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Italy's various city-states may have unified in the Risorgimento movement, but its people did not. Numerous Italian people objected to collaborating with civilisations that had been solely detrimental to their security and prosperity. As well, insurrections that transpired in the unification process furthered this animosity.

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Push Factor - Southern Italian Exclusion and Discrimination

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Push Factor - Southern Italian Exclusion and Discrimination

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Since Italian unification began, the Italian government often neglected Southern Italy, the origin of most Italian Canadians. For instance, most Southern Italians were peasants, illiterate, uneducated, with low life expectancy, and living under mafia influence.

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Throughout Italian history, the North has always been more developed; the magnanimous cities of Florence, Rome, Ravenna, Urbino, Genoa, Venice, and many more. The cities of the North became centres of trade and the foundations for the Renaissance.

Meanwhile, the South continued to suffer and struggle behind. And many today see the South as leeches of the North's achievements, with a few calling for a separate Northern Italian state. This shows how many from the North dehumanized the people of the South and ensured that political power remained in the hands of Rome.

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Italy, country of south-central Europe, occupying a peninsula that juts deep into the Mediterranean Sea. Italy comprises some of the most varied and scenic landscapes on Earth and is often described as a country shaped like a boot. At its broad top stand the Alps, which are among the world's most rugged mountains. Italy's highest points are along Monte Rosa, which peaks in Switzerland, and along Mont Blanc, which peaks in France. The western Alps overlook a landscape of Alpine lakes and glacier-carved valleys that stretch down to the Po River and the Piedmont. Tuscany, to the south of the cisalpine region, is perhaps the country's best-known region. From the central Alps, running down the length of the country, radiates the tall Apennine Range, which widens near Rome to cover nearly the entire width of the Italian peninsula. South of Rome the Apennines narrow and are flanked by two wide coastal plains, one facing the Tyrrhenian Sea and the other the Adriatic Sea. Much of the lower Apennine chain is near-wilderness, hosting a wide range of species rarely seen elsewhere in western Europe, such as wild boars, wolves, asps, and bears. The southern Apennines are also tectonically unstable, with several active volcanoes, including Vesuvius, which from time to time belches ash and steam into the air above Naples and its island-strewn bay. At the bottom of the country, in the Mediterranean Sea, lie the islands of Sicily and Sardinia.

Italy's political geography has been conditioned by this rugged landscape. With few direct roads between them, and with passage from one point to another traditionally difficult, Italy's towns and cities have a history of self-sufficiency, independence, and mutual mistrust. Visitors today remark on how unlike one town is from the next, on the marked differences in cuisine and dialect, and on the many subtle divergences that make Italy seem less a single nation than a collection of culturally related points in an uncommonly pleasing setting.

Across a span of more than 3,000 years, Italian history has been marked by episodes of temporary unification and long separation, of intercommunal strife and failed empires. At peace for more than half a century now, Italy's inhabitants enjoy a high standard of living and a highly developed culture.

Though its archaeological record stretches back tens of thousands of years, Italian history begins with the Etruscans, an ancient civilization that rose between the Arno and Tiber rivers. The Etruscans were supplanted in the 3rd century bce by the Romans, who soon became the chief power in the Mediterranean world and whose empire stretched from India to Scotland by the 2nd century ce. That empire was rarely secure, not only because of the unwillingness of conquered peoples to stay conquered but also because of power struggles between competing Roman political factions, military leaders, families, ethnic groups, and religions. The Roman Empire fell in the 5th century ce after a succession of barbarian invasions through which Huns, Lombards, Ostrogoths, and Franks-mostly previous subjects of Rome-seized portions of Italy. Rule devolved to the level of the city-state, although the Normans succeeded in establishing a modest empire in southern Italy and Sicily in the 11th century. Many of those city-states flourished during the Renaissance era, a time marked by significant intellectual, artistic, and technological advances but also by savage warfare between states loyal to the pope and those loyal to the Holy Roman Empire.

Italian unification came in the 19th century, when a liberal revolution installed Victor Emmanuel II as king. In World War I, Italy fought on the side of the Allies, but, under the rule of the fascist leader Benito Mussolini, it waged war against the Allied powers in World War II. From the end of World War II to the early 1990s, Italy had a multiparty system dominated by two large parties: the Christian Democratic Party (Partito della Democrazia Cristiana; DC) and the Italian Communist Party (Partito Comunista Italiano; PCI). In the early 1990s the Italian party system underwent a radical transformation, and the political centre collapsed, leaving a right-left polarization of the party spectrum that threw the north-south divide into sharper contrast and gave rise to such political leaders as media magnate Silvio Berlusconi.

The whole country is relatively prosperous, certainly as compared with the early years of the 20th century, when the economy was predominantly agricultural. Much of that prosperity has to do with tourism, for in good years nearly as many visitors as citizens can be found in the country. Italy is part of the European Union and the Council of Europe, and, with its strategic geographic position on the southern flank of Europe, it has played a fairly important role in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

The capital is Rome, one of the oldest of the world's great cities and a favourite of visitors, who go there to see its great monuments and works of art as well as to enjoy the city's famed dolce vita, or "sweet life." Other major cities include the industrial and fashion centre of Milan; Genoa, a handsome port on the Ligurian Gulf; the sprawling southern metropolis of Naples; and Venice, one of the world's oldest tourist destinations. Surrounded by Rome is an independent state, Vatican City, which is the seat of the Roman Catholic Church and the spiritual home of Italy's overwhelmingly Catholic population. Each of those cities, and countless smaller cities and towns, has retained its differences against the leveling effect of the mass media and standardized education. Thus, many Italians, particularly older ones, are inclined to think of themselves as belonging to families, then neighbourhoods, then towns or cities, then regions, and then, last, as members of a nation.

The intellectual and moral faculties of humankind have found a welcome home in Italy, one of the world's most important centres of religion, visual arts, literature, music, philosophy, culinary arts, and sciences. Michelangelo, the painter and sculptor, believed that his work was to free an already existing image; Giuseppe Verdi heard the voices of the ancients and of angels in music that came to him in his dreams; Dante forged a new language with his incomparable poems of heaven, hell, and the world between. Those and many other Italian artists, writers, designers, musicians, chefs, actors, and filmmakers have brought extraordinary gifts to the world.

This article treats the physical and human geography and history of Italy. For discussion of Classical history, see the articles ancient Italic people and ancient Rome.

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Italy | Facts, Geography, History, Flag, Maps, & Population

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Geographical and historical treatment of Italy, including maps and a survey of its people, economy, and government. Italy comprises some of the most varied and scenic landscapes on Earth, and its more than 3,000-year history has been marked by episodes of temporary unification and long separation.

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Southern Italy is in a subordinate geographic location for trade. First, Southern Italy is relatively distant from other European countries, restricting trade. Second, topography and underdevelopment historically meant most people were dependent on agriculture occupations.

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As Southern Italy became more dilapidated, it further diminished the probability of investment from Northerners, magnified the harms of the preceding push factors, and made Northerners view Southerners as leeches of their wealth. Therefore Southern Italy's economy became more derelict, and so on.

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Push Factor - Environmental and Economic Turmoil

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Push Factor - Environmental and Economic Turmoil

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First, cholera and malaria outbreaks engendered death and a largely incapacitated workforce. Second, Southern Italy's crops were afflicted with drought and an unknown parasite that killed grapevines. These occurrences strained agriculture, the primary source of income in Southern Italy.

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The agriculture industry that Southern Italy's economy depended on was defiled by a series of natural disasters, including volcanic eruptions of Mount Vesuvius and Mount Etna, an earthquake, and a subsequent tidal wave responsible for deaths and destroyed land.

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World War II wreaked havoc on Italy. For a specific instance, Axis Powers set up numerous military bases in Southern Italy because of its geographic centrality in the Mediterranean. Consequently, the Allies made the region a primary target, bombing the area repeatedly.

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Benito Mussolini wanted authority over Southern Italy. Hence, he appointed Cesare Mori as a Prefect in Palermo to re-establish state trust in Southern Italy, specifically Sicily. This entailed eradicating the Sicilian Mafia, and efforts to do so prompted tremendous political instability in the region.

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Pull Factor - Higher Wages and better Opportunities

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Pull Factor - Higher Wages and better Opportunities

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Over 75% of Italian immigrants to Canada have been from the South. Because of how far the South has lagged behind the North, many see Canada as a land of opportunity, where many can live lives they could never imagine.

And what forces many to leave is overpopulation, lower industrialization, smaller opportunities, cheap cost of ocean travel, an existing family who can sponsor them, and a lack of interest in developing the South from the echelons of Rome.

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Countless Italian Canadians became unjust victims of discrimination and prejudice during World War II. This is because Italy was against Canada in World War II, being members of the Axis and Allied Powers, respectively. Some Italian Canadians were also Mussolini sympathisers, but even those that were not were harmed. Italian Canadians had businesses vandalised, jobs lost, and civil liberties suspended due to the War Measures Act. Further, many Italian Canadians anglicised their name, erasing their heritage, to evade this oppression.

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Hundreds of Italians were interned in camps or obliged to report to local registrars monthly in Canada during World War II. The War Measures Act and Defense of Canada Regulations permitted this atrocity, which authorised the government to disregard civil liberties with ambiguous restrictions if deemed necessary to maintain security.

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Inclusion - Canadian Government Endorsement

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Inclusion - Canadian Government Endorsement

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Due to a post-World War II economic expansion, demand for labour workers increased in Canada. Simultaneously, Southern Italy, ravaged by World War II, had a surplus of labour workers yearning for a new home. Therefore, the Canadian Government and private firms like the Welch Construction Company eagerly welcomed Italian workers postwar.

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The foundation of Italian-Canadian ethnic enclaves mitigated immigration-correlated risks. A non-exhaustive list of the benefits Little Italy neighbourhoods had to Italian-Canadians includes less isolation from heritage, the ability to operate businesses that sell traditional Italian goods, and less discrimination.

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Many Italians had already moved from Italy to Canada or the United States. And many of those people had established their careers and lives in their new homes and would be able to sponsor their spouses or children to travel abroad. And this, in turn, would create a snowball effect, and entice more people to move.

With all of these Italian moving, there would be small communities; known as Little Italies, which would provide a place for a sense of community and familiarity for many who had to travel across an ocean. These familial connections and kin groups would later prove useful in helping many Italians weather The Great Depression, ensuring the future of Little Italys across Canada.