Eleanor Paynter 00:20

Welcome to Migrations: A World on the Move, a series brought to you by Cornell University's Migrations initiative. I'm Eleanor Paynter, ACLS fellow and Migrations Fellow and your host for this podcast that seeks to understand our world through the interconnected movements that shape it. And I'm so pleased to be joined for this episode by Elena Bellina.

Elena Bellina 00:40

Hi Eleanor. I’m Elena Bellina, adjunct professor of Italian at New York University and co-host for this episode.

Eleanor Paynter 00:50

The clip you just heard is from festivities organized by the large Sikh community of Novellara, Italy, to celebrate the birthday of Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism.

This particular celebration—this clip is from 2021—brought around 8,000 pilgrims from all over Italy to this small, northern town of less than 14,000 inhabitants. The town’s annual Nagar Kirtan festival, which was held just a few weeks ago, regularly welcomes 20,000 people. Novellara is an important European site for Sikhism. It’s also a place where migration has shaped multiple aspects of everyday life. We headed to Novellara for this episode about encounters and crossings across multiple cultures.

Elena Bellina 01:41

Yes, Eleanor and I visited Novella this past summer to hear the story of this Indian Sikh community in the northern Italian Po Valley. The Sikhs of Novellara have played a crucial role in Italian farming and agricultural production since the 1990s.

Eleanor Paynter 01:56

Migration in Italy is regularly in the news because of the precarious Mediterranean crossings that tens of thousands of people from African, Middle Eastern, and South Asian countries attempt every year. And that coverage, while important, can paint a picture that migration to Italy is a new phenomenon, or that it only concerns the country's external borders. In this episode, we offer a different perspective on migrations in the Italian context. So instead of crisis, we're thinking about community, and instead of Lampedusa and the Mediterranean Sea, we're heading north to the small town of Novellara in the region of Emilia Romagna. And this is a town that today counts more than fifty different immigrant communities among its residents.

Elena Bellina 02:38

In the 1980s, Italy became a net destination country with more arrivals than departures, and this period was marked by arrivals from North and West Africa and from Eastern Europe, including young men who saw Italy as a place where they might find steady work and establish lives. As we will hear in this episode, among the young men arriving in Italy in the 1980s were Sikhs. Mostly coming from the Punjab region of India, they brought with them farming skills and cultural knowledge that made them especially adept in the Italian dairy industry, including the many farms in the Emilia Romagna and Lombardy regions that supply the milk for the parmesan cheese production or, in Italian, Parmiggiano Reggiano, as you’ll hear.

Sikhs started to fill the factory and farming jobs that Italians no longer wanted. Interestingly, Sikhs and immigrants from rural areas throughout India started to be particularly sought after, and groups of Sikhs moved to small, wealthy towns like Novellara, all over the Po Valley. As they worked and saved money, their wives and children [came] over, and in the process, they created large communities that would keep those towns alive. As you will hear today in this episode, the Sikhs of Novellara created a strong network and have built temples and community centers that have transformed and sustained life in the area. Novellara is now home to one of the largest Sikh gurdwara temples in Italy—in Europe.

Eleanor Paynter 04:06

But of course, integration is not a one-way or a finite process, and the story of this Sikh community, and of Novellara more broadly, is also a story about ongoing negotiations across religious traditions, across bureaucratic hurdles, and across generations, and from the initial struggles to build stable lives in the region to questions about what the future holds for this area. To tell this story, we'll hear from three people connected to Novellara: Iqbal Singh, vice president of the local gurdwara, who welcomed us into the space when we visited this past summer. Sociologist Dr. Barbara Bertolani, who's done extensive ethnographic research with Sikh communities in Italy. And Novellara mayor Elena Carletti, whom we spoke with at her office this past July. Here's Mayor Carletti.

Elena Carletti 04:55

Since I have become mayor, I've understood the importance of intercultural dialogue because Novellara has changed a lot, especially since the 90s when we have known, we have met, new cultures coming basically from Pakistan, from North Africa, from China, Eastern Europe, and above all, from India. We have two important Indian communities here. One is the Hindu community, but most important, also from the point of view of the number of people, is the Sikh community.

The Sikh community started coming here in our territories at the very beginning of the 90s. They were attracted by the economy, in the sense that we live in an important area from the economic point of view. It's one of the most industrialized areas of Italy, well known, for example, for the—they call it Motor Valley, because here we have Ferrari, Maserati, Lamborghini, so it's a very rich, and, yes, an industrialized area. But on the other side, Bassa Reggiana, Pianura Padana, is still an agricultural area, well known for the most important product that is the parmesan cheese, and then Parma’s ham and balsamic vinegar, and so on. So we are Motor Valley and Food Valley.

Elena Bellina 07:10

And here's Iqbal Singh.

Iqbal Singh 07:11

[Iqbal speaks in Italian]

English Translation Begins 07:13

My name is Iqbal Singh, and I am the vice-president of the Sikh temple in Novellara. I first came to Italy in 1982. First, I worked for a circus. I went all over Italy—from Sardegna to Sicily, from North to South. I first came to Italy because I had been debating whether I should leave India, but my brother was able to get me a permit to come to Italy with the circus. That’s how I first came here.

My brother was already here in Reggio Emilia in the 80s, working at a factory. He’s always been here, since then all the way up to now that he’s retired, but initially he also worked for the circus. Before around 1982, all of the Indians who came here to Italy worked for a circus. Then, of course, things have changed for all of us. Now I'm here. Now our kids have gone to school, and why would they want to work here? Out of our children, some of them are lawyers, others are pilots. All of these different kinds of young people have all different kinds of jobs. There aren't like us old people, like me, who used to work in agriculture and milked cows from 1989 to 1995. I worked at a farm that later closed here in Reggio Emilia, in the small town of Gavasa. I was looking for work at the time. I lived with my friends from India. At the time, it wasn't easy to find housing, so it was common for five, six, seven of us to live together and share rooms. I went back to India to get married and came back to Italy, to Reggio Emilia, and stayed there. It's a long story.

They didn't pay us at the circus. Instead, they beat us up and took our passports. They didn't give us our residency permits. I wound up finding the CGIL Workers’ Union in Bologna. I went with seven of my friends to tell them about what they were doing to us: how they took our documents, didn't pay us, beat us up. They put us up in a hotel for the night and called a journalist the next day, who wrote about us in the press. That made the circus owners come back crying, saying they’d give us back all of our documents.

The law at the time made it so that we weren't able to change our residency permits, even once we had our passports. I went to the union and they told me not to worry, that they'd handle it. They paid for everything and got us the correct documents. So I came back to Pratofontana and went around the province looking for a job. That's how I eventually met this woman who hired me, who I call Mamma. She's like a mother to me. I'll be grateful to her for the rest of my life. I saw her one day when I got off the train, and I could tell she was a farmer. I was born a farmer. She was holding a pitchfork with hay. I went up to her and said, “Good afternoon, ma'am. I'm looking for work. Can you hire me?” I lied and told her I'd been working for years.

Elena Bellina 09:45

While Iqbal and the growing Sikh community were finding employment and building stable lives for themselves in the area, they also worked hard to establish a religious home for their community—a gurdwara, or a Sikh temple. This would be a place for them to house the Guru Granth Sahib, the six sacred texts. It would also be a space where the growing group could gather and pray and celebrate their traditions, both within their community and by opening their doors to the Italian neighbors, most of whom were more familiar with Catholicism than with Sikhism.

Iqbal Singh 10:19

[Iqbal speaks in Italian]

English Translation Begins 10:26

Our temple was the first Sikh temple in Europe, but we've only been at this location since 2002. Before, our temple was located in the nearby town of Rio Saliceto. This is the story of that temple.

In 1989, an English priest who lived in London came to Italy. Back then, there weren't many Sikhs or people from our country here. There were very few of us, no more than one hundred. This priest arrived here and called a meeting with our friends. I was at the market shopping when one of my colleagues called and said, “there's a priest here from London who wants to talk with us.” My older brother lived in a temple in the town of Correggio. There was a basement where we would all come together and pray. That evening, there were about sixty of us. After we all prayed together, the English priest asked us why we hadn't opened a temple, a gurdwara, here in Italy. Our response was, “how do we do that?”

There weren't that many of us. The community didn't know us; they wouldn't give us the space to do it. It was hard enough to come here and find work. At that point, companies wouldn't hire Indians because they didn't know us yet. We asked the priest how we were supposed to open a temple when we couldn't even find a job. But he told us that he'd help us, so we said, “Wonderful. If you can give us a hand, we'll do it.”

As soon as we made the decision, we started going around town to identify a place where we could open our temple. We all discussed it, and I talked to my brother, who is the president of our temple. We all went to the owner of the place we found together and explained to him that we wanted a place where we could pray. In order to rent the place, we also had to get permission from the mayor of Rio Saliceto, and eventually we drew up a contract. Our first book isn't even here in the temple. It's in Rome. The first festival we held was in that location. Many people arrived, and we were able to collect offerings for the temple. Slowly, Sikh Indians from all over Italy started to arrive at our temple in Rio Saliceto. The first time there were 200 of us, and the number slowly grew.

There was a massive earthquake in 1996. Around that time, we had to close down our location, because some of the people who were living there didn't have authorization. We had to go to the town and explain that people had been living in the temple. We had to leave everything behind, including our sacred book. For over a year, we'd gather under a large tent to pray on Sundays. We slowly started to look for another large place to rent, and anywhere we went, the owners would call the town's mayor to ask if we were good people. We eventually found a beautiful location with a large warehouse around Rio Saliceto and Correggio. To rent the place, we went to the proprietor and the mayor of Novellara at the time, Sergio Calzari, more or less in 2002. He was great. He opened his arms and doors to us. And we eventually decided to take the location, even though it was expensive. A few of us made the choice to take it and said, “Give us a month, and we'll make up the rest of what we need to cover the rent.”

By the first day we opened the new temple, we had already raised 30,000 lira. There were three or four thousands of us. We continued growing and raising funds, and the town was very happy with us. They helped us out a lot. Eventually, the mayor asked why we weren't growing, suggesting we buy land because there was countryside around us. We asked if he'd allow us to buy land and he said, of course. So, we decided to start building. It got complicated. You know what they say—you can have five fingers on one hand, but they'll all be different, have different opinions. They'll say let's do this, let's do that. But eventually, we moved forward.

We traveled all around Italy raising funds and returned to continue with the construction. We built a whole part of the temple back then, and there's another part we built this year. We can't say anything bad about Emilia Romagna, but Novellara and their community have always treated us with the utmost respect. Later on, there was another mayor who is great, Elena Carletti. Whenever we need something, they would always open their doors to us. They always help us out, but we give back to the community too. A few years ago, we gifted the town a new ambulance. After the latest earthquake a few years ago, we helped people out with everything from blankets to food. Now, there are many of our friends and compatriots around who live and work here: industrial jobs, agricultural jobs, just like everyone else.

Iqbal Singh 14:29

[Iqbal speaks in Italian]

Barbara Bertolani 14:50

What I've seen while doing research in the UK and in Italy as well, is that the gurdwara especially is a place that is considered like a home-like space.

Eleanor Paynter 15:04

That’s sociologist Barbara Bertolani.

Barbara Bertolani 17:07

There are a lot of activities and functions that can be also found in a private home—you can eat for example, you can maybe listen to others and chat and then read and relax yourself and pray, also, and so on. So, it's a semi-public space that resembles a little bit a home life space, even for the fact that there is, of course, a strong connection with diaspora, other diasporic spaces, and with Indian, Punjabi religious buildings elsewhere. So, in the diaspora, but also in the motherland. So, the gurdwara acts as a sort of device that connects people that are in the diaspora and links them to their past lives, different situations, different places, in different times of their lives. So, through the religion and through the gurdwara itself as a space, which is home-like, people rebuild their identities, and, let's say, shape a sort of line and a continuum of their personal identities—personal and collective identities.

So gurdwara is a very important space, even from this point of view. And of course, gurdwara is their house, let's say, the home, of Guru Granth Sahib, which is the sacred text for Sikhs, and which is considered to be a living guru. So, you will probably know that it is handled through religious Seva according to precise rituals that are the same in the diaspora and in India. So even this ritual part of the religious service is very important because it reconnects to the past of the Sikhs, and also to other, let's say, places in India, of course. It has a very important linking function from an identity point of view. And, of course, on the religious point of view.

[Music plays]

Elena Carletti 17:51

When I became mayor in 2014, I have decided together with Erica [Tacchini] and our staff, to concentrate our policies on women.

Elena Bellina 18:07

That's mayor Elena Carletti, again.

Elena Carletti 18:10

Because we realized that, okay, intercultural dialogue was great, and we used to have—and we still have—good relations with the different communities, but women didn't participate. We—I remember, I was at the very beginning of my experience as mayor, and I used to visit the different projects, and when I went to school, to see the courses of Italian organized for the foreign communities, I realized that women didn't participate—or [only] a small number of women.

And so, we started thinking about this. Moreover, when I was in my [in Italian: campagna elettorale] electoral campaign, I met, also, the foreign communities, and I met also Indians. And they told me, you know what, we love Novellara, but our women need to work, because it's difficult to support a family made of two, three, four children with only one breadwinner. And so, we need the work for our women, but it's difficult because, okay. So, we decided to work and to concentrate our work policies on it. And thanks to our mediatore culturale [cultural mediator], we started contacting women of the different cultures. And okay, their problem was really basic. I mean, they told us, “but if you organize courses in the late afternoon, we cannot attend it. Because we have families. We have our children coming back from school, we need to prepare dinner.” It was so…banale, banal.

Eleanor Paynter 20:52

And so obvious when you stop to think about it, yeah.

Elena Carletti 20:56                                   

So, we started organizing courses in the morning. We contacted a group of volunteer babysitters, helping women with small, young, young children, and they started coming here because we didn't have a school available in the morning, because then they weren't occupied by students.

Eleanor Paynter 21:25

So here to the municipal offices.

Elena Carletti 21:26                                   

Yes, yes, in the civic room, that is a room open for the meetings and the conferences. And day after day, they started coming here. And it was a real mess. Because there were a big, big number of women. And our corridors were full of babysitters, with these young children running up and down the municipality. And it was incredible. And then the teachers came here to make a photocopy. It was incredible, the municipality was a kind of school full of people and children, and when we realized that it was a success, we started looking for money to invest in a real school.

Barbara Bertolani 22:30

It is, in my opinion, an example of very positive, let's say, integration, of religious minorities in Italy. Because the Sikhs managed, let's say, [to] integrate themselves in this territory, first of all, from an economic point of view, because they, for example, they took on, for example, works; they made up for the lack of local labor, and also for the generational turnover in small and medium-sized enterprises. And especially in the breeding of dairy cattle for the production of Parmigiano Reggiano, which is a very famous cheese and product of our region. And they also went to work in all these niche and economic sectors that are very hard, for example, not just agriculture, but also the dairies or I don't know, the foundry and so on, where no one among Italians wanted to work. So that was the first step.

Then, when they built the temple, they are famous, at least in Novellara, because they fulfill all their financial commitments on time. They were very—they proved to be very reliable under an economic point of view. And that was the first step to build a sort of connection with the local institutions and the local people.

[Music plays]

Eleanor Paynter 25:02

Longer-term questions are shaped by at least two major factors. First, the country's citizenship laws. Unlike the US, which has birthplace, or jus soli citizenship, Italian citizenship operates via jus sanguinis, or bloodline, policy. In practice, that often means that the grandchildren of Italians who emigrated abroad have an easier time becoming citizens than immigrants in Italy and their children born and raised in Italy. And second, young people across Italy face real struggles when it comes to finding steady employment. And the country is grappling with young adults who see moving abroad within or beyond Europe as their only chance for building a future. So, while migration has reshaped places like Novellara, these intergenerational issues are raising important questions about the future.

Elena Carletti 25:51

Probably the biggest change, we can see in schools. And I mean, classrooms are so different compared to 20-30 years ago. Our children today, they have great opportunity. They know the world before visiting it. I mean, my son knows many countries all around the world. And he has a real conscience of the differences. And this is one of the most important aspects of our change, of this change. And it's not easy. It's not easy, because, of course, we have—okay, Novellara is a town of 13,500 inhabitants. So, it's not a big town; it's a small town. But in Novellara, there live more than fifty different cultures. Okay: the most important are Indians, Chinese, people from Pakistan, North Africa. And then there are many others—people from Tasmania or Eastern Europe, and so on. But more than fifty cultures living in a small village means that if you go to visit the school, we will see a classroom made of 25 children: ten Italians, eight Indians, two Pakistani, and two Chinese. So, it's a world. And so, on the point of view of education, I think it has been the biggest change in these last twenty years.

But as I was saying, I think that this is a great opportunity in terms of education, even if Italy has a very big problem. And I will try to say it in English, even if maybe it's a little bit difficult. We don't have teachers, foreign teachers, because [in Italian: il reclutamento, che non so come si dica in inglese]

Eleanor Paynter 28:47

Recruitment. Recruiting of new teachers.

Elena Carletti 28:49

Exactly. In Italy, if you want to [in Italian: si deve partecipare a un concorso pubblico. Devi avere la cittadinanza italiana, ed è molto difficile].

Eleanor Paynter 29:04

So to become a teacher, you have to have Italian citizenship, basically, because it's a public competition, basically.

Elena Carletti 29:10

And this is an enormous problem for schools, but also for the public administration. Because it would be great if only, we could have part of teachers or public [in Italian: amministrazione] represented by people from abroad. It would be great, but it's not like this. And this is a big, big problem. This is the reason why in Italy, nowadays in these days, there is a great discussion about jus soli. And the Italian citizenship is very important for the younger generations, and they cannot wait for twenty years before becoming Italian citizens. And this is an example—we have many Indians, or also from other countries, that are attending university, but they cannot—they still cannot become teachers, because there's a kind of wall. And I think that this is a very big problem for our organization, the state organization, because, and for schools, because if you—I mean, we have very good teachers, but if they don't have this kind of [in Italian: sensibilità] or attention, they cannot support a classroom made of five, six different nationalities. And so, I think that this is one of the aspects in which our country must invest, because it would be a real big change. Because there's a kind of dichotomy between real life and the organization of the state with the schools, public administrations.

Eleanor Paynter 31:36

Yeah, I really like how you put it also in terms of, that the part of the problem is sort of access to certain career paths, but then it's also about kids seeing themselves represented in these spaces, where they're in the classroom or in public office, and how important that is for fostering a sense of community and a sense of belonging for a growing and changing very diverse community.

Elena Carletti 32:02

Exactly. The point is this: they need to be represented, and Italians too would benefit from this presence. And so, this is still a problem in our country. But I think you know the discussion in Italy is crazy about migrants, and in this last year, it has been a real mess. And this is the reason why I'm very happy when someone wants to know a reality like Novellara, because we can talk about migrants in a different way. Because we are trying to build a new kind of society. And with the Indians, I think that we are, we are doing good.

But there's another problem. The new—the second and third generations of migrants—are going away. And we have invested a lot in them, starting from schools, social services, opportunities, and we are losing maybe more, because they are the link between their parents and Italians. And losing these new generations means a lot for us. Because if they decide to move—if they decide to move to Germany, to Canada, to Great Britain—we lose our future. You know, two weeks ago I was at a basketball tournament. Okay. And okay, the younger team of Novellara, they won. Ten, eleven years old. A team composed by boys from different origins. And during the ceremony, they got their medal. But there was a special T-shirt created for one of them. He's moving away with his family. He’s saying goodbye Novellara, they were moving, they will go to Germany. And it was his last game with his friends—but it was not his last game. I realized that we are losing much more. We are losing a family. We are losing children that were here. And they are moving away, and they will build lives in another country. This is a very, very big problem. So, in some way, we—the government has to create conditions. Because these people have to imagine their future here. It's not… [in Italian: non è la tappa di un viaggio, cioè, l’Italia non deve essere la tappa di un viaggio. Dev’essere la meta].

Eleanor Paynter 30:04

Yeah: Italy doesn't mean to just be a stop en route somewhere else, but it should be its own destination. They should be able, yeah, I like what you said, they should be able to imagine their own futures.

Elena Carletti 36:16

Their destination.

Iqbal Singh 36:17

[Iqbal speaks in Italian]

English Translation Begins 39:31

Many Indians now don’t want to come work here anymore. Some still come to Italy, but many go to America, Canada, and they don't want to work in the fields, in agriculture. They don't want to do what I did here. For example, I have a daughter and a son. Both are married and got degrees in London and live there. My son always thinks of Italy, because he grew up here and went to school here and he loves it. My daughter wants to live in the UK. She has her life and is very happy with her house. It's very different here. But the thing is, everyone has options.

Iqbal Singh 37:02

[Iqbal speaks in Italian with music in the background]

Eleanor Paynter 76:36

Thanks for listening to A World on the Move, a podcast by Global Cornell's Migrations Global Grand Challenge, a multidisciplinary, multispecies initiative that studies how the movements of people, animals, microbes, resources, ideas, and more shape our world. You can learn more about the initiative at migrations.cornell.edu, where you can also find relevant links from this episode. Follow us on Twitter @CornellMig.

This podcast is hosted by Eleanor Paynter, ACLS Fellow and Migrations Fellow with the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies. The episode you've just heard was co-hosted by Elena Bellina, adjunct faculty in Italian at New York University. Special thanks again to our episode guests: Iqbal Singh, Barbara Bertolani, and Elena Carletti. Voiceover for Iqbal Singh was provided by Cornell senior Daniel Bernstein. Translations were provided by Isabella Corletto with support from the Department of Modern Languages and Cultures and the Arnold and Anne Lisio Endowed Distinguished Professorship in Italian Language and Culture at the University of Rochester. Our producer is Megan DeMint. Much of the podcast was produced at Cornell University on the traditional homelands of the Cayuga Nation, and we recognize Cayuga Nation sovereignty and the Indigenous peoples who have lived and continue to live on this land. Our music is “Basically Really” by Steve Fawcett. Migrations: A World on the Move is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Stitcher.