Autore
Patriarca, Silvana

Titolo
Fear of Small Numbers: "Brown Babies" in Postwar Italy
Periodico
Contemporanea
Anno: 2015 - Volume: 71 - Fascicolo: 4 - Pagina iniziale: 537 - Pagina finale: 568

By drawing in an interdisciplinary fashion on a variety of different sources (some ofthem archives only recently made available to the public), the essay examines the waychildren of Italian women and non-white Allied soldiers born in Italy during WWII andin its immediate aftermath were racialized and treated in the postwar years. It shows significant continuities between pre- and postwar ideas about race and «racial hybrids»in various segments of the Italian population and argues that these children were considereda «problem» in spite of their small numbers (rather as happened in Germany andGreat Britain in the same years). Because of their origin in «illegitimate» relations, eitherconsensual or forced, and because of the color of their skin, they often encountered hostilityand contempt and were seen as not really belonging in the national community eventhough they were almost always Italian citizens in virtue of ius soli. The Italian case, however,has its own specificity, namely the extent to which prominent figures of the Catholicworld, at times former supporters of fascism, were involved in trying to «solve» this socalled«problem». The vicissitudes of these children show the need to further investigatethe history of racism in the Italian democratic Republic.



SICI: 1127-3070(2015)71:4<537:FOSN"B>2.0.ZU;2-N
Testo completo: http://www.rivisteweb.it/download/article/10.1409/81438
Testo completo alternativo: http://www.rivisteweb.it/doi/10.1409/81438

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