section 2
Family Life
Family Life is the saga of the building blocks of the Italian community, both in the present and in the past: families, Little Italys, small and key traditions, institutions and habits. There are great and simple stories, ranging from the everyday life to famous characters, such as Paolo Nutini, Anthony Minghella and the Forte family.
These stories began mostly in the past, in the Little Italys of London, Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow, less widely known but not any less significant than their counter-parts in New York or Boston. This is where Italian churches were built, where Italians transformed from being street peddlers to entrepreneurs, owners of cafés and chip shops. Not by chance, the success of fish and chips is indeed a truly Italian story.
These Little Italys do not exist anymore, levelled to create new neighbourhoods, as in London or Liverpool. Nevertheless, communities are still there, both the old and the new. It is true that the opening of the domestic frontiers of Europe has exponentially increased mobility between Italy and the UK, and the boundary between travellers, a migrants and an expats has sensibly diminished, almost disappeared. Thousands of Italians still participate in the Procession of the Madonna del Carmine in London and at the Scampagnata in Clackmannashire, Scotland. It is a community that today tells again its own story through documentaries and plays, conferences, associations, Facebook pages, events, restaurants, old and new icons spread all over the UK.
As if they want to say, we are here, and here to stay.
Stories
