The Other Side of Italy

Book excerpt: In Italy, the rate of foreign immigration is among one of the major cultural shifts after World War II. Increased immigration rates account not only for people fleeing from countries during the war or times of unstable political situations (170,000 in 2014), but also for people relocating for work or family-related reasons. The immigrants were fewer than 150,000 in 1970, but currently count for 5 million (8% of the total population, not including those who have become Italian citizens), and are more numerous than Italian citizens residing abroad (4.5 million). This book proposes to introduce foreign readers to this phenomenon, which is in some respects problematic. Translation of texts written for Italian readers was avoided and the authors made choices to include original themes that could be interesting to readers outside Italy. The book's conclusions were entrusted to three immigrants: an Albanian sociologist, an Eritrean researcher and an Algerian novelist. According to the forecasts of demographers, the future Italy will be a country of large-scale immigrations, accounting for more than 10 million people by mid-century. Will Italy only be a country with many immigrants or a country with an adequate migration policy? Although society is still divided on the subject of newcomers, this book hopes to solve this issue in a positive manner and stimulate greater interest abroad.