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Nationalism and nation-building in the dietary consumption of Italian migrants in the United States: a transnational perspective

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 September 2020

Federico Chiaricati
Federico Chiaricati*
Affiliation:
Department of Humanities, University of Trieste, Italy
*
*Email: federico.chiaricati@gmail.com
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Abstract

This article employs a transnational perspective to examine the relationship between food and drink consumption by Italians in the United States in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and Italy's process of nation-building. The phenomena of emigration and colonisation were often interlinked, especially after Italy's defeat at Adua, Ethiopia, in 1896. This threw prime minister Francesco Crispi's form of colonialism into crisis and launched a different approach, based on the creation of a ‘Greater Italy’: a sort of Commonwealth based on cultural and economic ties between the Kingdom of Italy and Italian communities abroad. They were asked to be the bridgehead for Italy's economic and cultural expansion by consuming its exports, especially food and drink products. This required the development of shared feelings of national belonging among the emigrants, by breaking down the local identities that still prevailed and were particularly evident in the sphere of diet, as well as in religion, social life and language. The article analyses the promotional material that reflected the drive to foster Italian national sentiment in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and which helped to create an Italy both within and outside national borders.

Questo contributo ha analizzato la relazione tra i consumi alimentari degli italiani negli Stati Uniti tra XIX e XX secolo e il processo di nation-building dell'Italia con una prospettiva transnazionale. Emigrazione e colonizzazione furono due elementi che spesso si fusero, in particolare a seguito della sconfitta di Adua nel 1896 che causò la crisi dell'impianto colonialista crispino e inaugurò una diversa prospettiva coloniale, basata sulla creazione di una “Più Grande Italia”, una sorta di Commonwealth basato sui legami culturali ed economici tra la “metropoli” (il Regno d'Italia) e le comunità italiane all'estero. Ad esse era chiesto di essere la testa di ponte di una espansione economica e culturale dell'Italia attraverso il consumo di prodotti di esportazione, in particolare quelli alimentari. Per fare questo però era necessario sviluppare anche tra gli emigranti un comune senso di appartenenza nazionale erodendo le identità locali ancora predominanti che nell'ambito alimentare, come quello religioso, associativo e linguistico, erano particolarmente manifeste. Saranno quindi analizzate pubblicità che tra XIX e XX secolo rappresentarono questo sforzo di italianizzazione e che contribuirono alla creazione di una Italia dentro e fuori i confini nazionali.

Keywords

food studiesfood advertisingmigrationItalian-AmericannationalismGreater Italy
Type
Special Issue
Information
Modern Italy , Volume 25 , Special Issue 4: Italians Beyond Italy/Italy Beyond Italians: Transnational Cultural Strategies and the Construction of Identities , November 2020 , pp. 403 - 419
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for the Study of Modern Italy

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