Borders of the nation, borders of citizenship: Italian repatriation and the redefinition of national identity after world war II

Comparative Studies in Society and History

Volumn 49, Issue 3, 2007, Pages 713-741

  Ballinger, Pamela ^a  

^a BOWDOIN COLLEGE   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

CITIZENSHIP; DECOLONIZATION; NATIONAL IDENTITY; POST-WAR; REPATRIATION;

EURASIA; EUROPE; ITALY; SOUTHERN EUROPE;

EID: 34447261928     PISSN: 00104175     EISSN: 14752999     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0010417507000680     Document Type: Article

References (144)

1. P. Palumbo, "Introduction," in P. Palumbo, ed., A Place in the Sun: Africa in Italian Colonial Culture from Post-Unification to the Present (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003). The premier historian of Italian colonialism, Angelo Del Boca, contends, "in Italy, unlike in other countries with a colonial past (think of France after its 'dirty war' in Algeria) there has never been a severe and definitive debate about the colonial phenomenon."
2. A. Del Boca, "The Obligations of Italy toward Libya," in, M. Fuller and R. Ben-Ghiat, eds., Italian Colonialism (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 195. Whereas a strong sense of Italian "exceptionalism" continues to underwrite exculpatory accounts of the colonial experience within Italy, foreign scholars also tend to stress the "atypical" aspects of Italian colonialism.
3. For example, see C. Dubois, "L'Italie, cas atypique d'une puissance europeénne en Afrique: Une colonization tardive, une decolonization précoce," Materiaux pour l'histoire de notre temps 32-33 (1993). Recent scholarship has sought to reinsert Italian colonialism into a larger picture of European colonialism, highlighting both continuities with wider patterns (particularly in the area of relations between settlers and the colonized) and crucial differences in the Italian experience.
4. See G. Barrera, "Colonial Affairs: Italian Men, Eritrean Women, and the Construction of Racial Hierarchies in Colonial Eritrea (1885-1941 ," Ph.D. diss, Northwestern University, 2002
5. and "Mussolini's Colonial Race Laws and State-Settler Relations in Africa Orientale Italiana (1935-41)," Journal of Modern Italian Studies 8, 3 (2003).
6. B. Allen and M. Russo, eds., Revisioning Italy: National Identity and Global Culture (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997).
7. K. Pinkus, "Empty Spaces: Decolonization in Italy," in P. Palumbo, ed., A Place in the Sun: Africa in Italian Colonial Culture from Post-Unification to the Present (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 300.
8. Pinkus, op. cit.
9. Cfr. C. Novelli, Il Partito d'Azione e gli Italiani: Moralità, politica e cittadinanza nella storia repubblicana (Milan: La Nuova Italia, 2000), 131.
10. On contemporary political debates over the postwar Constitution and the recognized need to transform the concept of citizenship, particularly in light of the issue of citizenship for the rimpatriati, refer to Bussotti, op. cit., 223-31.
11. A. Ventrone, La cittadinanza repubblicana: Forma-partito e identità nazionale alle origini della democrazia italiana (1943-1948) (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1996). Some observers, like Norberto Bobbio, however, do maintain that the postwar Constitution of the Italian Republic largely ignored "specifically national values."
12. M. Koenig-Archibugi, "National and European Citizenship: The Italian Case in Historical Perspective," Citizenship Studies 7, 1 (2003): 94. On the basic human rights granted by the Constitution to all persons in Italy, as opposed to rights reserved for Italian citizens, see this same work, pp. 96-97.
13. Koenig-Archibugi, op. cit., 104.
14. F. Cooper, "Postcolonial Peoples: A Commentary," in, A. Smith, ed., Europe's Invisible Migrants (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2003), 173.
15. A. Smith, "Europe's Invisible Migrants," in, A. Smith, ed., Europe's Invisible Migrants (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2003).
16. For a partial exception, see the collection of essays in Storia dell'emigrazione Italiana, P. Bevilacqua, A. DeClementi, and E. Franzina, eds. (Rome: Donzelli Editore, 2001). The volume contains an essay on the post-World War II migration from Istria, as well as migration to Italy's fascist colonies. It does not, however, deal with the repatriation of Italians from those colonies. Donna Gabaccia has powerfully demonstrated the need to reconsider both Italian national identity and understandings of Italian nationalism through the prism of the labor diaspora, though she does not examine the post-World War II return flows.
17. See D. Gabaccia, Italy's Many Diasporas (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2000)
18. also D. R. Gabaccia and F. M. Ottanelli, eds., Italian Workers of the World: Labor Migration and the Formation of Multiethnic States (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2005). The transnational perspective of Gabaccia, Ottanelli, and other scholars puts into question the conventional assumption that "emigration seems to have much weaker implications for citizenship and national identity than immigration - this at least has been the Italian experience."
19. Koenig-Archibugi, op. cit., 103.
20. On Italian repatriation in the context of "classic" patterns of labor emigration from Italy, consult B. B. Caroli, Italian Repatriation from the United States, 1900-1914 (New York: Center for Migration Studies, 1973)
21. D. Cinel, The National Integration of Italian Return Migration, 1870-1929 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002)
22. L. I. di Camerana, Il grande esodo: Storia delle migrazioni italiane nel mondo (Milan: Casa Editrice Corbacchio, 2003), 361-69
23. G. Gilkey, "The United States and Italy: Migration and Repatriation," The Journal of Developing Areas II (1967)
24. R. King, A. Strachan, and J. Mortimer, "The Urban Dimension of European Return Migration: The Case of Bari, Southern Italy," Urban Studies 22, 3 (1985).
25. On this, see A. Del Boca, L'Africa nella coscienza degli Italiani: Miti, memorie, errori, sconfitte (Milan: Mondadori, 2002), 165-72
26. G. Rossi, L'Africa Italiana verso l'independenza (Milan: Giuffre ' Editore, 1980)
27. R. Von Albertini, La Decolonizzazione: Il dibattito sull'amministrazione e l'avvenire delle colonie tra il 1919 e il 1960 (Turin: Società Editrice Internazionale, 1971).
28. For a more recent analysis of the negotiations between Italy and the Great Powers over the former colonies, consult S. Kelly, Cold War in the Desert: Britain, The United States and the Italian Colonies, 1945-52 (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2000).
29. Cooper, op. cit., 172.
30. In this sense, the Italian experience possesses interesting parallels with that of the Portuguese retornados, whose "coming home" coincided with the 1974 revolution that overthrew the authoritarian Salazar-Caetano regime. The rejection of the colonial and fascist past in Portugal resulted in negative responses to the retornados, who were portrayed as having exploited the colonized. This conveniently pushed aside issues of metropolitan responsibility, as "Colonialism became the presence and actions of those living in the colonies, putting aside any ideas that located colonialism within the realm of political and economic structures."
31. R. E. Ovalle-Bahamón, "The Wrinkles of Decolonization and Nationness: White Angolans as Retornados in Portugal," in, A. Smith, ed., Europe's Invisible Migrants (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2003), 164. It should be noted, however, that Italians widely perceived the 1947 Peace Treaty that stripped Italy of most of its possessions as an injustice.
32. L. Bussotti, La cittadinanza degli italiani: Analisi storica e critica sociologica di una questione irrisolta (Milan: Franco Angeli, 2002), 205.
33. Luca Bussotti's rich and detailed study of Italian citizenship is an exception, though here the postwar population movements are included in a much broader picture of juridical debates about citizenship from Unification in 1861 to the present day. Despite the claim made by Bussotti's title for a critical sociological analysis, the discussion focuses almost exclusively on political debates and legal clauses rather than on citizenship as lived practice. Bussotti, op. cit. In putting together the various population flows from former possessions, I exclude from my purview the 1970 expulsion of Italian nationals from Gheddafi's Libya, though associations of repatriated Libyans are open to those who left immediately after World War II and those who remained for several decades. Italians who left under Gheddafi predominate in the associations. I also do not discuss population flows from Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia in the 1970s and 1980s as the result of unrest in those countries.
34. Yugoslav supporters (including members of the Italian Communist Party until the 1948 expulsion of Yugoslavia from the Cominform) viewed the flight of Italians from Istria as proof that they were compromised with fascism. In 1953, Yugoslav leader and ideologue Edvard Kardelj argued that Italians who had settled in Istria under fascism had gone back to Italy after the end of Italian rule there as a natural process of "de-colonization." He added that there remained "only approximately 20,000 Italians in the Yugoslav portion of Venezia Giulia. Those are mostly decent citizens and working people whom nobody in Yugoslavia wishes to drive away from their homes nor deprive of their national rights or complete equality with all other citizens of Yugoslavia." Trieste and Yugoslav-Italian Relations (New York: Yugoslav Information Center, 1953), 14. By denying those migrants from Istria the label "decent citizens," Kardelj implied their guilt with fascism. Furthermore, he denied the presence of a deep-rooted autochthonous Italian-speaking population with his suggestion that all Italians in Istria were colonists. Kardelj's use of a decolonization argument highlights the necessity of recognizing the Istrian case's specificity. This also explains the vehemence with which Istrians have told me, "We were not colonists!" and why they reject my classification of their experience together with that of Italians from the colonies.
35. As the world war drew to a close, Tito's military forces literally "raced" to liberate Trieste before the other Allies, and thereby stake a preemptive claim to the city and surrounding territory. This set the stage for what would become known in diplomatic histories as the first Trieste crisis, whose diplomatic defusing led to the withdrawal of Yugoslav troops from the city on 12 June 1945. Pending final resolution of the dispute, the contested territory was divided into a Zone A, administered by an Anglo-American Allied Military Government, and Zone B, controlled by the Yugoslav military. The 1947 Peace Treaty with Italy awarded Zone B, together with the Istrian city of Pola/Pula (formerly part of Zone A) to Yugoslavia. While Zone B was incorporated into Yugoslavia, the former Zone A instead became the Territorio Libero di Trieste (TLT) or Free Territory of Trieste (FTT). In practice, however, the previous situation continued in miniature: The former Zone A was now divided into a smaller Zone A, centered on Trieste and still under Anglo-American AMG control, and northern Istria remained a Yugoslav-run Zone B. In 1954, the Americans and British pushed Italy and Yugoslavia to settle the dispute. By the terms of a Memorandum of Understanding, Zone A remained Italian and Zone B became part of Yugoslavia. The two countries ratified the 1954 agreement with the 1975 Treaty of Osimo.
36. J. Kunz, "Nationality and Option Clauses in the Italian Peace Treaty of 1947," The American Journal of International Law 41, 3 (1947): 623.
37. Bussotti, op. cit., 210; Kunz, op. cit., 624.
38. C. G. Segrè, Fourth Shore: The Italian Colonization of Libya (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974), 167.
39. See "Promemoria su l'Africa Orientale," 17 Dec. 1944, Ministero degli Affari Esteri (MAE) Serie Affari Politici (AP) 1946-50, Italia Ex Possedimenti Parte Generale, b. 4.
40. B. V. Vecchi, Navi Bianche: Missione di pace in tempo di guerra (Milan: Gastaldi, 1963).
41. On the particulars of the evacuation of Italians from East Africa by British and Italian personnel, turn to P. M. Masotti, "Il rimpatrio di donne, bambini, vecchi ed invalidi italiani dall'Etiopia nel 1942-43," Storia contemporanea 15, 3 (1984).
42. One month before the option deadline was due to expire, the President of the "Commissione per la Tutela degli Interessi Italiani nel Dodecanese" reported that of 714 remaining Italians, 471 had opted for Italian citizenship and 205 instead had become Greek citizens. See the letter of 6 Nov. 1948; MAE AP 1946-50, Dodecanneso, b. 6.
43. On this, consult various documents contained in MAE AP 1946-50, Etiopia, b. 5. The diary of Giacomo Cason, an Italian colonist in Libya, describes the establishment of refugee camps in Italy for those who had been evacuated from the colonies and the struggle of many of those displaced Italians to return to their homes in Africa after the war. The diary concludes with the author finally returning to Tripoli seven years after leaving. F. Prestopino, ed., Uno dei Ventimila: Diaro del colono Giacomo Cason. Libia 1938-1959 (Bologna: G. Barghigiani, 1995). In order to return to Libya after the war, some Italian women arranged marriages of convenience with Libyan citizens.
44. G. Paolino, Esperienze degli Italiani in Libia: Storia di un insediamento e di un reinserimento difficile (Tesi di laurea Psicologia, Università degli Studi di Roma, Facoltà di Magistero, 1977-1978), 34.
45. On the Dodecanese Islands and the return of resident Italians, as well as Greeks and Turks, back to the islands at war's end, see L. Pignatoro, "Il Tramonto del Dodecanese Italiano (1945-1950)," Clio 37, 4 (2001): 655, 670.
46. MAE AP 1946-50, Italia Ex Possedimenti Libia, b. 10; see also the appeals by the Comitato Rimpatriandi Italiani of Asmara, 26 May 1946, MAE AP 1946-50, Italia Ex Possedimenti Parte Generale, b. 4.
47. MAE AP 1946-50, Italia Ex Possedimenti Libia, b. 10.
48. MAE AP 1946-50, Italia Ex Possedimenti, b. 10. A note dated 23 April 1947 and sent from the British Embassy to the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, for example, reported that British Military authorities in Tripolitania "have recently deported one hundred and forty illegal immigrants on the ship 'Endeavour,' and that they propose to deport the balance, of those illegal immigrants who landed before 30 September 1946, amounting to approximately thirty persons, on the return voyage of the 'Toscana,'" "Nota Verbale," MAE AP 1946-50, Italia Ex Possedimenti Libia, b. 10. Other clandestine returnees to Libya faced arrest and three-months imprisonment. On this, go to the "Memo on 'Trattative per I Rimpatri,'" n.d., MAE AP 1946-50, Italia Ex Possedimenti Libia, b. 9.
49. See the 2 August 1947 memo ("Espulsi dall'Etiopia") from the Ministero dell'Africa Italiana to the Ministero del Tesoro contained in MAE, AP 1946-50, Etiopia, b. 7. For a specific case of expulsion, see the Telespresso of 19 August 1946 sent by the R. Ambasciata d'Italia presso la Santa Sede to the Ministero degli Affari Esteri regarding the expulsion of Angelo Paganoni, owner of SA Legnami Filli Paganoni. MAE, AP 1946-50, Etiopia, b. 1.
50. For details, consult the documents contained in MAE, AP 1946-50, Ex Possedimenti Somalia, b. 38.
51. On this subject, consult several documents contained in MAE AP 1946-50, Albania, b. 3.
52. See the memo from the Ministero degli Affari Esteri, 26 Feb. 1946, "Repatriation of Missionary Fathers of the 'Don Orione' Institute from Albania," MAE AP 1946-50, Italia, b. 21.
53. MAE AP 1950-57, Albania, b. 586; MAE AP 1950-57, Albania 658.
54. Report of 31 Dec. 1949, Archives Nationales (AN), Fond AJ 43 (International Refugee Organization), 1046.
55. Smith, op. cit., 32.
56. According to a recent commemoration of the work carried out by this committee, 1,089,516 "national refugees" received assistance in the fifty-year period between 1947 and 1997. Up to 1955 (after which, for the most part, Julian refugee flows ceased) 300,000 of those refugees were registered as coming from Venezia Giulia and Dalmatia, and another 450,000 from former Italian colonies. The figures for 1956-1976 show a further 340,524 Italian refugees, primarily from Africa and the Middle East. Repatriation flows continued into the 1970s, with 20,000 Italians leaving Libya in 1970 (after their expulsion) and many more Italians leaving Ethiopia and Eritrea from 1975 onward. Istituto Regionale per la Cultura Istriana, Esodo e Opera Assistenza Profughi: Una Storia Parallela (Trieste-Roma: Istituto Regionale per la Cultura Istriana, 1997), 5. For the complex picture of refugee relief for refugees from Venezia Giulia, as well as the shifting parameters of the parastatal committee for both Adriatic refugees and colonial rimpatriati,
57. see S. Volk, Esuli a Trieste: Bonifica nazionale e rafforzamento dell'italianità sul confine orientale (Udine: Kappa Vu, 1994).
58. This contrasted with the 1920 Treaty of Rapallo, which awarded to Italy Istria, parts of Venezia Giulia, Zara/Zadar, and the islands of Cherso/ Kres, Lussino/Losinj, Pelagosa/Palagruza, and Lagosta/Lastovo. Residents in other parts of Dalmatia awarded to the newly created Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes could opt for Italian citizenship while continuing to reside in Dalmatia. Bussotti, op. cit., 134-35.
59. V. Maher, "Immigration and Social Identities," in D. Forgacs and R. Lumley, eds., Italian Cultural Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 160-63.
60. Smith, op. cit., 9.
61. Smith, op. cit., 22.
62. C. Brettell, "Repatriates or Immigrants? A Commentary," in, A. Smith, ed., Europe's Invisible Migrants (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2003), 95.
63. G. Sciortino and A. Colombo, "The Flows and the Flood: The Public Discourse on Immigration in Italy, 1969-2001," Journal of Modern Italian Studies 9, 1 (2004): 96.
64. M. Leenders, "From Inclusion to Exclusion: Refugees and Immigrants in Italy between 1861 and 1943," Immigrants and Minorities 14, 2 (1995).
65. Bussotti, op. cit., 169.
66. Cited in F. Pastore, "Immigration in Italy Today. A Community Out of Balance: Nationality Law and Migration Politics in the History of Post-Unification Italy," Journal of Modern Italian Studies 9, 1 (2004): 31; see also the discussion, 28-29.
67. Pastore, op. cit., 33. In regards to naturalization, the 1992 law "instituted a sort of detailed hierarchy between various categories of foreigners, fixing for each of them a different period of legal residence, as [a] necessary condition for presenting a petition for naturalization."
68. Pastore, op. cit., 38.
69. For the texts of the laws of 1912 and 1992, turn to G. Crifò, Civis: La cittadinanza tra antico e moderno (Rome-Bari: Laterza, 2000), 133-41.
70. For a discussion of "totalitarian" conceptions of citizenship, including those of fascist Italy, see the detailed account in P. Costa, Civitas: Storia della cittadinanza in Europa. Volume 4: L'età dei totalitarismi e della democrazia (Rome-Bari: Laterza, 2001), 213-368.
71. Also Bussotti, op. cit., 149-79.
72. Ovalle-Bahamón, op. cit., 157.
73. On this, go to Circolare n. 31 (Ministero degli Affari Esteri, Direzione Generale degli Affari Politici, Ufficio II), "Oggetto: Territori Ceduti alla Francia: Opzioni," 15 July 1948, 2, contained in Archivio Centrale dello Stato (ACS), PCM 51-54 (Certificati di Cittadinanza), b. 509, fasc. 19.17/13659 sf. 40.
74. Dubois, op. cit., 10. The notes for a meeting of the Consiglio dello Stato (23 Mar. 1948) concerning the different legal interpretations of the term "domicile" give expression to a pervasive resentment that Italy had been excluded from the negotiations that would shape its postwar future. The minutes discuss the brokering of the terms of the 1947 Peace Treaty by "foreign politicians and diplomats belonging to diverse nationalities" who failed to appreciate the legal traditions and specificities of Italy. ACS PCM 51-54 (Certificati di Cittadinanza), b. 509, fasc. 19.17/13659 sf. 40. At the same time, the legal treaty process placed obligations on all the parties involved. Within three months of the Treaty coming into effect, for example, Italy and the other states concerned (France, Yugoslavia, and Greece) were required to enact legislation concerning the specifics of the option process.
75. Kunz, op. cit., 626.
76. More generally, scholars need to give more weight to the complex relationships between states that impact the citizenship laws and practices of single states. David Cook-Marti'n, for example, argues persuasively that nationality laws in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Spain, Italy, and Argentina "emerged in a context of competition over geographically mobile men and women." D. Cook-Martín, "Soldiers and Wayward Women: Gendered Citizenship, and Migration Policy in Argentina, Italy and Spain since 1850," Citizenship Studies 10, 5 (2006): 575.
77. See Telespresso n. 5527 (Ministero degli Affari Esteri), "Oggetto: Regolamento opzioni nel territorio ceduto alla Jugoslavia," 20 Feb. 1949, ACS PCM 51-54 (Certificati di Cittadinanza), b. 509, fasc. 19.17/ 13659 sf. 40. For the cases of individuals whose options the Yugoslav government refused (sometimes more than once), and the reasons given, consult MAE AP 1946-50, Jugoslavia, b. 61, fasc. 2. See also the IRO documentation on the difficulties the Yugoslav government created in regards to the option. AN AJ 43, 1046. Josef Kunz notes other aspects of the discretionary power of the states involved in the 1947 option process. Though Article 20 of the 1947 Peace Treaty permitted Italian citizens resident on Italian territory, and whose language of customary use was Serbian, Croatian, or Slovene, to opt for Yugoslav citizenship, it stated that such optants "acquire Yugoslav nationality only if the Yugoslav authorities accept their request, which is entirely discretionary with them."
78. Kunz, op. cit., 630.
79. Though language proved a slippery and often unreliable criterion of identity in the Julian region, there existed a tradition in the Habsburg Empire of using Umgangsprache (language of use) to measure identity; the four censuses, carried out between 1880 and 1910, gauged identity by means of the "language of use" category. D. I. Kertzer and D. Arel, "Censuses, Identity Formation, and the Struggle for Political Power," in, D. I. Kertzer and D. Arel, eds., Census and Identity: The Politics of Race, Ethnicity, and Language in National Censuses (Cambridge: Cambridge Press, 2002), 26.
80. Letter from Perassi for the Segretaria Generale (Commiss. Confini) e la Direzione Generale Affari Politici, 15 Sept. 1947. ACS PCM 51-54 (Certificati di Cittadinanza), b. 509, fasc. 19.17/13659 sf. 40.
81. Circolare n. 50 (Ministero degli Affari Esteri, Direzione Generale del Personale e Affari Generali, Ufficio IV), "Oggetto: Opzioni," 6 Nov. 1947, ACS PCM 51-54 (Certificati di Cittadinanza), b. 509, fasc. 19.17/ 13659 sf. 40.
82. Kunz, op. cit., 627.
83. Letter from Perassi for Segretaria Generale (Commiss. Confini) e la Direzione Generale Affari Politici, 15 Sept. 1947. ACS PCM 51-54 (Certificati di Cittadinanza), b. 509, fasc. 19.17/13659 sf. 40.
84. Ministero dell'Interno to Ministero degli Affari Esteri, "Oggetto: Ammissione Scuole Slovene figli di optanti per la cittadinanza italiana," 4 Aug. 1950, MAE AP 1950-57, Jugoslavia, b. 533.
85. Letter from the CLN of Gorizia, 24 Sept. 1947, "Riacquisto della cittadinanza italiana perduta a seguito del trattato di pace," ACS PCM 51-54 (Certificati di Cittadinanza), b. 509, fasc. 19.17/13659 sf. 40.
86. Letter from Prefect of Udine, "Oggetto: Optanti jugoslavi per la cittadinanza jugoslava - KRANIEC Andrea fu Andrea," 18 Aug. 1953; ACS PCM 51-54 (Certificati di Cittadinanza), b. 509, fasc. 19.17/13659 sf. 40. In regards to Yugoslav refugees in Italy under the auspices of the UNRRA and IRO, the Italian government expressed its desire for their resettlement outside of Italy. AN AJ 43, 1046.
87. Letter from P. Contini, "Alien Registration and Infiltrees," 3 Apr. 1947, S-0527-0848 PAG-4/3-0-14-0-2:6, UNRRA Subject Files 1944-1949, Special Assistant to the Chief of Mission Special File on Displaced Persons.
88. Letter from the Ministero dell'Interno, "Oggetto: Riacquisto della cittadinanza italiana," 24 Apr. 1949, ACS PCM 51-54 (Certificati di Cittadinanza), b. 509, fasc. 19.17/13659 sf. 40.
89. P. Ballinger, "'Authentic Hybrids' in the Balkan Borderlands," Current Anthropology 45, 1 (2004). The issue of homegrown traditions of Italian racism has received considerable scholarly attention of late, particularly in relationship to the colonial and fascist periods.
90. Letter from P. Contini, "Policy on 'Infiltrees,'" 9 Jan. 1947, UNRRA Subject Files 1944-1949, Special Assistant to the Chief of Mission Special File on Displaced Persons.
91. Italian women who married foreign subjects were considered to have lost their Italian citizenship, though they could ask to have it restored. In the case of the Istrian option, if a single or widowed woman did not opt for Italian citizenship and subsequently married an Italian citizen, she did not automatically become a citizen, though she could request to become one. For various aspects of the option process, consult MAE AP 1950-57, Jugoslavia, b. 533. The Italian legal scholar Monaco notes that the 1947 Treaty option clauses made no provisions for a whole range of persons, including illegitimate children, non married orphaned minors, and adopted children. Bussotti, op. cit., 208.
92. UNRRA-Italian Mission Memo, 30 July 1945. The letter goes on to say that the Italian government is "naturally reluctant to have sent back to Italy Italians who had resided in Greece before the war and who have established their roots in the country," S-0527-0846 PAG-4/3.0.14. 0.2:4, UNRRA Subject Files 1944-1949, Agreement UNRRA.
93. Letter from N. F. Kerr, 23 July 1946, S-0527-0987 PAG 4/3-0-14-3-0-8, UNRAA Subject Files 1944-1949, DP Operations (Italy) SG1 Greece. It appears that the women of such unions were not looked upon kindly in their "home" country of Greece, at least according to a 1946 letter from the Chief of the Welfare Division, Repatriation Section, of UNRRA, S-0527-0987 PAG 4/3-0-14-3-0-8, UNRRA Subject Files 1944-1949, DP Operations (Italy) SG1 Greece.
94. Cook-Martín, op. cit., 582.
95. Consolato Generale d'Italia, "Jugoslave che desiderano raggiungere il marito residente in Italia," Telespresso n. 10009, 22[?] Oct. 1948, MAE AP 1946-50, Jugoslavia, b. 30, fasc. 2. MAE AP 1946-50, Albania, b. 42.
96. Letter from G. Palutan, "Luku Abdul: Cittadinanza," 7 May 1952, MAE AP 1950-57, Albania, b. 586.
97. Ministero degli Affari Esteri, Servizio Stranieri, "Luku Abdul: Cittadinanza," 6 Oct. 1952, MAE AP 1950-57, Albania, b. 586.
98. Consolato Generale d'Italia, 4 Dec. 1947, "Comunità ebraica rodiota al Congo Belga," MAE AP 1950-57, Grecia, b. 522. On the complexity of citizenship issues for Jews and Muslims in Italian Libya, as well as the status of Jews in independent Libya, go to Bussotti, op. cit., 188.
99. Ovalle-Bahamón, op. cit., 156. In the Italian case, the role played by the newly independent African countries, as well as the United Nations, in the determination of citizenship for the residents of the former colonies should also be noted.
100. For debates over the law on citizenship in regards the former colonies, see the documentation of the MAE AP 1950-57, Eritrea, b. 801.
101. In using the problematic term meticci, I follow Barrera, who acknowledges its derogatory connotations but also recognizes that it served as an official category of identity.
102. Consolato Generale d'Italia, Asmara, Telespresso Urgente, 10 Mar. 1953, MAE AP 1950-57, Eritrea, b. 878.
103. Barrera, op. cit., 2002, 21-22.
104. Also G. Barrera, "Patrilinearity, Race, and Identity: The Upbringing of Italo-Eritreans during Italian Colonialism," in, M. Fuller and R. Ben-Ghiat, eds., Italian Colonialism (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 103.
105. Ministero degli Affari Esteri, "Oggetto: Rifiuto visti per l'Etiopia ad Italiani," 9 Oct. 1953, MAE AP 1950-57, Eritrea, b. 878. At times, the documents use "Ethiopia" to refer to both Ethiopia and Eritrea, which a 1950 UN resolution joined together as a federation. Eritrea was to be given autonomy within this federation, but in reality Ethiopian leaders treated the federation as a full union and in 1962 Eritrea became merely another province within Ethiopia. After decades of violent resistance to Eritrea's absorption into Ethiopia, Eritrea achieved independence in 1993.
106. Consolato Generale d'Italia, Asmara, Telespresso Urgente, "Meticci eritrei di nazionalità italiana. Rinuncia alla cittadinanza federale," 10 Mar. 1953, MAE AP 1950-57, Eritrea, b. 878.
107. In total, approximately 1,950 meticci had opted for Italian citizenship by 1953. Consolato Generale d'Italia, Asmara, 8 June 1953, MAE AP 1950-57, Eritrea, b. 878.
108. Barrera, op. cit., 2005, 98.
109. Barrera, op. cit., 2005, 100-3. Libyans initially had a special status as citizens, though one distinct from that of metropolitan citizens. Residents of Rhodes instead possessed the "little citizenship" (piccola cittadinanza), which excluded its bearers from the right to vote and military service. Bussotti, op. cit., 168, 191.
110. Barrera, op. cit., 2005, 105-6.
111. "Progetto di Legge-n. 5634," http://camera.it/⊣ti/leg13/lavori/ stampati/sk6000/relazion/5634.htm
112. G. Mari, "Le tristi conseguenze della politica italiana coloniale e post-coloniale: Intervista a Gianni Mari, Presidente dell'ANCIS, Associazione Nazionale Comunità Italo-Somala, con Barbara Faedda," http://www.diritto.it./articoli/antropologia/ faedda16.html, 2001, 8.
113. Many Italo-Eritreans subsequently came to Italy during the war for Eritrean independence (1975-1976), when the Italian community was evacuated. G. Barrera, personal communication. Many of Barrera's informants indicated that some Italo-Eritreans whose biological fathers had not recognized them instead paid an Italian citizen to claim them legally as his children. Likewise, some of the Eritrean women who gave birth to these children eventually migrated to Italy and arranged marriages of convenience in order to obtain Italian citizenship. Such women feel as if they belong nowhere. They are accused of having "sold out" when they return to Eritrea, and nonetheless experience discrimination in Italy. G. Barrera, "Memorie del colonialismo italiano fra le donne eritree: La storia di Frewini," Genesis, Rivista delle Societa' delle storiche IV, 1 (2005).
114. Smith, op. cit., 32. The figures for "non-Europeans" moving to Italy remain low when compared to "Europeans" repatriating back to Italy. The numbers of non-Europeans in Italy (however problematic these classifications) also are low when compared to other examples of decolonization, as in France where between 350,000 and 500,000 "non-Europeans" migrated from the former colonies between 1945 and the early 1990s.
115. Letter from P. Contini, "Policy on 'Infiltrees,'" 9 Jan. 1947, S-0527-0848 PAG-4/3-0-14-0-2:6, UNRRA Subject Files 1944-1949, Special Assistant to the Chief of Mission Special File on Displaced Persons.
116. Sottosegretario di Stato per gli Italiani all'Estero, 12 Dec. 1946, Relazione per il Ministro, MAE Carte di Gabinetto 1944-1947, b. 88.
117. MAE AP 1946-50, Albania, b. 42.
118. Prefect of Lecce to the Ministry of Interior (confidential), "Foreign Refugee Camps in the Province of Lecce, "1 Dec. 1946, S-0527-0996 PAG -4/3.0.14.3.1.0:6, UNRRA Subject Files 1944-1949, Relationship between Displaced Persons and Italian Government/Public ISG.
119. S. C. Lubkemann, "Race, Class, and Kin in the Negotiation of 'Internal Strangerhood' among Portuguese Retornados, 1975-2000," in, A. Smith, ed., Europe's Invisible Migrants (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2003), 76.
120. R. Brubaker, Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1992), 23-31.
121. For definitions of and debates on the concept of citizenship, go to B. S. Turner and P. Hamilton, eds., Citizenship: Critical Concepts, vols. I and II (London: Routledge, 1994).
122. For anthropological discussions of the concept of "cultural citizenship," good starting points can be found in R. Rosaldo, "Cultural Citizenship and Educational Democracy," Cultural Anthropology 9, 3 (1994)
123. and the critique of A. Ong, "Cultural Citizenship as Subject-Making: Immigrants Negotiate Racial and Cultural Boundaries in the United States," Current Anthropology 37, 5 (1996).
124. D. Berdahl, "The Spirit of Capitalism and the Boundaries of Citizenship in Post-Wall Germany," Comparative Studies in Society and History 47, 2 (2005): 236-37.
125. On Germany, see D. Levy, "Integrating Ethnic Germans in West Germany: The Early Postwar Period," in, D. Rock and S. Wolff, eds., Coming Home to Germany? The Integration of Ethnic Germans from Central and Eastern Europe in the Federal Republic (New York: Berghahn).
126. On decolonization, consult Cooper, op. cit., 173
127. and J. Jordi, "The Creation of the Pieds-Noirs: Arrival and Settlement in Marseilles, 1962," in, A. Smith, ed., Europe's Invisible Migrants (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2003), 69.
128. Letter, "Incidente tra profughi provenienti dall'Albania e due comunisti," 12 June 1946, MAE AP 1946-50, Albania, b. 3, fasc. 1.
129. Ministero delle Poste e delle Communicazioni, "Sistemazione dei ricevitori p.t. rimpatriati dalla Libia e dale Isole Italiane dell'Egeo," 23 Oct. 1947; also the Ministero degli Affari Esteri, "Sistemazione del personale di ruolo egeo," 11 Mar. 1948. Both contained in MAE AP 1946-50, Dodecanneso, b. 6.
130. AMG/FTT/PL/373.2: 1, 1 July 1949, MAE AP 1950-57, Trieste, b. 513.
131. AMG/FTT/PL/373: 1, MAE AP 1950-57, Italia, b. 571.
132. MAE AP 1950-57, Italia, b. 571.
133. Though the Italian state bore most of the responsibility for care of Italian refugees, the creation of the International Refugee Organization in 1948 led to complicated debates as to whether "Italians" coming from former Italian territories to the Italian peninsula could be considered as displaced from their home state and, in turn, how to measure "Italian" (as opposed to Slavic) identity. For further discussion of the shifts in IRO policies regarding displaced individuals deemed "Italians," from Venezia Giulia, see P. Ballinger, "Opting for Identity: The Politics of International Refugee Relief in Venezia Giulia, 1948-1952," Acta Histriae 14, 1 (2006).
134. For Trieste and its environs, see MAE AP 1950-57, Trieste, b. 693.
135. Istituto Regionale per la Cultura Istriana, op. cit., 9.
136. Lubkemann, op. cit., 76.
137. 1865 Civil Code of Regno d'Italia, cited in Cook-Martín, op. cit., 579-80.
138. Again, Bussotti's study provides an important exception. Bussotti, op. cit., 170.
139. U. Preuss, "Citizenship and the German Nation," Citizenship Studies 7, 1 (2003): 47.
140. The patrilineal bias remains built into the process of reacquiring Italian citizenship for descendants in the Italian diaspora. For those with Italian ancestry applying for Italian citizenship, a father who was an Italian citizen at the time of the child's birth is sufficient (if the descendant never formally renounced Italian citizenship). For those seeking to acquire Italian citizenship as a result of maternal ancestry, the claimant's mother must not only have still been an Italian citizen at the time of the child's birth, but the child must be born on or after 1 January 1948. The possibilities of acquiring Italian citizenship through the maternal line are thus more restricted. Some observers have also claimed that modifications made in 2006 to the 1992 Italian citizenship law privilege descendants of Italians in Croatia and Slovenia (i.e., ex possedimenti) over those in Latin America. The revisions to the law further facilitate the granting of citizenship to Italians and their descendants not only in the former Julian territories but also in Dalmatia and Slavonia. The law also re-opens the possibility for reacquisition of Italian citizenship by those Italians from the Julian and Dalmatian territories who emigrated abroad after opting for Italian citizenship by the terms of the 1947 Peace Treaty. Many of these individuals lost their Italian citizenship when they acquired that of their host country and were unable to collect the necessary documents to reacquire citizenship by the December 1997 time limit set by the 1992 laws. See Camera dei Deputati, Seduta di Giovedi 9 Febbraio 2006: Commissione I. Affari costituzionali della Presidenza del Consiglio e Interni Resoconto stenografico sede legislative 25 (2006).
141. For the French and British empires, for instance, distinctions between citizens and subjects, as well as debates over "imperial citizenship," have become topics of recent interest among scholars. See A. Burton, "Townsmen in the Making: Social Engineering and Citizenship in Dar es Salaam, c. 1945-1960," International Journal of African Historical Studies 36, 2 (2003).
142. C. Coquery-Vidrovitch, "Nationalité et Citroyenneté en Afrique occidentale français: Originaires et citoyens dans le Sénégal colonial," Journal of African History 42 (2001).
143. D. Gorman, "Wider andWider Still? Racial Politics, Intra-Imperial Immigration and the Absence of an Imperial Citizenship in the British Empire," Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History 3, 3 (2002)
144. R. Shereikis, "From Law to Custom: The Shifting Legal Status of Muslim Originaires in Kayes and Medine, 1903-13," Journal of African History 42, 1 (2001).