California Italian Studies

In 1884, Edmondo De Amicis joined a group of over 1,500 emigrants travelling from Genoa to Buenos Aires on the ship Nord America. Based on the transoceanic crossing and the two months he spent in Argentina, De Amicis produced several texts: a long account of the transatlantic journey, Sull’Oceano, published in 1889; a short story, “Dagli Appennini alle Ande,” included in his 1886 best-seller, Cuore; and a lecture, “I nostri contadini in America,” delivered three times in 1887. Collectively, these texts describe Italian emigration to South America in its different stages, from departure to settlement and, for some, return.

This essay explores how De Amicis, a renowned literary promoter of national consciousness and national cohesion, addresses the blatant failure in the nation building project represented by the exodus from the nation of the poorest among its new citizens. Sull’Oceano identifies class discord as the primary motor of the Italian post-unitary diaspora and proposes reformed elite behavior as antidote to emigration and safeguard of national allegiance among transplanted Italians. “Dagli Appennini alle Ande” and “I nostri contadini in America,” instead, focus on Argentinian nativism as the cause of the transplanted Italians’ continuing suffering, and advocate that the Argentinians recognize the Italian farmers’ contribution to the settlement of the country and that the Italian government play a protective role towards its citizens abroad, thus returning to the country of origin the role of protective mother figure which the emigrant flux had compromised.

While Sull’Oceano focuses on national class division and the possibility of the migrants’ disaffection from the nation, “I nostri contadini” superimposes international ethnic conflict on class division and concentrates on the absence of the nation in spite of the migrants’ renewed affection. Both texts offer an emotional solution to the ruptures they highlight. In the first one, interclass empathy ensures the loyalty of the migrants to the nation. In the latter, empathy has to travel across more axes, from the Argentinians to the Italians and from the ruling class in Italy to the migrants across the Atlantic. Not surprisingly, in this case the solution is delayed to the future. Should the circulation of affect be successful, however, the migrants would be both “nostri,” children of the land they left behind, and “figli del paese” in Argentina. Instead of searching for a mother, they would have two. The mother across the ocean, moreover, would be “altera” rather than shamed. De Amicis, in other words, would have reconciled emigration and nationalism.