Glocale Rivista molisana di storia e scienze sociali



Norberto Lombardi

Migrants Identity

This essay analyzes the identity changes which have arisen in Molise over the years and it follows their evolution in relation to the experience of migrants. This shows that emigration has deeply affected the stereotype of the Molisians, usually seen as frugal and hard workers, but lacking willingness to take initiative. This also allowed to enrich the identity profile of those who migrated in other countries where their way of thinking and behaving changed.
This path, characterized by anthropological and intellectual experiences and events, and by incessant exchange and mutual exchange, keeps evolving throughout the journey, from settling down to work, from family to intergenerational relations. Finally, this research, in a context of progressive personalization of global experience and of local development of ethnicity, analyzes the repercussions on the cultural background of the Region caused by the “new migratory flows” and by the arrival of migrants in Molise, the so called “new Molisani”.