The Italian Legacy in the Dominican Republic

THE ITALIAN LEGACY IN THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

At first, the wave of emigration flowed toward neigh-

boring countries (France, Switzerland, Tunisia); in the

last twenty years of the nineteenth century, it was direct-

ed at America. In the period from 1875 to 1925, approxi-

mately ten million people left Italy, of whom almost half

returned.

Between 1876 and 1880, emigrants numbered

fewer than 50,000; between 1881 and 1890 the number

approached 100,000, while for the period from 1891 to

1900, emigrants totaled 150,000.

As José Del Castillo indicates, the Dominican Repub-

lic was not “an important point of reference for the great

international migratory movements coming from the old

continent,” because “other poles of attraction attracted

the great flows of European settlers.”

In the case of Ital-

ian migration, the preferred destinations were the United

States, Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil.

Most of the Italians who settled here came from the southern part of Italy,

specifically from towns near

the key port of Naples. Another less numerically significant group arrived from various places in northern

Italy, and was made up of people with different educational levels and already developed business skills. Why

would this be the case? Simply because the South was most affected by the collapse of the agricultural sec-

tor, which forced the unemployed rural population to embark by tens and hundreds of thousands. Further-

more, southern Italy was—and still is—very different in terms of economic wealth, when compared with the

north-central regions. It is the least favored region in terms of natural resources and the one where the imbal-

ance in the distribution of urban centers is most noticeable.

These difficulties have been accentuated by the

physical environment: the Apennines, the geological backbone of the long and narrow peninsula, dominate

the morphology of the terrain, with cities having developed in the numerous valleys and plains alternating

between the mountainous slopes.

Nicolás Pugliese Zouain notes that the Italians left “when they had completed their compulsory military

service; normally at the beginning of the year, after the September harvest and after the harvesting of the

olives (in November and December), once the oil was stored for family consumption over the course of the

year.” And they set off,

[…] in cargo ships that plied a route along the Tyrrhenian Sea to the port of Naples, where they board-

ed the ‘steamer’ that would take them to Barcelona. The most fortunate, if they arrived on time, em-

barked on the Piróscafo, an ocean liner or ‘bastimento’ (as it was called in Italy) that sailed directly to

America, which would take about a month and a half. Those who failed to align their schedules with

the departure of the ocean liner had to wait for the next one to arrive, which further aggravated their

already precarious economic situations.

With regard to their luggage, of either a material or sentimental nature, he notes:

Since they wore the cashmere suit they used on Sundays and holidays, in their minds they had the firm

intention of abandoning the state of poverty that they left behind with their family, their young wives

and their children. In their hearts, they carried an immense burden of pain, and around their necks,

hung the blessed rosary of the “mamma”; in rough hands, the cardboard suitcase tied with rope and

inside, the photos of relatives, one clean change of clothes, and some food to be consumed during the

trip. The money they had borrowed in town was in their suit pockets, next to their passports.

Church of Nuestra

Señora de las

Mercedes in Santo

Cerro, La Vega, where

Father Francisco

Fantino Falco carried

out his pastoral work.