ABSTRACTGET SKILLED AND GET OUT: POST-WWII ITALIAN EMIGRANTS AND TRANSNATIONAL TRAININGByLaura Cuppone Increasingly after WWII, both traditional and new destination countries for Italian immigrants maintained the sponsorship system and imposed skill-based selection criteria. In the United States and Canada demands for skilled workers replaced pre-WWII ethnic-based criteria. To prevent labor shortages, the developed Western European countries requested immigrants skilled in specific trades. After twenty years of restrictive fascist migratory policies, the fledgling Italian Republic not only resuscitated its support for emigration but also made it the centerpiece of postwar reconstruction. In the eyes of Italian authorities, emigration became a way to relieve unemployment and bolster the lagging economy through emigrants' remittances. Grounded in an analysis of Italian state and provincial archival sources, oral interviews, and emigration conference proceedings, this dissertation examines the reactions of Italian state authorities, migration experts, and Italian emigrants to the demands for skilled workers. In doing so, it adopts the emigrant country's point of view and explores the formal and informal training Italian emigrants obtained before and/or after their departure. Whereas the previous literature has focused on the receiving countries and their migration policies, this dissertation focuses on the reactions to them and the variety of skill development Italian emigrants went through. To capture the full range of emigrants' vocational training experiences, this dissertation situates postwar Italian migration in international, national, and local contexts. The first part (Chapters 1 and 2) analyzes the international arena and the economic circumstances that shaped vocational training, including anti-communist propaganda, North America's booming industrial and urban development, and the European integration process. The second part (Chapter 3) moves away from the international scene to investigate state-run vocational training in Italy. On the one hand, this part describes the Italian state's engagement in the establishment of vocational courses and schools for its citizens. On the other hand, it exposes the inconsistencies of the Italian state interventions through the critiques of migration experts and labor union representatives. The third part (Chapters 4 and 5) examines the migratory experiences between Italy and North America of the inhabitants of the town of Casalvieri, south east of Rome. Unskilled in the eyes of the North American authorities, Casalvierani drew on family networks, pre-migration characteristics, and informal training to become skilled construction workers and entrepreneurs in Detroit, greater Los Angeles and San Diego, as well as the region between Toronto and Windsor, Canada. By adopting a three-tiered analysis and Italy's point of view, this dissertation ultimately argues that the request for skilled workers benefited Italian schools and vocational training in the long term. Furthermore, it emphasizes that the coexistence of skill-based criteria and family reunification in North American immigration policies allowed unskilled or informally skilled Italian emigrants to bypass the inconsistent Italian state's vocational training programs and create their own migratory paths and skill-building processes.
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