Written by Loretta Baldassar

Aspects of this paper have been adapted and reprinted here with permission from:

Baldassar, L. & Baldock, C. (2000) "Linking Migration and Family Studies: Transnational Migrants and the Care of Ageing Parents", In Agozino, B. (eds.) Theoretical and Methodological Issues in Migration Research. Ashgate, Aldershot, UK. Pp 61-89.

Anna’s mother is still alive although her health is failing. In the past, Anna and Sergio kept in touch with their parents and other relatives by regular phone calls and letters. They cared for and about them by maintaining an active role in financial decisions and other relevant matters. They were available to give and receive advice. In more recent times, they have been able to enjoy email contact as their son in Australia and their cousin in Italy have computer access. In addition, they have been able to afford to visit more regularly. Anna shares the burden of care for her mother by relieving her sister in Italy who has the primary responsibility for care of her mother. From time to time, Anna returns to her home town to care for her mother for a period of two or three months. Despite this involvement in the care of their parents, both Anna and Sergio experience feelings of guilt at not being able to do more.

Anna and Sergio are similar to many migrants in Australia and around the world who live their lives in one place but remain connected to the lives in another place or other places. The reduction in family reunion migration and the limited places available for parent migration have meant that in Australia, more and more people find they are caring for their parents and relatives from a distance. Traditionally, people who have researched family and caring issues have not considered the special circumstances of migration. The commonly held view was that proximity or the closer you lived to your parents, the more likely you were to provide care to them. Our research on distant care reveals that, no matter how far away, many people continue to care for their parents and other family members.

Caring about family from a distance

In the case of Italians in Australia, there are some general points that could be made about caring about family from a distance. Pre World War II migrants, in particular, experienced enormous difficulties caring for family from a distance. Often arriving with nothing more than a suitcase, they spent their first months in Australia living in relative poverty. Jobs were scarce and anti-Italian sentiment fierce (manifesting, at its peak, in the internment of Italians during the war). Caring from a distance during this period was extremely difficult and most often took the tangible form of remittances. The cost of telephone calls was prohibitive. Letter writing became the main form of communication between families. Letters were not written often, however, as most of these migrants had very little formal education (on average three years) and they were proficient in a dialect (an oral form of language) rather than standard Italian. Instead, parcels were often sent home containing such luxuries as coffee and fabrics. One man explained that the families in his home town could not even afford to buy a stamp to send a reply of thanks. Another said that ‘the migrants gave oxygen to the family’.

In the post war period, the bulk of the migrants from Italy found a great deal of support from their townspeople who had come before them. The first decade of life in Australia for these migrants was, in general, a successful period of work and saving. It is interesting to note that it was often during this period alone that parents (although probably only a tiny minority) visited their migrant children. This luxury was invariably financed by the migrant. Phone calls were reserved for special occasions (Christmas, weddings, anniversaries, birthdays and crises) and were much more likely to be made by the migrant (even on his/her own birthday). Letter writing was a challenge even for these usually slightly better educated migrants and in both the pre and post war groups this kind of activity invariably fell to the women.

From the 1970s onwards, as migrants became more financially secure, the more expensive forms of communication increased — phone calls, sending gifts and greeting cards. Women were still the ones who did this kind of 'kin work' — writing cards and letters and phoning both their own and their husband's relatives. Invitations to weddings would be exchanged even if it was clear acceptance was not possible. Bonbonniere (sugared almonds and, later, ceramic figurines) which mark baptisms, first communions, confirmations and marriages would be sent through the post. More recently home-videos are a popular way of keeping in touch and many families are beginning to have email contact.

Returning home

Regular return visits to the home country are a common occurrence amongst many transnational migrants, and in some instances the visits are of long duration. Often, however, such visits are postponed until people have settled for some time in the new country and are financially well-off. This was certainly the case for many Italians. Since the 1970s, as Italian migrants began to prosper in their work, visits to the home country have become more frequent. People now express feelings of obligation to attend special occasions like 50th wedding anniversaries, a god child's wedding and, in particular, to visit a seriously ill relative, especially a parent. Migrants also feel obliged to take their Australian born children back to Italy to meet their grandparents and get to know their extended kin. It is quite common for a child's passage to Italy to be paid as a graduation gift or 21st birthday present. Regular visits serve at least two purposes. On the one hand, they enable the migrant to fulfil their obligations as responsible family members. On the other, the fact that the migrant can afford to visit renders it a kind of a symbolic marker of a successful migration that justifies the migrants failure to repatriate.

Visits home also represent an important aspect of the migrants caring for themselves. The best cure for homesickness is said to be a visit. In Multicultural Australia, where people tend to be defined on the basis of ethnicity, migrants, especially those from non English speaking backgrounds, are not easily accepted as Australian. Italian migrants look forward to their visits ‘home’ as an opportunity to return to their roots. In some ways the visit has become a symbol of what it means to be Italian in Australia. Migrants find cultural, spiritual and physical renewal through these trips and speak of the benefits of ‘breathing the air’ or ‘hearing the bell-tower’.

The practices of care-giving

In an effort to prove that their migration was successful and to justify their failure to repatriate, migrants invariably return bearing expensive gifts - conspicuous symbols of 'the good life'. Such gifts are often expected by relatives back home because they too wish to share in the benefits of migration; this can represent a significant financial burden to some migrants. Gifts, like remittances, are also a way for migrants to provide a tangible symbol of their care and concern for their families. It was not uncommon for migrants during their initial visits of the 1970s to finance renovations to the paternal household, usually providing new, modern bathrooms. Modern conveniences like washing machines and new technologies like television sets were also common gifts. The visiting migrants would attempt to ensure that their parents were ben sistemati or well set-up and comfortable. Migrants will often want to spend quality time with their ageing parents, taking them on holidays or frequent day trips.

Visits in more recent times, when the standard of living in Italy has generally improved, are characterised less by migrants giving expensive gifts (which now tend to be exchanged, in the form of jewellery for instance, rather than given one way) and more by collective ventures involving both town-based and migrant siblings such as organising suitable care for an ageing parent. Perhaps the most significant example of caring from a distance is evident in the widespread practice of the migrant forgoing their inheritance. This act can be interpreted, in part, as symbolic assurance that they will always have a place to stay whenever they visit but it is also an acknowledgment that the burden of care for their parents has been shouldered by their relatives in Italy. In a sense, because they migrated and have established themselves in a new country, they have avoided the responsibility of the day to day caring for their aged parents but also lost the right to a share in their parents' will. Other migrants feel that their remittences were an equally important form of care in the past as the day to day caring is in the present. Whether feeling in some sense unworthy of their inheritance or not, many migrants fiercely defended their right to participate in any decision-making which affected their parents and relatives and all were invariably extremely hurt if they were not kept abreast of family affairs.

Transnational networks of support

Many Italians who migrated to Australia, partly through the chain migration networks and partly through other networks of support (eg. god-parentage), established close-knit community groups. These community groups provide support and companionship in part recreating the family and community ties that existed in Italy. When any of the group visits their home town they are given letters and gifts to deliver to the Italy-based kin of their migrant friends in Australia. This ‘postal duty’, as one woman jokingly defined it, involves visiting the Italy-based families, especially parents but also siblings and aunts and uncles, of migrant friends.

Even if there is no letter to deliver, there are always good wishes and enquires to be made. In this way, a relatively reliable source of information about how kin are coping is available to migrants in Australia, information that they can then check against what they've been told by Italy based kin. For example, one man had been told by his brothers that his uncle was happy to have been moved into a hostel. The migrant in question, who was sharing the financial cost of supporting his uncle, doubted his brother's words and was concerned that the move had been one of convenience for his brother and not for his uncle. He asked another migrant, who was planning a trip to Italy, to visit his uncle and check that he was indeed comfortable. Similarly, when one woman's mother was gravely ill in Italy, every Australia based migrant who visited her home town during that time made the effort of visiting and checking that her needs were being met on behalf of the daughter in Australia. In addition, when the family member of a migrant dies in Italy, the Australia based community members often conduct a special mass on their behalf, whether or not the relevant kin are able to attend the funeral in Italy or not.

Where is home?          

For most migrants, identification with the 'home town' and travel back there did not stop after the death of their parents. The fact that the Australian-born children of the migrants had developed ties with their extended kin in Italy meant that even the second and subsequent generations identified with their parents' birthplace. Children would often express their desire to ‘go back’ to the ‘old country’ as if this was where they too had come from.

Ironically, once ‘home’ the migrants often experience a sense of dislocation where they no longer fit back into town life. They are identified as Australians by their kin and townspeople and find themselves in the unlikely position of being ambassadors for Australia, defending life in Australia. Of course, when in Australia, given that they are never truly accepted as Australians, they become spirited ambassadors for Italy. These, then, are what the postmodernists call ‘deterritorialised identities’. When they are in Italy the migrants long to be in Australia and vice versa. It is our view that the visit itself often becomes a central stabilising feature of the migrants’ identities. 

Conclusion

Regardless of their attachment to either place, the majority of Italian migrants settled in Australia continue to visit their home towns in Italy, even after their parents have died. These visits can be described as secular pilgrimages of redemption and renewal. People talk about ‘drinking the local water’, ‘basking in the sun’, ‘hearing the toll of the home town church tower’ and ‘breathing the air’ as restorative and invigorating experiences. They return to renew their connections to both people and places. For some, the return is also a chance to consider where they would like to spend their old age, as the issue of being cared for becomes a relevant one.