

In 1883, a commercial Treaty between the United Kingdom and Italy was signed, allowing Italian subjects freedom of entry, travel and residence, and the rights to acquire and own property and to carry on business activities. This Agreement certainly favoured the arrival in Australia of many more Italians.[citation needed]

In working society, 1890–1920 edit

1891 was the year in Queensland in which over 300 peasants from northern Italy were scheduled to arrive, as the first contingent to replace over 60,000 Kanakas brought to north Queensland since the mid-nineteenth century as exploitable labour for the sugarcane plantations. Until the early 1890s, Italians had been practically an unknown—although very modest—quantity in Queensland. As a result of the new White Australia policy, the Kanakas were now being deported. While employment was guaranteed, wages were low and fixed. The deciding factor in the whole matter was the plight of the sugar industry: docile gang labour was essential, and the "frugal" Italian peasants were perfectly suited for such employment.

The Australian Workers' Union claimed that Italians would work harder than the Kanakas for lower pay and take away work from Australians, and over 8,000 Queenslanders signed a petition requesting the project to be cancelled. Nonetheless, more Italian migrants arrived and soon nominated friends and relatives still in Italy. They slowly acquired a large number of sugar-cane plantations and gradually set up thriving Italian communities in north Queensland around the towns of Ayr and Innisfail.

A few years later, Italians were again the subject of public discussion in Western Australia. The gold rush of the early 1890s in Western Australia and the subsequent labour disputes at the mines had belatedly attracted Italians in large number, both from Victoria and Italy itself. Most of them were unskilled and therefore usually employed on the surface of the mines, or cutting, loading and carting wood nearby. Pyke so described the situation:

Popular agitation was prompted mainly by growing unemployment; even Italians had begun to write home about it. Italians, however, could still be readily employed, often in preference to other workmen, because of the contract system of employment. They had the virtue of comparative docility and temperance and the ability to work in the hottest of weather; consequently, they were sought after by contractors, a few of whom were Italians themselves.[7]

As previously stated with respect to the temporary migration of Tuscan migrants, Italians worked hard, and most saved steadily, by a simple a primitive mode of life, to buy land either in hospitable Australian urban areas or in the Italian community of origin. They were clearly "the better men for the worse job".

The early 1890s is a turning point in the Australian attitude toward Italian immigration. Pyke stated:

The Labour Movement was against Italian immigration to all areas, and particularly to these industries, inasmuch as it swelled the labour market and increased competition, thereby putting employers in the enviable position of being able to pick and choose and giving employees who wanted to labour and needed work, the opportunity of paying for employment and accepting low wages.[8]

Sugarcane activities in Queensland and mining in Western Australia—where most of the Italians were employed—became the targets of the Labour movement. As O'Connor reports in his work on the first Italian settlements, when Italians began to compete with Britons for work on the Kalgoorlie goldfields, the Parliament was warned that they, along with Greeks and Hungarians, "had become a greater pest in the United States than the coloured races". In other words, during the 1890s, a political and social alliance was formed between the Australian Labour Party and the Anglo-Celtic Australian working class to react to Italian immigrants, with particular reference to northern and central Italian workers who lowered the level of wages.

Even in the Italian literature of the 1890s and early 1900s on travel reports and descriptions of Australia, there are notes about these frictions. The Italian Geographical Society (Societa' Geografica Italiana) reported as follows about the few Italian settlements in Australia:

Nella maggior parte dei casi l'operaio (italiano) vive sotto la tenda, così chiunque non sia dedito all'ubriachezza (cosa troppo comune in questi paesi, ma non fra i nostri connazionali) può facilmente risparmiare la metà del suo salario. I nostri italiani, economi per eccellenza, risparmiano talvolta anche di più.
(In the great majority of cases, Italian labourers live in tents, so, whoever does not get drunk (which is such a common habit in this country, except amongst Italians) can easily save up to half his wage. Our Italians, extremely thrifty, save even more than that).

Among the many observations about his journey to Australia, the Italian priest and writer, Giuseppe Capra, notes in 1909:

In questi ultimi cinquantacinque anni, in cui l'Italiano emigrò più numeroso in Australia, la sua condotta morale è superiore a quella delle altre nazionalità che qui sono rappresentate, l'inglese compreso. Amante del lavoro, del risparmio, intelligente, sobrio, è sempre ricercatissimo: l'unico contrasto che talvolta incontra è quello dell'operaio inglese, che, forte della sua origine, si fa preferire e guarda al suo concorrente con viso arcigno, temendo, senza alcun fondamento, che l'Italiano si presti a lavori per salari inferiori ai proprii.
(During these recent 55 years, when Italians migrated more to Australia, their moral conduct had been superior to that of the many other nationals here represented, British included. Italians are work and savings-oriented, intelligent, sober and very much sought after. The only hostility comes from the British labourers who, confident of their origin, look at their Italian competitors with a surly mood, because they are afraid—without any evidence—that Italians could work for lower wages than theirs).[9]

 
Natalie Imbruglia

Frictions between the established Australian working class and the newcomers suggest that, during periods of economic crisis and unemployment, immigration acted as a "tool of division and attack" by international capitalism to working class organisations.[citation needed] There were Italians in occupations other than in the sugarcane industry and mining. In Western Australia, fishing was next in popularity, followed by the usual urban pursuits now associated with Italians of peasant origin, such as market gardening, the keeping of restaurants and wine shops and the sale of fruit and vegetables.[citation needed]

As Cresciani has explained in his comprehensive study of Italian settlements in the early decades of the twentieth century, it was the small size and the type of the Italian settlement that also worked against a wider involvement of Italian migrants with organised labour.[citation needed]

"Most Italians were scattered in the countryside, on the goldfields, in the mines. As agricultural workers, fruit pickers, farmers, tobacco growers, canecutters. The distance and the lack of communication prevented them from organising themselves. Those in the cities, mainly greengrocers, market gardeners and labourers, because of the sheer lack of interest and capacity to understand the advantages that a political organisation would bring, kept themselves aloof from any active role in politics and from the people who were advocating it. Also, many migrants were seasonal workers, never stopping for long at any one place, thus making it difficult for them to take part in social or political activities". By the early 1900s, there were over 5,000 Italians in Australia in a remarkable variety of occupations. According to the 1911 Census, there were 6,719 residents who had been born in Italy. Of these, 5,543 were males, while 2,683 had become naturalised. No less than 2,600 were in Western Australia.

One of the most significant policy matters that the new Parliament of Australia had to consider after it opened in 1901 was immigration. Later that year, the Attorney-General, Alfred Deakin, introduced and passed into legislation the Immigration Restriction Act 1901 and the allied Pacific Island Labourers Act. The goal was to ensure the White Australia policy by controlling entry into Australia and—by the latter—repatriating coloured labour from the Pacific Islands. The concept was meant to safeguard the social "white" purity and protect wage standards against cheap coloured labour.[citation needed]

As the Restriction Act passed into legislation, there was some confusion as to whether Italians should be let into the country or kept out by means of the "Dictation test" provisions, as stated into the Act. The Act did not specify a translation but rather a dictation in a European language, the purpose of the test being to keep non-Europeans out of Australia, as a deterrent to unwanted immigrants. Although the test was initially to be administered in English, it was then changed to any European language, "mainly through Labour insistence". Such a firmly sustained system to select entries into Australia that it remained on the statute books until 1958, when it was replaced by a system of entry permits.

Nevertheless, in the early 1900s, some Italians calling at Fremantle and other Australian ports were refused admission under the provisions of the Act. These latter cases might be indicative of the fact that Western Australia shared the xenophobia of the rest of the world.[citation needed] The reaction was certainly associated with the so-called "Awakening of Asia" and 'Yellow Peril', which were not exclusively Australian terms. As reported: "Such concepts combined to produce in Europe a suspicion that the traditional European supremacy around the globe was coming to an end. In Australia that eventually was seen as, or made to appear, a more immediate threatening".

Fuelled both by the British-European feeling of loss of supremacy and the fears of the Australian Labor Party in working sectors where labourers were not exclusively Anglo-Celtic, anti-Italian sentiments gathered momentum in the United States in the early 1900s, in the wake of Italian mass migration. Such attitudes also flourished in Australia, as it has been reported with respect to the Queensland sugar-cane industry and Western Australian mines.[citation needed]

Nevertheless, a new attempt to found an Italian colony in Western Australia took place in 1906, when the western state offered to host about 100 Italian peasant families to settle in the south-western rural corner of Western Australia. A delegation of a few northern Italian farmers led by Leopoldo Zunini, an Italian career diplomat, visited most of these rural areas.[citation needed] Although his report on soil fertility, quality of cattle to graze, transport and accommodation for the Italian farmers was extremely positive and enthusiastic, the settlement scheme was not carried out.[citation needed] Again, Western Australia public opinion opposed the creation of an exclusively Italian settlement, possibly caused by a mounting anti-Italian sentiment fuelled by the outlined episodes of confrontation between the Labour movement and the cheap labour cost offered by Italian migrants.[citation needed]

Growth of the community, 1921–1945 edit

Italian migration to Australia increased markedly only after heavy restrictions were placed on Italians' entry to the United States. More than two million Italian migrants entered the United States from the start of the 20th century to the outbreak of the First World War, whereas only about twelve thousand Italians had entered Australia in the same period. In 1917, while war was still on, the United States introduced a Literacy Act to curtail its immigration flow—which had reached a high number in the years immediately before the war—and Canada enacted similar legislation two years later. In 1921, United States policy became even stricter, with the establishment of a quota system that limited the total intake of Italian immigrants in any one year to about 41,000 (calculated as 3% of the number of Italians residing in the United States in 1910). Furthermore, in 1924, the figures related to the entry of Italians were cut almost to zero, as they were meant to represent the 2% of the Italian component in the United States in 1890.

Such severe restrictions meant that part of the great post-war stream of migrants from Italy was progressively diverted to Australia. Nevertheless, the way Italian migrants were conceived by Australian society was not going to change after its perception had formed in the early 1900s. With respect to this attitude, MacDonald wrote: "Italian immigration became the largest non-British movement after the entry of Melanesians and Asians was stopped by the new federal government in 1902. This put Italians at the bottom of the Australian "racial totem pole", just above other Southern Europeans[10] and Aborigines. The volume of arrivals, the proportion of settlers in the total population of Australia, and the size of Italian agglomerated settlements were trivial by international standards. Yet the establishment of fifty Italian households within a radius of five miles (8.0 km) or the employment of twenty Italians on a job were cause for alarm in Australian eyes, The "inferiority" of Italians was generally seen in racist terms as well as specifically in terms of their threatening to compete with labour of British stock because of their "primitive" way of life".

This attitude was also present in other English speaking countries, as Porter reported for Canada. In his classical study of Italians in North Queensland, Douglass suggests other factors affecting such racist attitudes, and reports a summary of the Commonwealth Parliamentary debate of 1927: "The image of the Italian was nourished by the stereotype of the southerner, and particularly the Sicilian. Regardless of its veracity, it could be applied to only a minority of the new arrivals since, by Italian Government estimates, fully two-fifths of its emigrants to Australia were from the Veneto and another two-fifths were drawn from the Piedmont, Lombardy and Tuscany regions. Only one-fifth were from Sicily and Calabria".

Although the Australian attitude towards Italians was not friendly, since the early 1920s Italian migrants began to arrive in Australia in notable numbers. While the Australian Census of 1921 recorded 8,135 Italians residing in the country, during the years 1922–1925 another 15,000 arrived and, again, a similar number of Italians reached Australia during the period 1926–1930.

Together with the entry restrictions adopted by the United States, another factor that increased Italian emigration in the early 1920s was the rise of Fascism in Italy in 1922. Gradually, the arrays of migrants became formed also by a minor component of political opponents to Fascism, generally peasants of the northern Italian regions, who chose Australia as their destination. In his study on Italian migration to South Australia, O'Connor even reports on the presence, in 1926, in Adelaide of a dangerous anarchist "subversive" from the village of Capoliveri, in the Tuscan Island of Elba, one Giacomo Argenti.

The concern of Benito Mussolini about the high emigration figures of the mid-1920s pushed the Fascist government's decision in 1927 to stop all migration to overseas countries, with rarely permitted exceptions, apart from female and minor close relatives (under-age sons, unmarried daughters of any age, parents and unmarried sisters without family in Italy) dependent on residents abroad. In the early 1920s Italians had found that it was not difficult to enter Australia, as there were no visa requirements. The Amending Immigration Act of 1924 prohibited the entry of migrants unless they had a written guarantee completed by a sponsor, an Atto di richiamo ('Call notice'). In this case, any migrant could come to Australia free of charge. Without a sponsor, the required landing money was ten pounds until 1924 and forty since 1925. O'Connor stated: "In 1928, as the number of arrivals increased, a 'gentleman's agreement' between Italy and Australia limited the entry of Italians to no more than 2% of British arrivals, amounting to a maximum of 3,000 Italians per year".

Italian nationalism acted as an element of reaction and defence to the Australian environment. By the early 1930s, even Italian diplomatic activity in Australia—as a direct expression of the Fascist government—became more incisive and oriented to make more and more Fascist proselytes among Italians. Migrants were invited to become members of the fascist political organisations of Australia, to come to fascist meetings and eventually to return to Italy, to consent to serve in the Italian armed forces, both in view of the Italian war campaign of Ethiopia (1936) and, later, at the outbreak of World War II.

Italians had arrived in Australia in consistent numbers all through the 1920s and 1930s, regardless of the internal and external factors affecting either their departure or their stay in Australia. Entry conditions of Italian migrants became stricter in countries of more popular destinations as the United States, and Italian Fascist authorities tightened the departure of migrants. At the same time, in Australia, the attitude towards Italians had been hostile to their settlements and work patterns. In addition, Australia, like the United States and most western countries, was hit by the economic Depression of 1929, which caused a serious recession during the following years.

 
Mark Bresciano

Even Australian legislation was changed consequently. Amendments to the Immigration Restriction Act in 1932 were more drastic and aimed at more effectively controlling the entry of "white aliens" into Australia. The amendment extended the landing permit system to all categories of immigrants, while before was applicable only to immigrants with a maintenance guarantee. The goal was to limit immigrants from competing in the local labour market to the detriment of the local unemployed. At the same time, the power to apply the dictation test was still available for up to five years to restrict the landing of an immigrant whose admission was not desired.

The economic depression ignited another social tension which fanned into racial hatred again in 1934. In the gold-mining city of Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, an Australian who had expressed defamatory remarks about Italians in an Italian-owned hotel was knocked dead by the barman. This accident sparked the resentment of many Australian miners against Italians residing in Kalgoorlie, which culminated in two days of riots. A raging crowd of miners devastated and burnt many shops and private abodes of Italians and other Southern Europeans in Boulder and Kalgoorlie and pushed hundreds of Italian migrants to shelter in the surrounding countryside. Notwithstanding the condemnation of the fact on media, the riots did not modify the attitude of public opinion toward Italians in general.

In the 1930s, the Australian community maintained a perception of cultural inferiority of Italians that owed much to longer-term racial conceptions and which were confirmed by the lifestyle of the migrants. As observed by Bertola in his study of the riots, racism towards Italians lay in "their apparent willingness to be used in efforts to drive down wages and conditions, and their inability to transcend the boundaries that separated them from the host culture".

This was the umpteenth episode that without doubt pushed the notable number of Italians now working and residing in Australia to sympathise with Fascism and devote to the narrow circle of the Italian associations and the close relations of the family. In the late 1930s, a Fascist traveller to Australia so describes the life and work of Italians in the Western Australian mines:

È la dura quotidiana fatica del lavoro e la resistenza alle lotte degli Australiani che essi debbono sostenere per il prestigio di essere Italiani di Mussolini. [...] Gli Italiani formarono quel fronte unico di resistenza che va considerato una delle più belle vittorie del fascismo in terra straniera. Altra cosa è fare gl'Italiani in Italia altra è all'estero, dove chi ti dà da mangiare dimentica che tu lavori per lui, e solo per questo crede di essere padrone delle tue braccia e del tuo spirito.
(Italians have to sustain the daily hard work and the resistance to the claims of Australians, to bear the prestige to be Italians of Mussolini. [...] Italians formed that strong front of resistance, which can be considered one of the best victories of fascism in foreign land. One thing is to form Italians in Italy and another is abroad, where those who feed you forget that you all work for them, and just for this reason they think to be the owners of your arms and spirits).

Nevertheless, the Australia Census of 1933 claimed that 26,756 (against the 8,000 of 1921) were born in Italy. Since that year, Italy-born residents in Australia began to represent the first non-English speaking ethnic group of the country, replacing Germans and Chinese. Notwithstanding, a very high proportion of them (20,064) were male. Many Italian male migrants, who had in fact left Italy for Australia during the late 1920s and early 1930s, were joined by wives, working-age sons, daughters, brothers and sisters in the late 1930s. This pattern can be interpreted as a "defence" from both the perceived hostile Australia environment and the political turmoil of pre-war Italy.

Until the outbreak of World War II, there was a considerable degree of segregation between Italians and Australians. As an additional reaction, a large proportion of Italians in Australia tended to defer naturalisation (which could be granted after a period of five years of residence) until they had finally established their homes in Australia. Consequently, it is not surprising that, with the outbreak of World War II, the Australian opinion of Italian migrants naturally hardened.

The entry of Italy into the war was followed by the large-scale internment of Italians, especially in Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia.[11] The concern in Queensland was that Italians would somehow join forces with an invading Japanese force and constitute a fifth column. Between 1940 and 1945, most of those who had not been naturalised before the war's outbreak were considered "enemy aliens", and therefore either interned or subjected to close watch, with respect to personal movements and area of employment. There were many cases of Italian-Australians who had taken out Australian citizenship also being interned. This was particularly the case in northern Queensland.

Post-war mass migration to Australia, 1946–1970s edit

 
The ossario at Murchison, Victoria, a memorial to the Italian prisoners of war held in the region during World War II

During WWII, more than 18,000 Italian prisoners-of-war were sent to internment camps throughout Australia. Together with the interned "enemy aliens", after 1942 a large number of them were employed in inland farms without much surveillance. Many prisoners of war and Italian-Australian interned worked hard in farms and cattle stations, thus gaining a favourable opinion as hard and committed workers by their Australian employers. This circumstance contributed to generate an environment more agreeable – than that before the war – for the Italian post-war migration to Australia. After World War II, the attitude of Australians towards Italians gradually began to change, with the increasing appreciation of the value of Italians in the economic development of Australia. At the same time, the Italian war experience helped to destroy many of the political and sentimental attachments that Italians had previously felt towards their country. As a consequence, the end of the war encouraged the naturalisation of many Italian migrants, who had been caught up as enemy aliens at the outbreak of the world conflict.

At the end of 1947, only 21% of the Italians residing in Australia were not yet naturalised. Many of those becoming naturalised in the late 1940s did so to allay the suspicion caused by the war. Borrie wrote in his fundamental work on the assimilation of Italians in Australia:

"Naturalisation was the obvious first step towards their rehabilitation. The war had also broken many of the links with Italy, and in addition it was still difficult to secure a shipping passage to return there. But while the act of naturalization may have been an irrevocable step which in turn provided an incentive to become socially and culturally assimilated, field investigations show clearly that Italians retained many traits, particularly within the circle of the home, which were not "Australian". And naturalized or not, they were still not fully accepted by Australians".[12]

 
Daniel Ricciardo

Conversely, after the war experience, the Australian government embarked on the 'Populate or Perish' program, aimed to increase the population of the country for strategically important economic and military reasons. The immigration debate in postwar Australia assumed new dimensions as official policy sought a significant increase in the number and the diversity of immigrants, and to find a place for those coming from a tired and torn Europe. The war had occasioned a shift in migration patterns, pressing the need to place a large number of people who could not return to their own countries for a wide range of reasons. This was the case of over ten million people from Central and North-eastern Europe, such as Poles, Germans, Greeks, Czechs, Yugoslavs and Slovaks. An important stage in this immigration program began with the Displaced Persons Scheme in 1947, which attracted over 170,000 displaced persons to Australia.

Italy's postwar migration certainly grew out of the country's policy of industrial development. Although there had been a significant industrial growth in Italy before the war, the devastation wrought by the conflict left the structure in ruins. This factor and the return of Italian soldiers from the war fronts generated a surplus of population which turned to emigration as an alternative to poverty.

By the early 1950s, Australian authorities negotiated formal migration agreements with the Netherlands (1951), Germany and Austria (1952). They also introduced a system of personal nominations and guarantees, opened to Italians, to permit families separated by the war to come together again. In addition, the Australian and Italian governments negotiated a scheme of recruitment and assisted passages, which became fully effective in 1952. As extensively outlined by MacDonald, the chain migration process, eased by the personal nomination scheme, seemed to be more flexible than the administrative machinery of the bilateral program. Personal nominees had a guarantee of assistance and contacts at their arrival in Australia, to help migrants to evaluate all employment possibilities.

Since the mid-1950s, the Italian flow of migrants to Australia assumed a sort of mass migration. Either nominated by relatives in Australia as a major component, or as assisted migrants, a notable number of migrants left Italy for Australia. Unlike the pre-war movement, most of the migrants of the 1950s and 1960s had planned to settle permanently in Australia. Within these two decades, the number of Italians who came to Australia was so high that their number increased tenfold. Between June 1949 and July 2000, Italy was the second most common birthplace for immigrant arrivals to Australia after United Kingdom and Ireland.[13]

No. of arrivals
July 1949 – June 2000[13]
July 1949 – June 1959[14] July 1959 – June 1970[15] July 1970 – June 1980
Immigrant arrivals from Italy 390,810 201,428 150,669 28,800
Total immigrant arrivals 5,640,638 1,253,083 1,445,356 956,769
Percentage of immigrants from Italy 6.9% 16.1% 10.4% 3.0%

21st century edit

In recent years, Australia has been witnessing a new wave of migration from Italy in numbers not seen in half a century, as thousands flee the economic hardship in Italy.

The explosion of numbers saw more than 20,000 Italians arrive in Australia in 2012–13 on temporary visas, exceeding the number of Italians that arrived in 1950–51 during the previous migration boom following World War Two.[16]

At the 2022 federal election, Anthony Albanese was elected, becoming Australia's first Prime Minister of Italian descent.[17]

As of 2020 David Crisafulli is the Queensland state Opposition Leader (LNP) and Lia Finocchiaro is the Northern Territory Opposition Leader (CLP). Both are of Italian descent.

Demographics edit

 
People with Italian ancestry as a percentage of the population in Australia divided geographically by statistical local area, as of the 2011 census

At the 2021 census, 1,108,364 people nominated Italian ancestry (whether alone or in combination with another ancestry), representing 4.4% of the Australian population.[1] The 2021 census found that 163,326 were born in Italy.[1] In 2021, there were 228,042 Australian residents who spoke Italian at home.[1]

According to 2006 census data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, 95% of Italian born Australians recorded their religion as Christian.[18]

As of the 2006 census, 162,107 (81.4%) speak Italian at home.[18] Proficiency in English was self-described by census respondents as very well by 28%, well by 32%, 21% not well (18% didn't state or said not applicable).[18]

As the level of immigration from Italy dropped significantly after the 1970s, the Australian population born in Italy is ageing and in decline. Most Italian Australians are the Australian-born descendants of Italian immigrants.

As of 2016, there were 120,791 registered Italian citizens (including those with dual citizenship) living in Australia according to the Italian constitutional referendum, 2016.[19]

Geographical distribution edit

 
One dot denotes 100 Italy born Sydney residents.
 
One dot denotes 100 Italy born Melbourne residents.

Italians are well represented in every Australian state, territory, town and region. At the 2021 census, states with the largest numbers of persons nominating Italian ancestry were Victoria (384,688), New South Wales (301,829), Queensland (152,571), Western Australia (137,255) and South Australia (103,914).[20]

Most Australian residents born in Italy are now concentrated in Melbourne (73,799), Sydney (44,562), Adelaide (20,877) and Perth (18,815).[21] Unlike other groups, the number of Italians residing in Brisbane is relatively few, with the exception of a notable distribution of Italians in Northern Queensland, as Hempel has described in her research on post-war settlement of Italian immigrants in this state. This circumstance is a consequence of the migration patterns followed by Italians in the earlier stage of their settlement in Queensland, during the 1910s, 1920s and 1930s, when the sugarcane industry and its related possibility of quick earnings attracted more "temporary" migrants in the countryside.

Conversely, in Australian cities, the Italian village or the region of origin have been significant in the formation of separate settlements or neighbourhood groupings of Italians. The way in which a population "subgroup" is distributed across an area is of importance because not only can it tell us a great deal about the pattern of life of that group, but it is also crucial in any planning of service delivering to such a community. The Italian community has very distinctive patterns of distribution that differentiate it from the total population.

As Burnley reports in his study on Italian absorption in urban Australia, some Italian concentrations in the inner suburbs of Carlton, the traditional 'Little Italy' of Melbourne, and Leichhardt, its equivalent in Sydney, were made up of several groups from geographically very circumscribed areas of Italy. Migrants from the Lipari Islands of Sicily, and from a few communities of the Province of Vicenza have formed the main Italian community core of Leichhardt, as well as Sicilians from the Province of Ragusa and the Commune of Vizzini have formed a large contingent in Brunswick, a local government authority of Melbourne now containing over 10,000 Italians.

On a smaller scale, but through similar patterns, other large communities of Italians were formed, since the first notable arrival of Italians of the 1920s and 1930s, in Adelaide, Perth and in minor cities of Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland. Most first-generation Italian migrants came to Australia by the nomination of a close relative or a friend, as forms of chain migration.

With particular reference to Western Australia, as previously stated, Italians began to arrive in more notable number after the discovery of gold in the Eastern Goldfields, in the early 1890s. The Australian Census of 1911 records the presence of over 2,000 Italians in Western Australia. Only two years before, the Italian writer Capra had visited the state and reported: "L'attuale emigrazione italiana in Australia e' poca cosa, e consta quasi esclusivamente di operai per le miniere e pel taglio della legna nella parte occidentale, e di lavoratori della canna da zucchero nel Queensland". (Present Italian migration to Australia is negligible, almost exclusively limited to miners and woodcutters in the western state, and sugarcane cutters in Queensland).

Capra details the professional distribution of Italians. Over two-thirds all Italians were employed either in mines or in the mine-related woodcutting industry (respectively about 400 and 800), both in the gold districts of Gwalia, Day Down, Coolgardie and Cue, and the forests of Karrawong and Lakeside. The remaining Italian workers were mainly involved in farming (250) and fishing (150). This work pattern of Italians in Western Australia did not change much with the more consistent migration flow of the late 1920s and early 1930s. During these two decades, Italian migrants to Australia continued to come from the north and central mountain areas of Italy, thus following a pattern of "temporary" migration that pushed them to look for jobs with potential quick remuneration, as mining and woodcutting could offer. Changes in such patterns, together with the Italian mass-migration program of the 1950s and 1960s, have already been examined. Hence, the different component of regional origin of Italians in Western Australia and, subsequently, since the late 1950s, a more composite geographical distribution of Italian migrants in both urban and rural areas of the state.

Origins edit

Between the period of 1947 to 1971, Australia's Italy-born numbered 289,476 and most Italian migrants came from Sicily, Calabria and Veneto and settled in metropolitan areas.[22]

Return migration edit

Italian Australians have a low rate of return migration to Italy. In December 2001, the Department of Foreign Affairs estimated that there were 30,000 Australian citizens resident in Italy.[23] These are likely to be largely returned Italian emigrants with Australian citizenship, and their Italian-Australian children.

Film on Italian emigration to Australia edit

 
A scene from the film A Girl in Australia (1971)

See also edit

Notes edit

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Community profile 2021 abs.gov.au
  2. ^ . 30 July 2008. Archived from the original on 30 July 2008.
  3. ^ "Raffaello Carboni". gutenberg.net.au.
  4. ^ "Carboni, Raffaello (1817–1875)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. National Centre of Biography, Australian National University.
  5. ^ D'Aprano, C 1995, From Goldrush to Federation: Italian Pioneers in Victoria 1850–1900, INT Press, Melbourne
  6. ^ Pesman, R 1983, "Australian visitors to Italy in the nineteenth century", in G Cresciani (ed.), The Australians and Italian migration, Franco Angeli, Milano.
  7. ^ N.O.P. Pyke (1948). An Outline History of Italian Immigration into Australia. Australian Institute of Policy and Science. p. 109.
  8. ^ N.O.P. Pyke (1946). Some Reflections on Italian Immigration into Australia. Australian Institute of Policy and Science. p. 43.
  9. ^ Capra, G 1936, 'Una Razza destinata a scomparire? Aborigeni d'Australia', Le Vie d'Italia e del mondo, 6 June.
  10. ^ . Archived from the original on 9 September 2006. Retrieved 19 December 2006.
  11. ^ A. Cappello, Enemy Aliens: The Internment of Italian Migrants in Australia, Connor Court, 2006.
  12. ^ Robert Pascoe (1987), Buongiorno Australia. Our Italian Heritage, Greenhouse Publications, Richmond (Victoria), p.220
  13. ^ a b (PDF). Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs. October 2001. p. 25. Archived from the original (pdf (64 pages)) on 4 December 2010. Retrieved 21 July 2008.
  14. ^ Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs: Settler arrivals by birthplace data not available prior to 1959. For the period July 1949 to June 1959, Permanent and Long Term Arrivals by Country of Last Residence have been included as a proxy for this data. ... in the period immediately after World War II, there were large numbers of displaced persons whose country of last residence was not necessarily the same as their birthplace.
  15. ^ Note this period covers 11 years rather than a decade.
  16. ^ "Economic disaster prompts spike in Italian migration to Australia". ABC News. 28 November 2014 – via www.abc.net.au.
  17. ^ "Australian election 2022: Anthony Albanese due for speech; Scott Morrison concedes and stands down as Liberal leader – live updates". The Guardian. 21 May 2022. Retrieved 21 May 2022.
  18. ^ a b c "2914.0.55.002 2006 Census Ethnic Media Package" (Excel download). Census Dictionary, 2006 (cat.no 2901.0). Australian Bureau of Statistics. 27 June 2007. Retrieved 14 July 2008.
  19. ^ "Riepilogo estero - Risultati Referendum Costituzionale – 4 dicembre 2016". la Repubblica.it.
  20. ^ "2021 Census data. Cultural diversity". abs.gov.au.
  21. ^ Statistics, c=AU; o=Commonwealth of Australia; ou=Australian Bureau of. "Redirect to Census data page". www.abs.gov.au.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  22. ^ (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 20 December 2016. Retrieved 7 December 2016.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  23. ^ (PDF). Southern Cross Group (DFAT data). 14 February 2001. Archived from the original (PDF) on 20 July 2008. Retrieved 15 July 2008.

External links edit

  • Gianfranco Cresciani (2008). "Italians". Dictionary of Sydney. Retrieved 4 October 2015. (Italians in Sydney)
  • Pierpaolo Gandini (1996). "Antipodi". L'emigrazione italiana in Australia

italian, australians, confused, with, australians, italy, this, article, needs, additional, citations, verification, please, help, improve, this, article, adding, citations, reliable, sources, unsourced, material, challenged, removed, find, sources, news, news. Not to be confused with Australians in Italy This article needs additional citations for verification Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources Unsourced material may be challenged and removed Find sources Italian Australians news newspapers books scholar JSTOR December 2023 Learn how and when to remove this template message Italian Australians Italian italo australiani are Australian born citizens who are fully or partially of Italian descent whose ancestors were Italians who emigrated to Australia during the Italian diaspora or Italian born people in Australia Italian AustraliansItalo australiani Italian Memorial in New Italy New South Wales list of family names Total population1 108 364 by ancestry 2021 1 4 4 of the Australian population 1 171 520 by birth 2021 1 Regions with significant populationsMelbourne Sydney Perth Adelaide Brisbane and other urban areasGriffith Ingham New ItalyLanguagesAustralian English Italian and Italian dialects Italo Australian dialectReligionChristianity predominantly Roman Catholic Related ethnic groupsItalians Italian New Zealanders Italian Americans Italian Canadians Italian South Africans Italian BritishItalian Australians constitute the sixth largest ancestry group in Australia and one of the largest groups in the global Italian diaspora At the 2021 census 1 108 364 Australian residents nominated Italian ancestry whether alone or in combination with another ancestry representing 4 4 of the Australian population The 2021 census found that 171 520 were born in Italy 1 In 2021 there were 228 042 Australian residents who spoke Italian at home 1 The Italo Australian dialect is prominent among Italian Australians who use the Italian language Contents 1 History 1 1 Early history 1 2 In working society 1890 1920 1 3 Growth of the community 1921 1945 1 4 Post war mass migration to Australia 1946 1970s 1 5 21st century 2 Demographics 2 1 Geographical distribution 2 2 Origins 2 3 Return migration 3 Film on Italian emigration to Australia 4 See also 5 Notes 6 External linksHistory editEarly history editItalians have been arriving in Australia in a limited number since before the first fleet Two individuals of Italian descent served on board the Endeavour when Captain James Cook arrived in Australia in 1770 Giuseppe Tuzi was among the convicts transported to Australia by the British in the First Fleet 2 Another early notable arrival for his participation in Australian politics was Raffaello Carboni who in 1853 participated with other miners in the uprising of Eureka Stockade and wrote the only complete eye witness account of the uprising 3 4 This migration of northern Italian middle class professionals to Australia was spurred by the persecution from Austrian authorities who controlled most of the northern regions of Italy until 1860 especially after the failure of the revolts in many European cities in the 1840s and 1850s As stated by D Aprano in his work on the first Italian migrants in Victoria We find some Italian artisans in Melbourne and other colonies already in the 1840s and 1841s many of whom had participated in the defeated revolts against the despotic rulers of Modena Naples Venice Milan Bologna Rome and other cities They came to Australia to seek a better and more efficient life 5 Through the 1840s and 1850s the number of Italian migrants of peasant background who came for economic reasons increased citation needed Nevertheless they did not come from the landless poverty stricken agricultural working class but from rural families with at least sufficient means to pay their fare to Australia Furthermore in the late 1850s some 2 000 Swiss Italians of Australia from Northern Italy migrated to the Victorian goldfields citation needed The number of Italians who arrived in Australia remained small during the whole of the nineteenth century The voyage was costly and complex as no direct shipping link existed between the two countries until the late 1890s citation needed The length of the voyage was over two months before the opening of the Suez Canal Italian migrants who intended to leave for Australia had to use German shipping lines that called at the ports of Genoa and Naples no more than once a month citation needed Therefore other overseas destinations such as the United States and the Latin American countries proved much more attractive thus allowing the establishment of migration patterns more quickly and drawing far greater numbers citation needed Nevertheless the Victorian gold rush of the 1850s attracted thousands of Italians and Swiss Italians to Australia The drain on the labour supply occasioned by the gold rush caused Australia to also seek workmen from Europe for land use and the development of cultivation both in New South Wales and Queensland citation needed Unfortunately the number of Italians who joined the Victorian gold mines is obscure and until 1871 Italians did not receive a special place in any Australian census figures By 1881 the first year of census figures on Italian migrants in all States there were 521 Italians representing 0 066 of the total population in New South Wales and 947 0 10 in Victoria of whom one third were in Melbourne and the rest were in the goldfields citation needed Queensland had 250 Italians South Australia 141 Tasmania 11 and Western Australia just 10 Such figures from Australian sources correspond to similar figures from Italian sources citation needed While Italians in Australia were less than 2 000 they tended to increase because they were attracted by the easy possibility to settle in areas capable of intense agricultural exploitation citation needed In this regard it must be borne in mind again that in the early 1880s Italy was facing a strong economic crisis which was going to push a hundred thousand Italians to seek a better life abroad citation needed In addition even Australian travellers like Randolph Bedford who visited Italy in the 1870s and 1880s admitted the convenience of having a larger intake of Italian workers into Australia Bedford stated that Italians would adjust to the Australian climate better than the pale English migrant As the job opportunities attracted so many British people to the colonies to be employed in agriculture certainly the Italian peasant accustomed to be a hard worker frugal and sober would be a very good immigrant for the Australia soil Many Italian immigrants had extensive knowledge of Mediterranean style farming techniques which were better suited to cultivating Australia s harsh interior than the Northern European methods in use previous to their arrival 6 Since the early 1880s due to the socioeconomic situation in Italy and the abundant opportunities to settle in Australia as farmers skilled or semi skilled artisans and labourers the number of Italians who left for Australia increased citation needed nbsp Anthony Albanese Prime Minister of Australia since 2022In 1881 over 200 foreign immigrants of whom a considerable number were Italians from Northern Italy arrived in Sydney citation needed They were the survivors from Marquis de Ray s ill fated attempt at founding a colony Nouvelle France in New Ireland which later became part of Germany s New Guinea Protectorate Many of them took up a conditional purchase farm of 16 hectares 40 acres near Woodburn in the Northern Rivers District at what was subsequently known as New Italy By the mid 1880s about 50 holdings of an aggregate area of more than 1 200 hectares 3 000 acres were under occupation and the Italian population of New Italy has increased to 250 In this respect Lyng reported The land was very poor and heavily timbered and had been passed over by local settlers However the Italians set to work and by great industry and thrift succeeded in clearing some of the land and making it productive Besides working on their own properties the settlers were engaged in the sugar industry in timber squaring grass seed gathering and other miscellaneous work In 1883 a commercial Treaty between the United Kingdom and Italy was signed allowing Italian subjects freedom of entry travel and residence and the rights to acquire and own property and to carry on business activities This Agreement certainly favoured the arrival in Australia of many more Italians citation needed In working society 1890 1920 edit 1891 was the year in Queensland in which over 300 peasants from northern Italy were scheduled to arrive as the first contingent to replace over 60 000 Kanakas brought to north Queensland since the mid nineteenth century as exploitable labour for the sugarcane plantations Until the early 1890s Italians had been practically an unknown although very modest quantity in Queensland As a result of the new White Australia policy the Kanakas were now being deported While employment was guaranteed wages were low and fixed The deciding factor in the whole matter was the plight of the sugar industry docile gang labour was essential and the frugal Italian peasants were perfectly suited for such employment The Australian Workers Union claimed that Italians would work harder than the Kanakas for lower pay and take away work from Australians and over 8 000 Queenslanders signed a petition requesting the project to be cancelled Nonetheless more Italian migrants arrived and soon nominated friends and relatives still in Italy They slowly acquired a large number of sugar cane plantations and gradually set up thriving Italian communities in north Queensland around the towns of Ayr and Innisfail A few years later Italians were again the subject of public discussion in Western Australia The gold rush of the early 1890s in Western Australia and the subsequent labour disputes at the mines had belatedly attracted Italians in large number both from Victoria and Italy itself Most of them were unskilled and therefore usually employed on the surface of the mines or cutting loading and carting wood nearby Pyke so described the situation Popular agitation was prompted mainly by growing unemployment even Italians had begun to write home about it Italians however could still be readily employed often in preference to other workmen because of the contract system of employment They had the virtue of comparative docility and temperance and the ability to work in the hottest of weather consequently they were sought after by contractors a few of whom were Italians themselves 7 As previously stated with respect to the temporary migration of Tuscan migrants Italians worked hard and most saved steadily by a simple a primitive mode of life to buy land either in hospitable Australian urban areas or in the Italian community of origin They were clearly the better men for the worse job The early 1890s is a turning point in the Australian attitude toward Italian immigration Pyke stated The Labour Movement was against Italian immigration to all areas and particularly to these industries inasmuch as it swelled the labour market and increased competition thereby putting employers in the enviable position of being able to pick and choose and giving employees who wanted to labour and needed work the opportunity of paying for employment and accepting low wages 8 Sugarcane activities in Queensland and mining in Western Australia where most of the Italians were employed became the targets of the Labour movement As O Connor reports in his work on the first Italian settlements when Italians began to compete with Britons for work on the Kalgoorlie goldfields the Parliament was warned that they along with Greeks and Hungarians had become a greater pest in the United States than the coloured races In other words during the 1890s a political and social alliance was formed between the Australian Labour Party and the Anglo Celtic Australian working class to react to Italian immigrants with particular reference to northern and central Italian workers who lowered the level of wages Even in the Italian literature of the 1890s and early 1900s on travel reports and descriptions of Australia there are notes about these frictions The Italian Geographical Society Societa Geografica Italiana reported as follows about the few Italian settlements in Australia Nella maggior parte dei casi l operaio italiano vive sotto la tenda cosi chiunque non sia dedito all ubriachezza cosa troppo comune in questi paesi ma non fra i nostri connazionali puo facilmente risparmiare la meta del suo salario I nostri italiani economi per eccellenza risparmiano talvolta anche di piu In the great majority of cases Italian labourers live in tents so whoever does not get drunk which is such a common habit in this country except amongst Italians can easily save up to half his wage Our Italians extremely thrifty save even more than that Among the many observations about his journey to Australia the Italian priest and writer Giuseppe Capra notes in 1909 In questi ultimi cinquantacinque anni in cui l Italiano emigro piu numeroso in Australia la sua condotta morale e superiore a quella delle altre nazionalita che qui sono rappresentate l inglese compreso Amante del lavoro del risparmio intelligente sobrio e sempre ricercatissimo l unico contrasto che talvolta incontra e quello dell operaio inglese che forte della sua origine si fa preferire e guarda al suo concorrente con viso arcigno temendo senza alcun fondamento che l Italiano si presti a lavori per salari inferiori ai proprii During these recent 55 years when Italians migrated more to Australia their moral conduct had been superior to that of the many other nationals here represented British included Italians are work and savings oriented intelligent sober and very much sought after The only hostility comes from the British labourers who confident of their origin look at their Italian competitors with a surly mood because they are afraid without any evidence that Italians could work for lower wages than theirs 9 nbsp Natalie ImbrugliaFrictions between the established Australian working class and the newcomers suggest that during periods of economic crisis and unemployment immigration acted as a tool of division and attack by international capitalism to working class organisations citation needed There were Italians in occupations other than in the sugarcane industry and mining In Western Australia fishing was next in popularity followed by the usual urban pursuits now associated with Italians of peasant origin such as market gardening the keeping of restaurants and wine shops and the sale of fruit and vegetables citation needed As Cresciani has explained in his comprehensive study of Italian settlements in the early decades of the twentieth century it was the small size and the type of the Italian settlement that also worked against a wider involvement of Italian migrants with organised labour citation needed Most Italians were scattered in the countryside on the goldfields in the mines As agricultural workers fruit pickers farmers tobacco growers canecutters The distance and the lack of communication prevented them from organising themselves Those in the cities mainly greengrocers market gardeners and labourers because of the sheer lack of interest and capacity to understand the advantages that a political organisation would bring kept themselves aloof from any active role in politics and from the people who were advocating it Also many migrants were seasonal workers never stopping for long at any one place thus making it difficult for them to take part in social or political activities By the early 1900s there were over 5 000 Italians in Australia in a remarkable variety of occupations According to the 1911 Census there were 6 719 residents who had been born in Italy Of these 5 543 were males while 2 683 had become naturalised No less than 2 600 were in Western Australia One of the most significant policy matters that the new Parliament of Australia had to consider after it opened in 1901 was immigration Later that year the Attorney General Alfred Deakin introduced and passed into legislation the Immigration Restriction Act 1901 and the allied Pacific Island Labourers Act The goal was to ensure the White Australia policy by controlling entry into Australia and by the latter repatriating coloured labour from the Pacific Islands The concept was meant to safeguard the social white purity and protect wage standards against cheap coloured labour citation needed As the Restriction Act passed into legislation there was some confusion as to whether Italians should be let into the country or kept out by means of the Dictation test provisions as stated into the Act The Act did not specify a translation but rather a dictation in a European language the purpose of the test being to keep non Europeans out of Australia as a deterrent to unwanted immigrants Although the test was initially to be administered in English it was then changed to any European language mainly through Labour insistence Such a firmly sustained system to select entries into Australia that it remained on the statute books until 1958 when it was replaced by a system of entry permits Nevertheless in the early 1900s some Italians calling at Fremantle and other Australian ports were refused admission under the provisions of the Act These latter cases might be indicative of the fact that Western Australia shared the xenophobia of the rest of the world citation needed The reaction was certainly associated with the so called Awakening of Asia and Yellow Peril which were not exclusively Australian terms As reported Such concepts combined to produce in Europe a suspicion that the traditional European supremacy around the globe was coming to an end In Australia that eventually was seen as or made to appear a more immediate threatening Fuelled both by the British European feeling of loss of supremacy and the fears of the Australian Labor Party in working sectors where labourers were not exclusively Anglo Celtic anti Italian sentiments gathered momentum in the United States in the early 1900s in the wake of Italian mass migration Such attitudes also flourished in Australia as it has been reported with respect to the Queensland sugar cane industry and Western Australian mines citation needed Nevertheless a new attempt to found an Italian colony in Western Australia took place in 1906 when the western state offered to host about 100 Italian peasant families to settle in the south western rural corner of Western Australia A delegation of a few northern Italian farmers led by Leopoldo Zunini an Italian career diplomat visited most of these rural areas citation needed Although his report on soil fertility quality of cattle to graze transport and accommodation for the Italian farmers was extremely positive and enthusiastic the settlement scheme was not carried out citation needed Again Western Australia public opinion opposed the creation of an exclusively Italian settlement possibly caused by a mounting anti Italian sentiment fuelled by the outlined episodes of confrontation between the Labour movement and the cheap labour cost offered by Italian migrants citation needed Growth of the community 1921 1945 edit Italian migration to Australia increased markedly only after heavy restrictions were placed on Italians entry to the United States More than two million Italian migrants entered the United States from the start of the 20th century to the outbreak of the First World War whereas only about twelve thousand Italians had entered Australia in the same period In 1917 while war was still on the United States introduced a Literacy Act to curtail its immigration flow which had reached a high number in the years immediately before the war and Canada enacted similar legislation two years later In 1921 United States policy became even stricter with the establishment of a quota system that limited the total intake of Italian immigrants in any one year to about 41 000 calculated as 3 of the number of Italians residing in the United States in 1910 Furthermore in 1924 the figures related to the entry of Italians were cut almost to zero as they were meant to represent the 2 of the Italian component in the United States in 1890 Such severe restrictions meant that part of the great post war stream of migrants from Italy was progressively diverted to Australia Nevertheless the way Italian migrants were conceived by Australian society was not going to change after its perception had formed in the early 1900s With respect to this attitude MacDonald wrote Italian immigration became the largest non British movement after the entry of Melanesians and Asians was stopped by the new federal government in 1902 This put Italians at the bottom of the Australian racial totem pole just above other Southern Europeans 10 and Aborigines The volume of arrivals the proportion of settlers in the total population of Australia and the size of Italian agglomerated settlements were trivial by international standards Yet the establishment of fifty Italian households within a radius of five miles 8 0 km or the employment of twenty Italians on a job were cause for alarm in Australian eyes The inferiority of Italians was generally seen in racist terms as well as specifically in terms of their threatening to compete with labour of British stock because of their primitive way of life This attitude was also present in other English speaking countries as Porter reported for Canada In his classical study of Italians in North Queensland Douglass suggests other factors affecting such racist attitudes and reports a summary of the Commonwealth Parliamentary debate of 1927 The image of the Italian was nourished by the stereotype of the southerner and particularly the Sicilian Regardless of its veracity it could be applied to only a minority of the new arrivals since by Italian Government estimates fully two fifths of its emigrants to Australia were from the Veneto and another two fifths were drawn from the Piedmont Lombardy and Tuscany regions Only one fifth were from Sicily and Calabria Although the Australian attitude towards Italians was not friendly since the early 1920s Italian migrants began to arrive in Australia in notable numbers While the Australian Census of 1921 recorded 8 135 Italians residing in the country during the years 1922 1925 another 15 000 arrived and again a similar number of Italians reached Australia during the period 1926 1930 Together with the entry restrictions adopted by the United States another factor that increased Italian emigration in the early 1920s was the rise of Fascism in Italy in 1922 Gradually the arrays of migrants became formed also by a minor component of political opponents to Fascism generally peasants of the northern Italian regions who chose Australia as their destination In his study on Italian migration to South Australia O Connor even reports on the presence in 1926 in Adelaide of a dangerous anarchist subversive from the village of Capoliveri in the Tuscan Island of Elba one Giacomo Argenti The concern of Benito Mussolini about the high emigration figures of the mid 1920s pushed the Fascist government s decision in 1927 to stop all migration to overseas countries with rarely permitted exceptions apart from female and minor close relatives under age sons unmarried daughters of any age parents and unmarried sisters without family in Italy dependent on residents abroad In the early 1920s Italians had found that it was not difficult to enter Australia as there were no visa requirements The Amending Immigration Act of 1924 prohibited the entry of migrants unless they had a written guarantee completed by a sponsor an Atto di richiamo Call notice In this case any migrant could come to Australia free of charge Without a sponsor the required landing money was ten pounds until 1924 and forty since 1925 O Connor stated In 1928 as the number of arrivals increased a gentleman s agreement between Italy and Australia limited the entry of Italians to no more than 2 of British arrivals amounting to a maximum of 3 000 Italians per year Italian nationalism acted as an element of reaction and defence to the Australian environment By the early 1930s even Italian diplomatic activity in Australia as a direct expression of the Fascist government became more incisive and oriented to make more and more Fascist proselytes among Italians Migrants were invited to become members of the fascist political organisations of Australia to come to fascist meetings and eventually to return to Italy to consent to serve in the Italian armed forces both in view of the Italian war campaign of Ethiopia 1936 and later at the outbreak of World War II Italians had arrived in Australia in consistent numbers all through the 1920s and 1930s regardless of the internal and external factors affecting either their departure or their stay in Australia Entry conditions of Italian migrants became stricter in countries of more popular destinations as the United States and Italian Fascist authorities tightened the departure of migrants At the same time in Australia the attitude towards Italians had been hostile to their settlements and work patterns In addition Australia like the United States and most western countries was hit by the economic Depression of 1929 which caused a serious recession during the following years nbsp Mark BrescianoEven Australian legislation was changed consequently Amendments to the Immigration Restriction Act in 1932 were more drastic and aimed at more effectively controlling the entry of white aliens into Australia The amendment extended the landing permit system to all categories of immigrants while before was applicable only to immigrants with a maintenance guarantee The goal was to limit immigrants from competing in the local labour market to the detriment of the local unemployed At the same time the power to apply the dictation test was still available for up to five years to restrict the landing of an immigrant whose admission was not desired The economic depression ignited another social tension which fanned into racial hatred again in 1934 In the gold mining city of Kalgoorlie Western Australia an Australian who had expressed defamatory remarks about Italians in an Italian owned hotel was knocked dead by the barman This accident sparked the resentment of many Australian miners against Italians residing in Kalgoorlie which culminated in two days of riots A raging crowd of miners devastated and burnt many shops and private abodes of Italians and other Southern Europeans in Boulder and Kalgoorlie and pushed hundreds of Italian migrants to shelter in the surrounding countryside Notwithstanding the condemnation of the fact on media the riots did not modify the attitude of public opinion toward Italians in general In the 1930s the Australian community maintained a perception of cultural inferiority of Italians that owed much to longer term racial conceptions and which were confirmed by the lifestyle of the migrants As observed by Bertola in his study of the riots racism towards Italians lay in their apparent willingness to be used in efforts to drive down wages and conditions and their inability to transcend the boundaries that separated them from the host culture This was the umpteenth episode that without doubt pushed the notable number of Italians now working and residing in Australia to sympathise with Fascism and devote to the narrow circle of the Italian associations and the close relations of the family In the late 1930s a Fascist traveller to Australia so describes the life and work of Italians in the Western Australian mines E la dura quotidiana fatica del lavoro e la resistenza alle lotte degli Australiani che essi debbono sostenere per il prestigio di essere Italiani di Mussolini Gli Italiani formarono quel fronte unico di resistenza che va considerato una delle piu belle vittorie del fascismo in terra straniera Altra cosa e fare gl Italiani in Italia altra e all estero dove chi ti da da mangiare dimentica che tu lavori per lui e solo per questo crede di essere padrone delle tue braccia e del tuo spirito Italians have to sustain the daily hard work and the resistance to the claims of Australians to bear the prestige to be Italians of Mussolini Italians formed that strong front of resistance which can be considered one of the best victories of fascism in foreign land One thing is to form Italians in Italy and another is abroad where those who feed you forget that you all work for them and just for this reason they think to be the owners of your arms and spirits Nevertheless the Australia Census of 1933 claimed that 26 756 against the 8 000 of 1921 were born in Italy Since that year Italy born residents in Australia began to represent the first non English speaking ethnic group of the country replacing Germans and Chinese Notwithstanding a very high proportion of them 20 064 were male Many Italian male migrants who had in fact left Italy for Australia during the late 1920s and early 1930s were joined by wives working age sons daughters brothers and sisters in the late 1930s This pattern can be interpreted as a defence from both the perceived hostile Australia environment and the political turmoil of pre war Italy Until the outbreak of World War II there was a considerable degree of segregation between Italians and Australians As an additional reaction a large proportion of Italians in Australia tended to defer naturalisation which could be granted after a period of five years of residence until they had finally established their homes in Australia Consequently it is not surprising that with the outbreak of World War II the Australian opinion of Italian migrants naturally hardened The entry of Italy into the war was followed by the large scale internment of Italians especially in Queensland South Australia and Western Australia 11 The concern in Queensland was that Italians would somehow join forces with an invading Japanese force and constitute a fifth column Between 1940 and 1945 most of those who had not been naturalised before the war s outbreak were considered enemy aliens and therefore either interned or subjected to close watch with respect to personal movements and area of employment There were many cases of Italian Australians who had taken out Australian citizenship also being interned This was particularly the case in northern Queensland Post war mass migration to Australia 1946 1970s edit nbsp The ossario at Murchison Victoria a memorial to the Italian prisoners of war held in the region during World War IIDuring WWII more than 18 000 Italian prisoners of war were sent to internment camps throughout Australia Together with the interned enemy aliens after 1942 a large number of them were employed in inland farms without much surveillance Many prisoners of war and Italian Australian interned worked hard in farms and cattle stations thus gaining a favourable opinion as hard and committed workers by their Australian employers This circumstance contributed to generate an environment more agreeable than that before the war for the Italian post war migration to Australia After World War II the attitude of Australians towards Italians gradually began to change with the increasing appreciation of the value of Italians in the economic development of Australia At the same time the Italian war experience helped to destroy many of the political and sentimental attachments that Italians had previously felt towards their country As a consequence the end of the war encouraged the naturalisation of many Italian migrants who had been caught up as enemy aliens at the outbreak of the world conflict At the end of 1947 only 21 of the Italians residing in Australia were not yet naturalised Many of those becoming naturalised in the late 1940s did so to allay the suspicion caused by the war Borrie wrote in his fundamental work on the assimilation of Italians in Australia Naturalisation was the obvious first step towards their rehabilitation The war had also broken many of the links with Italy and in addition it was still difficult to secure a shipping passage to return there But while the act of naturalization may have been an irrevocable step which in turn provided an incentive to become socially and culturally assimilated field investigations show clearly that Italians retained many traits particularly within the circle of the home which were not Australian And naturalized or not they were still not fully accepted by Australians 12 nbsp Daniel RicciardoConversely after the war experience the Australian government embarked on the Populate or Perish program aimed to increase the population of the country for strategically important economic and military reasons The immigration debate in postwar Australia assumed new dimensions as official policy sought a significant increase in the number and the diversity of immigrants and to find a place for those coming from a tired and torn Europe The war had occasioned a shift in migration patterns pressing the need to place a large number of people who could not return to their own countries for a wide range of reasons This was the case of over ten million people from Central and North eastern Europe such as Poles Germans Greeks Czechs Yugoslavs and Slovaks An important stage in this immigration program began with the Displaced Persons Scheme in 1947 which attracted over 170 000 displaced persons to Australia Italy s postwar migration certainly grew out of the country s policy of industrial development Although there had been a significant industrial growth in Italy before the war the devastation wrought by the conflict left the structure in ruins This factor and the return of Italian soldiers from the war fronts generated a surplus of population which turned to emigration as an alternative to poverty By the early 1950s Australian authorities negotiated formal migration agreements with the Netherlands 1951 Germany and Austria 1952 They also introduced a system of personal nominations and guarantees opened to Italians to permit families separated by the war to come together again In addition the Australian and Italian governments negotiated a scheme of recruitment and assisted passages which became fully effective in 1952 As extensively outlined by MacDonald the chain migration process eased by the personal nomination scheme seemed to be more flexible than the administrative machinery of the bilateral program Personal nominees had a guarantee of assistance and contacts at their arrival in Australia to help migrants to evaluate all employment possibilities Since the mid 1950s the Italian flow of migrants to Australia assumed a sort of mass migration Either nominated by relatives in Australia as a major component or as assisted migrants a notable number of migrants left Italy for Australia Unlike the pre war movement most of the migrants of the 1950s and 1960s had planned to settle permanently in Australia Within these two decades the number of Italians who came to Australia was so high that their number increased tenfold Between June 1949 and July 2000 Italy was the second most common birthplace for immigrant arrivals to Australia after United Kingdom and Ireland 13 No of arrivals July 1949 June 2000 13 July 1949 June 1959 14 July 1959 June 1970 15 July 1970 June 1980Immigrant arrivals from Italy 390 810 201 428 150 669 28 800Total immigrant arrivals 5 640 638 1 253 083 1 445 356 956 769Percentage of immigrants from Italy 6 9 16 1 10 4 3 0 21st century edit In recent years Australia has been witnessing a new wave of migration from Italy in numbers not seen in half a century as thousands flee the economic hardship in Italy The explosion of numbers saw more than 20 000 Italians arrive in Australia in 2012 13 on temporary visas exceeding the number of Italians that arrived in 1950 51 during the previous migration boom following World War Two 16 At the 2022 federal election Anthony Albanese was elected becoming Australia s first Prime Minister of Italian descent 17 As of 2020 David Crisafulli is the Queensland state Opposition Leader LNP and Lia Finocchiaro is the Northern Territory Opposition Leader CLP Both are of Italian descent Demographics edit nbsp People with Italian ancestry as a percentage of the population in Australia divided geographically by statistical local area as of the 2011 censusAt the 2021 census 1 108 364 people nominated Italian ancestry whether alone or in combination with another ancestry representing 4 4 of the Australian population 1 The 2021 census found that 163 326 were born in Italy 1 In 2021 there were 228 042 Australian residents who spoke Italian at home 1 According to 2006 census data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics 95 of Italian born Australians recorded their religion as Christian 18 As of the 2006 census 162 107 81 4 speak Italian at home 18 Proficiency in English was self described by census respondents as very well by 28 well by 32 21 not well 18 didn t state or said not applicable 18 As the level of immigration from Italy dropped significantly after the 1970s the Australian population born in Italy is ageing and in decline Most Italian Australians are the Australian born descendants of Italian immigrants As of 2016 there were 120 791 registered Italian citizens including those with dual citizenship living in Australia according to the Italian constitutional referendum 2016 19 Geographical distribution edit nbsp One dot denotes 100 Italy born Sydney residents nbsp One dot denotes 100 Italy born Melbourne residents Italians are well represented in every Australian state territory town and region At the 2021 census states with the largest numbers of persons nominating Italian ancestry were Victoria 384 688 New South Wales 301 829 Queensland 152 571 Western Australia 137 255 and South Australia 103 914 20 Most Australian residents born in Italy are now concentrated in Melbourne 73 799 Sydney 44 562 Adelaide 20 877 and Perth 18 815 21 Unlike other groups the number of Italians residing in Brisbane is relatively few with the exception of a notable distribution of Italians in Northern Queensland as Hempel has described in her research on post war settlement of Italian immigrants in this state This circumstance is a consequence of the migration patterns followed by Italians in the earlier stage of their settlement in Queensland during the 1910s 1920s and 1930s when the sugarcane industry and its related possibility of quick earnings attracted more temporary migrants in the countryside Conversely in Australian cities the Italian village or the region of origin have been significant in the formation of separate settlements or neighbourhood groupings of Italians The way in which a population subgroup is distributed across an area is of importance because not only can it tell us a great deal about the pattern of life of that group but it is also crucial in any planning of service delivering to such a community The Italian community has very distinctive patterns of distribution that differentiate it from the total population As Burnley reports in his study on Italian absorption in urban Australia some Italian concentrations in the inner suburbs of Carlton the traditional Little Italy of Melbourne and Leichhardt its equivalent in Sydney were made up of several groups from geographically very circumscribed areas of Italy Migrants from the Lipari Islands of Sicily and from a few communities of the Province of Vicenza have formed the main Italian community core of Leichhardt as well as Sicilians from the Province of Ragusa and the Commune of Vizzini have formed a large contingent in Brunswick a local government authority of Melbourne now containing over 10 000 Italians On a smaller scale but through similar patterns other large communities of Italians were formed since the first notable arrival of Italians of the 1920s and 1930s in Adelaide Perth and in minor cities of Victoria New South Wales and Queensland Most first generation Italian migrants came to Australia by the nomination of a close relative or a friend as forms of chain migration With particular reference to Western Australia as previously stated Italians began to arrive in more notable number after the discovery of gold in the Eastern Goldfields in the early 1890s The Australian Census of 1911 records the presence of over 2 000 Italians in Western Australia Only two years before the Italian writer Capra had visited the state and reported L attuale emigrazione italiana in Australia e poca cosa e consta quasi esclusivamente di operai per le miniere e pel taglio della legna nella parte occidentale e di lavoratori della canna da zucchero nel Queensland Present Italian migration to Australia is negligible almost exclusively limited to miners and woodcutters in the western state and sugarcane cutters in Queensland Capra details the professional distribution of Italians Over two thirds all Italians were employed either in mines or in the mine related woodcutting industry respectively about 400 and 800 both in the gold districts of Gwalia Day Down Coolgardie and Cue and the forests of Karrawong and Lakeside The remaining Italian workers were mainly involved in farming 250 and fishing 150 This work pattern of Italians in Western Australia did not change much with the more consistent migration flow of the late 1920s and early 1930s During these two decades Italian migrants to Australia continued to come from the north and central mountain areas of Italy thus following a pattern of temporary migration that pushed them to look for jobs with potential quick remuneration as mining and woodcutting could offer Changes in such patterns together with the Italian mass migration program of the 1950s and 1960s have already been examined Hence the different component of regional origin of Italians in Western Australia and subsequently since the late 1950s a more composite geographical distribution of Italian migrants in both urban and rural areas of the state Origins edit Between the period of 1947 to 1971 Australia s Italy born numbered 289 476 and most Italian migrants came from Sicily Calabria and Veneto and settled in metropolitan areas 22 Return migration edit Italian Australians have a low rate of return migration to Italy In December 2001 the Department of Foreign Affairs estimated that there were 30 000 Australian citizens resident in Italy 23 These are likely to be largely returned Italian emigrants with Australian citizenship and their Italian Australian children Film on Italian emigration to Australia edit nbsp A scene from the film A Girl in Australia 1971 A Girl in Australia 1971 directed by Luigi Zampa Love s Brother by Jan Sardi 2004 Underbelly series 1 2008 See also editEuropean Australians Italian diaspora Italo Australian Dialect List of Italian Australians List of Italian association football clubs in Australia List of Italian Australian communities Swiss Italians of Australia Immigration to AustraliaNotes edit a b c d e f g h Community profile 2021 abs gov au Origins History of immigration from Italy Immigration Museum Melbourne Australia 30 July 2008 Archived from the original on 30 July 2008 Raffaello Carboni gutenberg net au Carboni Raffaello 1817 1875 Australian Dictionary of Biography National Centre of Biography Australian National University D Aprano C 1995 From Goldrush to Federation Italian Pioneers in Victoria 1850 1900 INT Press Melbourne Pesman R 1983 Australian visitors to Italy in the nineteenth century in G Cresciani ed The Australians and Italian migration Franco Angeli Milano N O P Pyke 1948 An Outline History of Italian Immigration into Australia Australian Institute of Policy and Science p 109 N O P Pyke 1946 Some Reflections on Italian Immigration into Australia Australian Institute of Policy and Science p 43 Capra G 1936 Una Razza destinata a scomparire Aborigeni d Australia Le Vie d Italia e del mondo 6 June More People Imperative 4 White Alien Immigration Policy Archived from the original on 9 September 2006 Retrieved 19 December 2006 A Cappello Enemy Aliens The Internment of Italian Migrants in Australia Connor Court 2006 Robert Pascoe 1987 Buongiorno Australia Our Italian Heritage Greenhouse Publications Richmond Victoria p 220 a b Immigration Federation to Century s End 1901 2000 PDF Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs October 2001 p 25 Archived from the original pdf 64 pages on 4 December 2010 Retrieved 21 July 2008 Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs Settler arrivals by birthplace data not available prior to 1959 For the period July 1949 to June 1959 Permanent and Long Term Arrivals by Country of Last Residence have been included as a proxy for this data in the period immediately after World War II there were large numbers of displaced persons whose country of last residence was not necessarily the same as their birthplace Note this period covers 11 years rather than a decade Economic disaster prompts spike in Italian migration to Australia ABC News 28 November 2014 via www abc net au Australian election 2022 Anthony Albanese due for speech Scott Morrison concedes and stands down as Liberal leader live updates The Guardian 21 May 2022 Retrieved 21 May 2022 a b c 2914 0 55 002 2006 Census Ethnic Media Package Excel download Census Dictionary 2006 cat no 2901 0 Australian Bureau of Statistics 27 June 2007 Retrieved 14 July 2008 Riepilogo estero Risultati Referendum Costituzionale 4 dicembre 2016 la Repubblica it 2021 Census data Cultural diversity abs gov au Statistics c AU o Commonwealth of Australia ou Australian Bureau of Redirect to Census data page www abs gov au a href Template Cite web html title Template Cite web cite web a CS1 maint multiple names authors list link Archived copy PDF Archived from the original PDF on 20 December 2016 Retrieved 7 December 2016 a href Template Cite web html title Template Cite web cite web a CS1 maint archived copy as title link Estimates of Australian Citizens Living Overseas as at December 2001 PDF Southern Cross Group DFAT data 14 February 2001 Archived from the original PDF on 20 July 2008 Retrieved 15 July 2008 External links editSpunti e ricerche rivista d italianistica Academic Scholarly Journal Gianfranco Cresciani 2008 Italians Dictionary of Sydney Retrieved 4 October 2015 Italians in Sydney Pierpaolo Gandini 1996 Antipodi L emigrazione italiana in Australia Portals nbsp Australia nbsp Italy Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Italian Australians amp oldid 1207315894, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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