Italian Immigrants

Words: 1915
Pages: 8

Humans have moved constantly around the world in order to escape from political or religion persecution, poverty, armed conflict, economic hardship, trade, and many other reasons. Italy as many other countries, has always been more likely to present a higher rate of emigration. The Italian population has always explored and moved around the globe. There has always been a strong connection between the Italian population and the world. Even today, It is possible to find Italian communities everywhere in the world. However, most of the data on this topic are fragmentary and incomplete. Find reliable data on this topic has been a difficult challenge. Because, only after the Italian unification in 1861 and only when emigration started to be a widespread …show more content…
The physical trip between the town and the destination was terribly complicated. When the Italian government started to implement the railroad network, people could finally reach the ports in short time. For many years the connection between the port and the town had been the hardest part of the trip. In addiction, when the steam engine transatlantic ships substituted the old sailing ships, people could reach their final destination in an incredible shorter time. Before these revolutions, people had to walk for days to the nearest train station, and when they were arrived to the port they had to cross the Atlantic on old and slow sailing ships Winds and the currents strongly limited the trading network. A sailing boat could take from 5 weeks to 2 months to go from Genoa to NYC, and even longer to Buenos Aires. In the 1870 a steamship took just from 10 to 12 days to arrive in NYC, and from 18 to 20 days to arrive in Buenos Aires. (Baily, 32) These innovations encouraged the thousands of Italian people to leave their towns and find fortune in the Americas. However, the trip was not even comparable to the modern Frecciarossa or to Costa Crociere transatlantic ships. Most immigrants could not afford to buy a first class ticket, so they had to live for 12 days in overcrowded third class dormitory with limited washing facilities, poor food, and cope with not kind officials. (Baily, 52) Brave men and women had to pray for two thing; first hope that the ship will arrive intact in the Americas, and second second don not get sick because of the high