The Making of the Italian American Colonizer

Abstract

This essay investigates how the Fascist war in Ethiopia influenced the racial representation and self-perception of Italian immigrants living in the United States. In particular, it analyzes how the regime exported new narratives depicting the migrant as a colonizer and how these stories informed the way in which Italian Americans perceived their ethnic and racial identity. Because the regime identified Italian emigrants as members of a superior race, news about the Italo-Ethiopian war had a strong impact on their relationship with African Americans, who conceived of Ethiopia as a symbol of Pan-African independence and thus regarded the conflict as a race war. By showing how colonialism and its propaganda may influence not only colonized peoples but also subaltern groups and communities living in geographically distant areas, the present essay hopes to contribute to the postcolonial discourse with an innovative perspective.

Keywords:

• African Americans
• colonialism
• Fascism
• Italian Americans
• Italo-Ethiopian war
• race

Notes

1 Most of the Italian sources quoted in this essay have no English translation. Hence, unless otherwise specified, all the Italian quotations reported here have been translated by the author of this essay.