Finally, she is recovering it as an adult. Moreover, she remembers a couple of times when, during primary school, university students who were writing a thesis on migration went to her school, located in a neighbourhood with a high presence of foreigners, and asked the children of migrants if they identified themselves more as Italians or as foreigners. Our children dont have these antibodies, says Ainom. The city is littered with Italian colonial villas and mansions. My grandfather was shot dead for being mixed race, said Longhi. I also have had enough of trying to fit into these preconceived labels of who is allowed to call themselves Eritrean, Italian, European, African! exclaims Medhin. It is for them that I am telling my story and I would like for as many people as possible to know what has happened., Resources for asylum-seekers in the United States, Our fight against sexual exploitation, abuse and harassment, Environment, Disasters and Climate Change, Eritrean artist draws hope from evacuation to Europe. But this is only one of the many tough measures imposed by this law, almost 20 years in the force. I realise that I am one of the old women who, through political activism to reaffirm rights, have spent a lot of time together with other comrades. We were ill and we were hungry. Thats when I realised that the fundamentals are missing. For example, she explains, over the years, some words like race and Blacks have been branded as disrespectful in the Italian context. He said: You have to help them [Eritrean women]!. The question that has not been asked but that I hear is: Why are you here? Medhin explains, underlining that in fact, it is the immigration of non-white people that is always under scrutiny. Also, Ainom knows why she stayed in Italy: Those few noisy, harmful [far-right politicians] are visible, but there is an active, healthy, perhaps less noisy Italya vast, incredible, truly healthy society. Were they given food? During the last years of World War II, Vincenzo di Meglio defended the Italians of Eritrea politically and successively promoted the independence of Eritrea. As a result, many Italians say, people of colour when in reality they mean Black people., More often than not, issues such as race and racism are directly avoided, hidden under the rug. Those Eritreans with Italian citizenship are not included in the demographics of the Eritrean population, though. Until there is more inclusive cultural advancement, Black people will always be seen as other.. This is after around 80 cases were identified in which people relocated by Israel risked their lives by taking dangerous onward journeys to Europe via Libya. After years of battles with activists including Medhin and Rete G2, a draft to reform the current law was approved by one chamber of the Italian parliament in 2015. I knew very well I could die, but I wanted freedom and peace and decided to cross again. She was touched by a tribute for her work with migrants and refugees that she received for the project Tell Me About a Road in the city of Uggiano la Chiesa in southern Italy. It is a type of mentality that has been propagating underground up to this day, says Medhin.

I found myself from a quiet Asmara neighbourhood life to Milan, at the beginning of winter, with people talking and the steam of their mouths coming out in the cold [laughs.]. I was astonished by my son, who is now 30 years old, and he said to me, Mom, forget the seventies you knew, forget the eighties. But from the middle of the 1980s, she started to be alert to racism. Eritrea was chosen by the Italian government to be the industrial center of the Italian East Africa.

But her joy was dimmed. The proposed reform aimed at facilitating the path to citizenship for children of migrants born in Italy or who had arrived in Italy during their childhood. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of Italian descendants trapped in Eritrea.. Asmorom is one of around 80 refugees who undertook the dangerous journey to Europe via Libya, after being relocated by Israel. Still, Ainom believes that, regardless of their personal stories and experiences, positive contributions to the country, and adherence to the laws, Black communities face systemic racial discrimination in different areas. Thus, she was in charge of reading all the letters that arrived from Eritrea and writing replies. Racism in Italy today believes itself to be new, but it is not, Medhin emphasises, referring to the roots from which it sprouts: colonialism. UNHCR recently appealed to Israel to halt its policy of relocating Eritreans and Sudanese to sub-Saharan Africa. September 13, 2020, 12:00 CET | Updated on September 14, 2020, 14:02 CET, Photo Credit: Vito Scifo e Lalla Golderer, Eritrean in Milan Archivio di Etnografia e Storia Sociale Regione Lombardia.

This bill results in actions such as blocking NGO rescue ships from Italian ports and abolishing essential forms of migrants protection, making deportation easier.The connotation of migrants and African communities with trouble is one of the many faces of racism in Italy.

Maybe this is the solution for racism: find the meeting points and do not be afraid of differences.. You could find them on the beaches and everywhere, selling everything. In this city, they dedicated, for one day, a street to migrants and refugee activists during the celebration of International Refugee Day, on June 20, 2020, as a recognition of their engagement with migrants and refugee rights. That gaze that has always followed her, now that she is grown up, has sometimes become an exoticising gaze. Eritrea was placed under British military administration after the Italian surrender in World War II. The boat was rescued by an NGO and its passengers disembarked in a port near Naples, Italy. Crossing the Mediterranean Sea in a small wooden boat with 800 people on board almost felt easy compared to the ordeal he had been through for seven years. Indeed, identity was a topic early in Medhins life. I had no Israeli friends and was not given the opportunity to study and learn the language.. She had expected to find home, but instead, she felt like a stranger once again. Today, Eritreans are still a small migrant community in Italy.Estimations in 2019 say Eritreans were around 8,500 of 5,300,000 foreigners in Italy (0,16%). However, he says he will never be able to put what he has been through behind him. I was given no information, my Israeli documents were taken from me and I received nothing, no papers, no explanation whatsoever on what was going to happen, says Asmorom. I want to go back! I said to my parents, crying. The Italians in Eritrea started to move away from the country after the defeat of the Kingdom of Italy by the Allies, and Asmara in the British census of 1949 already had only 17,183 Italian Eritreans on a total population of 127,579. When the white-skinned immigrant can speak Italian well and cannot be recognised from the outside, they will be left alone. Since then the Eritrean Italians have diminished as a community and now are reduced to a few hundreds, mainly located in the capital Asmara.

Medhins experience as a so-called second-generation Italian and Ainoms experience as a first-generation reveal how Eritreans and other migrants of African origins navigate the intersections of race and nationality in Italy. However, after two years, the draft law was vetoed by the Italian senate in 2017. I find it exhausting, says Ainom. It is a delicate balance between political correctness, censorship, and truth. Granted a temporary visa in Israel for four months, Asmorom was forced to continuously renew it. At that time, Eritrean, Cape Verdean, and Filipina women were pioneers in the transnational domestic work sector in Italy. In October 2016, Asmorom finally made it to the coast and set sail for Italy.

There is always a request for justification. Many of these women came as live-in domestic workers for wealthy Milanese families, living in slavery-like conditions, as Ainom explained: without a social life, limiting themselves to having Thursday and Sunday afternoons free, sometimes returning to serve dinner., Ainom was one of the few able to read and write. A group of more than 300 grandchildren or great-grandchildren of people born to Italian fathers and Eritrean mothers have written to the Italian president, Sergio Mattarella, and other government officials urging them to finally examine and resolve an issue that has never really been addressed, a crime of colonial racism that marked the life of thousands of innocent women and men, and which continues to discriminate against generations of Italians. I was a consultant for many years for Livia Turco [an Italian member of Democratic Party], at the time Minister for Social Affairs, and we developed projects on the right of citizenship, the right to vote. Consequently, the living standard of life in Eritrea in 1939 was considered one of the best of Africa for the Italian colonists and for the Eritreans. Theres nothing. So, Im between disappointed and hopeful.. In May 2016, he left his wife behind for her own safety and departed towards Libya.

They were seasonal workers, coming from all over the face of the Maghreb. ByBarbara Molinario|21 February 2018 Ibra and Tesfalem were their names, they would be 28 today. [6], The Mussolini government regarded the colony as a strategic base for future aggrandizement and ruled accordingly, using Eritrea as a base to launch its 19351936 campaign to colonize Ethiopia. 8,500 of 5,300,000 foreigners in Italy (0,16%), Eritrean War of Independence (1961 to 1991), Around 800,000 minors, children of migrants without citizenship would have benefited from the reform. For example, Italian colonialists used Nervine gas, which exterminated entire villages, explains Ainom. Nearly all are Roman Catholic Christians of the Latin Rite, while some are converts to other denominations of Christianity. One of the main issues is that they are unable to provide official documentation of their Italian heritage. Among all difficulties, the main one was overcoming the longing for her eight younger brothers, who stayed in her hometown. Freedom of movement is probably one of the biggest problems we have globally; with an Italian passport, I was able to come to Boston; with an Eritrean passport, I would be the same person, but I could not be here, remarks Medhin. Although born in Italy with Italian as their first language, this constant questioning about their identity creates an unsafe environment for their self-esteem. The fascists imposed harsh rule that stressed the political and racial superiority of Italians. I was scared. There is no facilitated path for them: to become Italian citizens they have to follow, from the age of 18, the same bureaucratic way as an adult foreign immigrant, i.e. Unequal social power structures would accompany Ainom through her young adulthood as well.

Ainom Maricos is one of the first social workers of foreign origin at an Italian public institution. Just because you are the bearer of this skin colour, everyone questions you. |, Asmorom, 28, hugs a UNHCR cultural mediator outside Rome's Termini train station. Those summer camps lasted a few weeks and took children to typical holiday resorts in Italy, like the seaside or the mountains. The moment there is a structure that makes another person feel like a guest, its over, says Medhin, referring to the citizenship law in Italy.

Moreover, she would like for scholars from diverse backgrounds to do so, not just European scholars, so that the perspective does not remain Eurocentric. It is a difficult society! For me, its a punch to the heart, says Ainom. I cried. This also includes a population of mixed Italian and Eritrean descent; most Italian Eritreans still living in Eritrea are from this mixed group. This visible presence began to hit the population as if it felt suddenly invaded by this presence.. This visit had a substantial impact on her. You couldnt talk about racism in the seventies in Italy, affirms Ainom. This country needs a serious rethink on immigration, starting with that the child born in Italy is Italian.

We need to rethink the topic of immigration in a constructive way, not as destructive as it has been done.. They were hard workers, but they did not have the tools or documents to work regularly.

On top of that, nowadays they cannot leave Eritrea because of the harsh dictatorship there, so they cant travel to Italy to search for evidence of having had an Italian grandfather or great-grandfather, said Longhi.

Prior to that, a small number of children were acknowledged by their fathers and recognised as Italian. She came when she was 15 years old from Asmara, the Eritrean capital. Their ancestry dates back from the beginning of the Italian colonization of Eritrea at the end of the 19th century, but only after the Second Italo-Abyssinian War of 1935 they settled in large numbers. Benito Mussolini's rise to power in Italy in 1922 brought profound changes to the colonial government in Eritrea. In the sense that those born here, those who naturally acquire Italian citizenship, in 15-20 years, will be a significant and decisive presence in this country, believes Ainom. Group of more than 300 descendants of people born under Italian rule accuse state of crime of colonial racism.

[11] After the war he was named Director of the "Comitato Rappresentativo Italiani dell' Eritrea" (CRIE). Despite everything, however, Medhin knows which country is her home.

The Italians brought to Eritrea a huge development of Catholicism and Catholic churches were built,[citation needed] mainly in Asmara where many churches were built. In Italy, there is a clich that Somali, Eritrean, and Ethiopian women are the most beautiful in Africa. Whenever I have heard that about myself or other people, it has always turned my stomach. And, until today, it remains long for young generations of African descent, like Medhin Paolos, a 39-year-old Italo-Eritrean filmmaker, photographer, and electronic musician. We were under the occupation of Ethiopia. The Italian colonial past is denied.

Foreign Workers Demonstration, Rome, 2006. A view of Asmara, the capital of Eritrea. During that time, the number of migrant communities in Italy, especially Eritreans, was small. I had collected thousands and thousands of signatures, I gathered both Italian and foreign friends. But there is still a lot to do. Furthermore, the Italians employed many Eritreans in public service (in particular in the police and public works departments) and oversaw the provision of urban amenities in Asmara and Massawa. Its complicated to determine the exact number, as the first census on migrant population in Italy was created only in 1981. [16], Gino Corbella, an Italian consul in Asmara, estimated that the diffusion of the Italian language in Eritrea was supported even by the fact that in 1959, nearly 20,000 Eritreans were descendants of Italians who had illegitimate sons/daughters with Eritrean women during colonial times.[2][3].

It is difficult to describe the conditions we were kept in. I missed my brothers; it was the first time I left, explains Ainom. From 1882 to 1941 Eritrea was ruled by the Kingdom of Italy. The moment I arrived to Italy I knew I no longer had to live in fear, says Asmorom. In Italy, Asmorom received refugee status and is currently enrolled in language school, determined to find his place in society and hoping to be reunited with his wife. Two of my friends did not survive, I watched them die in the warehouse. The filmmaker argues that a more honest and in-depth conversation about race is long overdue in Italy, and that would bring considerable advantages, starting with fairer immigration law. In the general context, a huge number [of migrants] really arrived with the mass migration starting from 84- 85. Further, Medhin points out that Italy lacks the appropriate words to discuss race, discrimination, different cultures, and migration. The Italian Ambassador stated at the 2008 Film Festival in Asmara, President of the Italian chamber of Deputies, http://www.camera.it/_dati/leg13/lavori/stampati/sk6000/relazion/5634.htm, http://babelfish.yahoo.com/translate_url?trurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.camera.it%2F_dati%2Fleg13%2Flavori%2Fstampati%2Fsk6000%2Frelazion%2F5634.htm&lp=it_en&.intl=us&fr=yfp-t-501, http://www.ilcornodafrica.it/rds-01emigrazione.pdf, "Chapter Eritrea: Italian architecture in Asmara (in Italian)", Italian industries and companies in Eritrea, "About this Collection - Country Studies", http://www.ilchichingiolo.it/cassetto26.htm, http://www.maitacli.it/images/homepage/ERITREA%20-%20GLI%20ANNI%20DIFFICILI.pdf, Website of the Italians of Eritrea (in italian), Website of the Italian school of Asmara (in italian), Website with documents, maps and photos of the Italians in Eritrea (in Italian), Detailed map of Eritrea in 1936 (click on the sections to enlarge), "1941-1951 The difficult years" (in Italian), Italian Emigration to Eritrea (in Italian), Lighthouse "Francesco Crispi" (Cape Guardafui), Postage stamps and postal history of Italian East Africa, Postage stamps and postal history of Oltre Giuba, List of governors-general of Italian East Africa, Italian colonies, protectorates, or occupied territories, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Italian_Eritreans&oldid=1089347866, Articles with dead external links from June 2016, All articles with bare URLs for citations, Articles with bare URLs for citations from March 2022, Articles with PDF format bare URLs for citations, "Related ethnic groups" needing confirmation, Articles using infobox ethnic group with image parameters, Articles with unsourced statements from July 2010, Articles with unsourced statements from May 2013, Articles with dead external links from January 2020, Articles with permanently dead external links, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Vincenzo Di Meglio, an Italian doctor at Asmara hospital during the later years of Italian rule, and appointed Director of the C.R.I.E (Comitato Rappresentativo degli Italiani dellEritrea), the main association of Italians in Eritrea during the period of British control. Knowing he would face imprisonment or worse if he was returned to Eritrea, Asmorom had little choice but to accept the transfer to Rwanda. other access to sanitary and hospital services in the urban areas). Eritrea was colonised by Italy in 1890 and over the next six decades an estimated 20,000 children were fathered by Italian men, many of whom were military officials or soldiers living in the country for a short period of time and who never acknowledged the children. And still today it is difficult, says Ainom. Aware of her Eritrean roots, language, culture, history, and identity, Ainom says: I am proud of who I am. However, she is unsure about future generations of Italians with African origins.

[15], Until 1975, there were in Asmara an Italian Lyceum, an Italian Technical Institute, an Italian Middle school and special university courses in Medicine held by Italian teachers. We were nearly there, just a small step was missing, and then the documents were buried. Indeed, the Italian Eritreans strongly rejected the Ethiopian annexation of Eritrea after the war: the Party of Shara Italy was established in Asmara in 1947 and the majority of the members were former Italian soldiers with many Eritrean Ascari (the organization was even backed up by the government of Italy). The Italian Eritreans grew from 4,000 during World War I to nearly 100,000 at the beginning of World War II.[4]. It is important to talk to each other. With the Bossi-Fini law, we have reached a culmination where the person is a presence with an expiration date, explains Ainom, frustrated. It is a change that she started noticing in recent years, but which is progressing very slowly. In front of me was the Sahara for the second time, he says.

I could stay in Italy for another five generations; the children of my childrens children will visibly always be something else. Italian administration of Eritrea brought some of their own methodes in the medical and agricultural sectors of Eritrean society (i.e. According to data from Eurostat, in the last 10 years (2010-2019) 19,500 Eritreans have applied for political asylum in Italy. The food we were given was simply not enough and my friends and I were already debilitated from all these years of trying to survive, from Israel and from the crossing., It is difficult to describe the conditions.". To solve the problem of racism in Italy, according to Medhin, the foremost requirement is awareness, so as not to be afraid of what it is different. According to current legislation, anyone born in Italy to foreign parents remains a foreigner until the age of eighteen, and during this period must have resided legally without interruption in the country to apply for Italian citizenship by the age of nineteen. Italian Eritreans (or Eritrean Italians) are Eritrean-born descendants of Italian settlers as well as Italian long-term residents in Eritrea. This is why were appealing, especially now that neofascists are trying to revive those racist issues., Africas Little Rome, the Eritrean city frozen in time by war and secrecy, Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning. Most of central Asmara was built between 1935 and 1941, so effectively the Italians designed and enabled the local Eritrean population to build almost an entire city, in just six years. In October 2015, Asmorom was once more in the hands of smugglers, who took him from Uganda to Sudan. Eritrea will always be the missing home in some way, the family home, those roots that always remain unknown even if I try to get to know them more and more, concludes Medhin. In 1947 he supported the creation of the "Associazione Italo-Eritrei" and the "Associazione Veterani Ascari", in order to get an alliance with the Eritreans favorable to Italy in Eritrea.[12]. Hundreds of Eritreans of Italian descent who trace their ancestry to the period of Italys colonial rule are demanding Italian citizenship, a right denied to them by Benito Mussolinis racial laws. This fact made Asmara the main "Italian town" of the Italian empire in Africa. This article is supported by the Stars4Media pilot project.

Dr. Di Meglio was one of the main opposers in Eritrea of the attempt by the, This page was last edited on 23 May 2022, at 08:39.

UNHCR/Alessandro Penso. The Italian government continued to implement agricultural reforms but primarily on farms owned by Italian colonists (exports of coffee boomed in the thirties). Where am I?, remembers Ainom of the first impacts of her arrival in Italy in 1973. But it was our grandparents, made slaves, who built it!. She hopes for a radical and structural change of all systems, at all levels: school, prison, health care, and every other public institution. A language is a powerful tool that allows us to be in tune with or alienate each other, Medhin reiterates and adds: If you lack the words, you cannot speak. Instead, the activist is convinced of the importance of confrontation and dialogue. On a cultural level, we must have an open mind so as not to read the other immediately as a danger.. Before the racial laws were enforced some children managed to be recognised as Italian, but the vast majority ended up in orphanages as their mothers didnt have the means to raise them.. Bossi-Fini (July 2002) is harsh immigration law, criminalising migration and reinforcing racial tensions. A turning point proved to be fundamental in her path. From 1996 to 2001, she was a councillor in Milan. We have created networks, associations, aggregations. On her pathway to self-discovery, Medhin became an activist for Rete G2 Seconde Generazioni, an organisation campaigning for the citizenship rights of children born in Italy to foreign parents, the so-called second generation, like Medhin.

Today, in the domestic sector, 88% of the workforce is women, and 74% of them are migrant women, with many of them finding employment only in the domestic sector. Ainom believes that there has been a removal of history, so colonial fascism is relived almost with nostalgia. As a result of this support, he co-founded the "Partito Eritrea Pro Italia" (Party of Shara Italy) in September 1947, an Eritrean political party favorable to the Italian presence in Eritrea that obtained more than 200,000 inscriptions of membership in one single month. Micro-aggressions such as this are the problem. This experience helped her to shape her identity evolving and constantly seeking balance, as it is natural when you belong to two different cultures. Today, her identity is composed of different elements from both Italian and Eritrean traditions.

My relationship with my native language is a sore point for me: I feel guilty for not speaking it well, confesses Medhin. ROME, Italy Asmorom was just 18 when he fled Eritrea in 2007. Relationships between Italian men and Eritrean women, who were usually young domestic workers, were mostly tolerated until Mussolinis last decade in power, during which time he enacted laws making it a crime for Italians to have mixed-race children. The assimilated Italian Eritreans of the new generations (in 2007 they numbered nearly 900 persons) speak Tigrinya and only a bit of Italian or speak Italian as second language. There were days of frustration, spending all that time like that because my father cared [about them]. This unfulfilled expectation let the realisation hit me: I have had enough of letting other people have the responsibility of defining me. This is only a portion of the thousands of Eritrean migrants arriving in Italy every year before journeying on to seek asylum in other European countries. Eritreans of Italian descent have been fighting for recognition since 1992, when Italy legalised dual-citizenship for people who could claim an Italian bloodline. A balance that Italians do not master..

This is in infringement of many human rights treaties, including Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which states, Everyone has the right to liberty and security of person.. From 1882 to 1941, Italy colonised Eritrea. Despite the peace of mind that being in a river of Blackness gave me, at the same time I was recognisable by the way I dressed and moved as a person raised in Europe, says Medhin. I had no contact with the community, he recalls.

At that point, Medhin began to understand that she was part of a middle ground full of people with mixed identities and with experiences similar to hers. This document said I was 19 years old, and so I got out., In Ainoms memories, she remembers being one of the youngest of many Eritrean women arriving in Milan at that period. [13], Most Italian Eritreans can speak Italian. She talks about a law allowing the residence of immigrants to be strictly linked to a work contract.

The unsuccessful attempt to reform Italian citizenship law is not the only source of disappointment for Ainom. He was forced to pay US$ 1,800 to get to Tripoli, and there asked for an additional US$ 5,500. Although many of the remaining Italians stayed during the decolonization process after World War II and are actually assimilated to the Eritrean society, a few are stateless today, as none of them were given citizenship unless through marriage or, more rarely, by having it conferred upon them by the State.