Migrations are the most powerful means of social transformation and the most powerful way to know the “other.” The internationalization of Italy at the end of the nineteenth century was created from below, starting from the lower classes, and it is all thanks to the Italian poor and the farmers. Today’s closed-door policy. . . [is] a consequence of the (passive) defense of [Italy's] wealth and of the privileges acquired in the economic development after World War ll. This is also a very important cultural and anthropological change because the beginning and the end of the century locate Italians on opposite positions.
—Massimo Livi Bacci, “Demografia”
And the future?
