The conference had two main aims: to stimulate a reflection on regional normative, which nowadays is considered to be outdated and unsuitable to fit the exigencies of young Italians living abroad; to point out the necessity to establish a new kind of associationism, of the kind that promotes and revaluates the bond between young people and their origins.
When the first emigrants left Italy many decades ago they filled up their “cardboard suitcases” with emotions, culture, sensations, and memories: that was all their richness, and it came from their native land. In their new country they tried to reproduce the conditions and the equilibriums on which their passed life was based, trying to alleviate the pains and difficulties of their diaspora.
These circumstances brought to the foundation of the first associations of emigrants, where people helped, backed and supported each other. Nowadays these organizations are going through a moment of crisis. The reasons might be traceable in the youngest generations’ different life-style and in a progressive lost of knowledge and interest in their original cultural background.
In the face of the possibility of a deepening of such a crisis A.N.F.E. Delegazione Regionale Sicilia, l'Assessorato del Lavoro, della Previdenza Sociale, della Formazione Professionale e dell'Emigrazione della Regione Siciliana and I Musei dell'Emigrazione Siciliana (Museums of Sicilian Migration) organized this conference.
The works of the symposium were preceded by the inauguration of the photographic exhibition Sicilian Crossings. Sicilian Migrations in the US and Derived Communities.
Organized and directed by Professor Marcello Saija the exibition was inaugurated in 2007 in Ellis Island and travelled throughout the United States until 2008, when it was transferred to Italy. The fruit of years of research on Sicilian emigration, it accompanies the visitor through a suggestive iconographic journey. The panels describe the conditions that induced many migrants to leave their home-towns. A part of the exhibition is also dedicated to the Little Italies and societies of "Mutuo Soccorso" that welcomed Sicilians when they arrived in America and assisted them setting down in the new country.
i-Italy realized a
special issue [2] dedicated to the conference. Thanks to A.N.F.E. we are publishing here the abstracts of the papers that are being presented by the numerous participants and speakers present for the occasion. The following articles are available:
Dott. Pio Guida
Dr. Salvatore Augello
Dr. Carmelo Pintabona
Prof. Marcello Saija
Prof. John Alcorn
Prof. Giampiero Finocchiaro
Dr. Roberto Mazzarella
Prof. Bianca Gelli
Mr. Luis Tallarini
Dr. Elio Carozza
Dr. Rino Giuliani
Prof. Ellie Vasta
Dr. Salvatore Mulè
