Un ponte ancora aperto? Alcune note sull’emigrazione siciliana verso gli Stati Uniti durante il fascismo

Abstract

During the 1920s, after the promulgation by US government of the Quota Acts, and after the new fascist policies about emigration in Italy (1926), we register a dramatic decrease of the transatlantic migration flows from Italy to the US. Focusing on the case of Sicily, one of the region which had sent more emigrants to the US during the Great Migration, this essay analyses the issue of migratory waves from Southern Italy to the US during the Fascism. In fact, despite of the reshaping of migration policies, some traditional networks between Sicily and America are still working. For example, some new researches about transnational Mafia reveal the existence of dynamic Sicilian-American networks in the interwar years. Likewise, many Italian-American memories and biographies indicate that for Sicilians the bridge connecting Italy and America was uninterrupted even during the Fascism.