Migrants in Italy: Background information when reading Roman Stories

Migrants in Italy

This article relates to Roman Stories

Many of Jhumpa Lahiri's protagonists in Roman Stories, while not described as being of a specific ethnicity or nationality, are clearly foreign to Rome. So where might they be from? Italy's immigration statistics program only tracks non-EU newcomers to the country, giving an incomplete picture of immigration in general, but we can see that some of the top countries of origin of foreign residents in recent years include Albania, Morocco, Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh.

While immigrant citizens, foreign residents, and visitors to Italy may have decided to live there for any number of reasons, a significant factor bringing new residents to the country has been the migration of asylum seekers from places experiencing wars, natural disasters, and other unliveable conditions. According to The Guardian, the majority of migrants to Italy these days come from North African countries like Tunisia and Libya.

In 2017, Lampedusa, a tiny island of 6,000 people, made global headlines when its mayor, Giusi Nicolini, was awarded the UNESCO Peace Prize for her work with migrants landing on local shores. According to Bloomberg News, she has "stood out from her colleagues by campaigning to ensure that the island deals as efficiently and humanely as possible with the migrants and refugees fleeing war-torn Middle Eastern countries by sea." Lampedusa is an offshoot of Sicily at the southern tip of Italy, making it the closest European landmass for many traveling from North Africa.

Its status as a place for new arrivals has continued — in September of 2023, 12,000 migrants were reported to have landed on its shores in the span of one week. The resort island, unable to cope with the sheer number of newcomers, declared a state of emergency. Meanwhile, many Lampedusan residents and restaurants offered some measure of relief by handing out food and supplies during this uptick of arrivals. Over the years, local fishermen have rescued migrants from capsized boats; many migrants have also died trying to make the journey. Those who arrive in Lampedusa are generally sent onward to larger reception centers in Sicily or mainland Italy, where they may wait years for asylum requests to be processed.

Moussa Koulibaly, who arrived to the country from Guinea in 2017, works as a cultural mediator for newcomers to Italy. He describes it as "extremely difficult — psychologically, physically, culturally — to start a new life." Once granted asylum, some migrants move elsewhere in Europe, and some, inevitably, end up in Rome.

The Lampedusa Cross, made from the wood of a capsized refugee boat
Photo by El Pantera (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Filed under Places, Cultures & Identities

This article relates to Roman Stories. It first ran in the November 1, 2023 issue of BookBrowse Recommends.