INTO ITALY (1970-2000)

(Excerpted from Falling Leaves, an anthology of memoirs by LC Arulpragasam)

This article deals with the patterns, problems and some stories of Sri Lankan immigration into Italy during the period 1970 to 2000. Although it focuses on immigration into Italy, the problems discussed are common to most “new” countries of immigration. The latter are the non-English speaking countries, which have become Sri Lankan’s most important immigrant destinations since 1980. The writer and his family lived in Rome for 30 years during this period and were able to witness the progress and problems of Sri Lankan immigration and to listen to the immigrants’ stories: some of them glad, some of them sad.

General Considerations

Some general observations may be useful by way of background. First, the “colour bar” has always acted as an implicit or explicit bar to immigration in the early days to “white” countries such as Britain and Australia in the 1950s. In this light, it is remarkable that Italians showed little colour consciousness when Sri Lankan immigration began in the late 1970s. This is partly a heritage from Roman times when coloured Cleopatra was lionized in Rome, while a couple of the last Roman Emperors were from current Middle Eastern countries. A personal experience of mine illustrates this lack of colour consciousness in the early days.

Around 1975, having capsized in my boat during a storm in the middle of a large lake near Rome, I was left stranded about ten miles from where I had set out. I had no option but to walk to the main road bare bodied, bare-footed, and clad only in my swimsuit. I had barely thumbed a ride when the first three cars ground to a halt, competing to give me a ride, despite my rough appearance. For those helpful Italians, I was a stranger in their country (proclaimed by my colour), who needed their assistance. Forty years later, however, things have changed substantially – for both qualitative and quantitative reasons, as discussed later.

Secondly, the question of class has played an important role in determining the immigrant destinations of Sri Lankans in the early days. In the 1950s and 1960s, Ceylonese immigration was aimed at the English-speaking countries such as the UK and Australia. Apart from the question of colour, immigrants were accepted by those countries only if they were English-speaking and professionally or otherwise qualified. This in practice restricted such immigration only to the Ceylonese English-educated middle class.

Conversely, these middle-class migrants did not seek immigration to European countries, such as France, Germany and Italy, because they could not aspire to professional/middle class jobs in those countries because of needed language skills. Contrarily, these non-English speaking countries became the favoured immigration destinations for the poorer classes in Sri Lanka, who aimed only at low level labour and service jobs where local language skills did not matter so much.

Thirdly, the numbers and pressure of incoming immigrants also affects the attitude of the host country towards them. While Italy became the most popular destination for working class people from Sri Lanka, it ultimately also attracted a flood of immigrants from the Philippines and Bangladesh, with later inflows from Northern and Sub-Saharan African countries, multiplied again by influx from the Balkans and Eastern Europe.

The sheer numbers of the poor and uneducated people of different colours, languages and cultures caused pressures in the lower-level labour and housing markets, which together with cultural differences and exaggerated fears of immigrant crime gave rise to anti-immigrant feelings in Italy by the mid-1990s. For example, the Bangladeshis by the late 1980s had monopolized the activity of cleaning car windscreens at traffic-lights. Many Italians, who had always championed immigration submitted to their windscreens being washed – even if they did not need it – so as to pay the poor immigrants something. But even they got really fed up when accosted every day at every traffic light (about four times a day at the same traffic lights!) till even they shouted “basta” (enough)!

To this, I have to add my own experience. Whereas I had previously experienced a positive reaction to my dark colour in 1975, I had the opposite experience twenty years later in 1995 in Rome. The Italian experience with needy immigrants had this effect over the years. Coming out of a supermarket one day, I saw a frail old lady staggering along the uneven payment, bent double over her heavy shopping bags. Since I was walking in the same direction to my car, I walked up to her and said: “Signora, can I help you to carry those bags?” Even I was not prepared for her reaction: she recoiled in aversion or fear, clutching her bags away from me, shrieking shrilly “No, no, no!” I took off like a thief caught in the act!

From an overall point of view, there had been no change between 1975 and 1995 – except that the numbers of immigrants had redoubled many times over and that they were from different countries and cultures, but mostly from the unemployed poor. Hence, the sheer numbers and class of immigrants seemed to have changed the perceptions and attitudes of Italians towards them.

Push and Pull Factors

Any overall view on immigration needs to look at the push factors which cause emigration from the home country, as well as the pull factors which attract them to the receiving country. As for the push factors, the hard economic times of the late 1970s and 1980s caused the first wave of Sri Lankan immigrants, who were mainly from the poor fishing families of the west coast, mainly Catholics from Negombo, Wennapuwa areas. This was followed by more Sinhalese migrants from the west coast and the interior who migrated for the same reasons.

On the other hand, communal violence and lack of economic opportunities also impelled an exodus of Tamil migrants to Italy in the 1980s, which gathered momentum in later years. A good indicator of the force of the push factors can be gauged by the premium paid to agents to arrange the logistics of immigration. In the Sinhala areas, the price charged by agents for immigration to Italy was around Rs. 300,000 in the early 1980s, but had increased to around Rs. 600,000 by the year 2000. In the Tamil areas, due to political and security considerations, the rate had increased to around Rs. 900,000 by the year 2000, and is probably more today.

A consideration of the push factors also brings to mind the enabling factors that make such immigration possible. A ring of agents appeared who extracted money from the would-be immigrants to arrange their journey. When Italy introduced visa restrictions for Sri Lankans (around1981), people-smuggling became a recognized industry. Even fishing trawlers were used by smugglers to make the hazardous journey. Overland routes were also used, with immigrants being abandoned in transit countries both by land and by sea, while even outright scams were reported.

The pull factors which attracted migrants to Italy are equally important. The first was quite fortuitous. Soon after World War II, Ceylon and the Philippines were the only two advanced and westernized countries in Asia; hence Italy waived its visa requirements for them both. Italy thus became the primary immigration destination (the default position) for Sri Lankans, both as a base for future hoped-for entry into the UK or into other countries of Europe. If they failed in the latter, they returned to Italy for prolonged or permanent stay.

The main pull factor was obviously economic. Although Italy was a relatively poor country in the 1960s still recovering from World War II, it had already become a hive of economic activity in the 1980s-1990s, powered partly by a “black economy”, which was mainly dependent on cheap immigrant labour. Meanwhile, a middle class had emerged which could afford domestic help in the form of sub-wage immigrant labour, of which Filipinos and Sri Lankans were the most preferred. When success stories of the first immigrants reached home, more family and friends followed the good-luck trail to Italy.

Another pull factor arose from the exaggerated stories of successful or not so successful immigrants. The sociological literature has noted that the first immigrants are usually the more desperate or adventurous types, often those who had not done well in their own countries; those with secure jobs would seldom undertake the risk of the unknown. Some of the former exaggerated their stories to show how well they had done in the “promised land”. I remember how a recently arrived Sri Lankan immigrant posed for photographs of himself in his employer’s bed, having surrounded himself with the TV set and all the telephones in the house (to make sure that they all appeared in the photograph) to show how well he had fared in the new country. Needless to say, when this photo made the rounds in his village, everyone wanted to immigrate to Italy!

The third pull factor is the establishment of a “bridgehead” in the receiving country. The existence of a bridgehead or network in a new country served not only as a beacon of attraction but also as a support-system for new immigrants. We knew of a Sri Lankan maid working for a rich Kuwaiti family who, during that family’s one-week tourist visit to Rome, absconded and went underground, knowing that the Sri Lankan network would find her employment. Unfortunately, part of this Sri Lankan network later got into the business of forging Italian visas for family ,friends and even paying customers to enter Italy. Needless to say, this was done with the bribery and connivance of Italian immigration officers who allowed entry on the basis of these forged visas.

We also heard their stories through our Sri Lankan domestic helper: some of them happy, some of them sad.