Thoughts of an Italian Writer: (2b)

Dr. Antonio Castaldo, Sociologist and Journalist, Brusciano, Italy

"The Half-Century Italian Emigration in Germany. Recollections of a Gastarbeiter "Working Guest." (3)

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In the Italian general condition there remains nevertheless problems of integration and of improvement of the social condition of many people, in greater part of the emigrants' first generation after decades of stay in Germany they do not speak well or almost entirely the German language. There are few who also have a German passport and the citizenship of origin is the most kept among all the foreign presence in Germany.

The Italian school population is that one that more suffers the selectivity of the German society. In Bavaria there has been detected data which also reflects the national dimension: about 8% of Italian schoolchildren attending a school differential, unlike those from other EU countries that are 5,2% and by the German equivalent to 3.2%, the grammar school sees the Italians present with 4.7%, other EU students with 9.1% and Germany with 18.5%. The certification training is owned 46% of young Italians than the 64% of Germans. This qualification is present in the workplace for 45% of the unemployed in 85% of Italians. The certification training is owned by 46 % of young Italians than the 64% of Germans. This qualification is at work for 45% of the unemployed and 85% of Italians.

The general economic situation remains difficult, the high unemployment of the Italians and the reforming of the German Welfare system unfold a panorama of uncertainty and insecurity for our fellow countrymen.

According to the data of the Federal Institute of Statistics, the temporal datum of permanence of the Italians tells us that they are exceeded ten years with the declared intention of a provisional stay that often however is never translated in complete repatriation.

The researcher A.M. Minutilli conclusively, in her interesting investigation, notes that "the Italians in Germany are in the middle of the ford, with unresolved old problems, but also with new challenges and opportunities to be gathered in a European context. The route which can and must complete, from Gastarbeiter to citizens in full permanence of the host country, may enable them to work as active agents on their future in the host society, and, paradoxically, can offer the country of origin, in economic terms, of cultural exchange and European integration, of how much (little) they have received in the years passed in social dependency that have not had some significant effect on their social growth.

This while Italy has itself become a land of immigration and to me remains a bitter memory of the visual warning in neon signs placed at the entrances to some public places of any civilized city in Lower Saxony; "Keine Ausländer". No entry to foreigners. But this is past history. Or is it still present and does it affect all western nation's sentinels of passageways of the new migrant populations?

Dr. Antonio Castaldo

Translation from Italian to English: Miriam Medina

To contact: miriammedina@earthlink.net or miriam@thehistorybox.com
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