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Calvary or limbo? Articulating identity and citizenship in two Italian Australian autobiographical narratives of World War II internment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 May 2016

Jessica Carniel
Jessica Carniel*
Affiliation:
jess.carniel@usq.edu.au
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Abstract

Almost 5,000 Italians were interned in Australia during World War II, a high proportion of them Queensland residents. Internment was a pivotal experience for the Italian community, both locally and nationally, complicating Italian Australians’ sense of belonging to their adopted country. Through an examination of two migrant autobiographical narratives of internment, Osvaldo Bonutto's A Migrant's Story and Peter Dalseno's Sugar, Tears and Eyeties, this article explores the impact of internment on the experience and articulation of cultural and civic belonging to Australian society. It finds that internment was a ‘trial’ or ‘transitional’ phase for these internees’ personal and civic identities, and that the articulation of these identities and sense of belonging is historically contingent, influenced by the shift from assimilation to multiculturalism in settlement ideology, as well as Italian Australians’ changing place in Australian society throughout the twentieth century.

Type
Articles
Information
Queensland Review , Volume 23 , Issue 1 , June 2016 , pp. 20 - 34
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2016 

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References

Endnotes

1 Rando, Gaetano, ‘Italo-Australians during the Second World War: Some perceptions of internment’, Studi d'Italianistica nell'Africa Australe/Italian Studies in Southern Africa 18:1 (2005), 26 Google Scholar.

2 See Alcorso, Claudio, The wind you say (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1993)Google Scholar; O'Brien, Ilma Martinuzzi, The internment diaries of Mario Sardi (Alphington, Vic.: Lucerne Press, 2013)Google Scholar.

3 O'Brien, Ilma Martinuzzi, ‘ Ubi bene, ibi patria: The Second World War and citizenship in a country town’, in Beaumont, J. et al. (eds), Under suspicion: Citizenship and internment in Australia during the Second World War (Canberra: National Museum of Australia, 2008), p. 32 Google Scholar. For the original report, see Alien Immigration Commission, Report of the Royal Commission Appointed to Inquire into and Report on the Social and Economic Effect of Increase in Number of Aliens in North Queensland (Brisbane: Queensland Government, 1925)Google Scholar.

4 For more on Australian citizenship and its history, see Davidson, Alastair, From subject to citizen: Australian citizenship in the twentieth century (Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1997)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Galligan, Brian and Roberts, Winsome, Australian citizenship (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2004)Google Scholar; Jordens, Ann-Mari, Redefining Australians: Immigration, citizenship, and national identity (Sydney: Hale & Iremonger, 1995)Google Scholar.

5 O'Brien, ‘Citizenship, rights and emergency powers in Second World War Australia’, Australian Journal of Politics & History 53:2 (2007), 209–10; Ilma Martinuzzi O'Brien, ‘Ubi bene, ibi patria’, p. 23.

6 David Brown, ‘Citizenship and naturalisation in a historical context: The story of Carmelo Belfiore’, in Beaumont et al. (eds), Under Suspicion, p. 38.

7 O'Brien, ‘Ubi bene, ibi patria’, p. 17.

8 Randazzo, Nino and Cigler, Michael, The Italians in Australia (Melbourne: AE Press, 1987), p. 116.Google Scholar

9 Randazzo and Cigler, The Italians in Australia, p. 117. For an in-depth study of fascism and Italians in Australia, see Cresciani, Gianfranco, Fascism, anti-Fascism and Italians in Australia, 1922–1945 (Canberra: ANU Press, 1980)Google Scholar.

10 Randazzo and Cigler, The Italians in Australia, p. 139. For further detail on the impact of internment in Queensland, see Dignan, Don, ‘The Internment of Italians in Queensland’, in Bosworth, Richard and Ugolini, Romano (eds), War, internment and mass migration: The Italo-Australian Experience 1940–1990 (Rome: Gruppo Editoriale Internazionale, 2003), pp. 61–73 Google Scholar.

11 Randazzo and Cigler, The Italians in Australia, pp. 139–40. See also Pascoe, Robert, Buongiorno Australia: Our Italian heritage (Richmond, Vic.: Greenhouse Publications, 1987), pp. 143–6Google Scholar.

12 See Romano Ugolini, ‘From POW to emigrant: The post-war migrant experience’, in Bosworth and Ugolini (eds), War, internment and mass migration, pp. 125–38.

13 Gianfranco Cresciani, ‘The bogey of the Italian Fifth Column’, in Bosworth and Ugolini (eds), War, internment and mass migration, p. 30.

14 Dignan, ‘The internment of Italians in Queensland’, p. 61.

15 Alcorso, Claudio and Alcorso, Caroline, ‘Italians in Australia during World War II’, in Castles, Stephen (ed.), Australia's Italians: Culture and community in a changing society (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1992), p. 19 Google Scholar.

16 Ilma Martinuzzi O'Brien, ‘The internment of Australian born and naturalised British subjects of Italian origin’, in Bosworth and Ugolini (eds), War, internment and mass migration, p. 92.

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18 Pascoe, Buongiorno Australia, p. 149. Randazzo and Cigler, however, report that according to the 1974 census, 51.6 per cent of the Italian-born population resided in rural areas. See Randazzo and Cigler, The Italians in Australia, p. 149.

19 Hage, Ghassan, Against paranoid nationalism: Searching for hope in a shrinking society (Sydney: Pluto Press, 2003), p. 60 Google Scholar. For more on the evolution of Australian multicultural policy and its relationship with immigration, see, for example, Hage, Ghassan, White nation: Fantasies of white supremacy in a multicultural society (Sydney: Pluto Press, 1998)Google Scholar; Jupp, James, From White Australia to Woomera: The story of Australian immigration (Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lack, John and Templeton, Jacqueline, Bold experiment: A documentary history of Australian immigration since 1945 (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1995)Google Scholar; Lopez, Mark, The Origins of multiculturalism in Australian politics 1945–1975 (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2000)Google Scholar.

20 Stephen Castles, ‘Italian migration and settlement since 1945’, in Castles (ed.), Australia's Italians, p. 52.

21 All biographical information has been taken from Bonutto, Osvaldo, A migrant's story (Brisbane: H. Pole, 1963)Google Scholar and Bonutto, Osvaldo, A migrant's story: The struggle and success of an Italian-Australian, 1920s–1960s (Brisbane: University of Queensland Press, 1994)Google Scholar.

22 Osvaldo Bonutto and Elisa Bonutto, ‘Acknowledgments’, in Bonutto, A migrant's story (1994), p. xi.

23 Don Dignan, ‘Foreword’, in Bonutto, A migrant's story (1994), pp. vii–viii.

24 See Pascoe, Buongiorno Australia, pp. 201–7; Randazzo and Cigler, The Italians in Australia, pp. 170–1.

25 Bonutto, A migrant's story (1963), p. 139. Quotation marks in original.

26 Bonutto, A migrant's story (1963).

27 Bonutto, A migrant's story (1963), p. 138.

28 Bonutto, A migrant's story (1963), p. 138.

29 Rando, Gaetano, ‘From great works to Alcheringa: A socio-historical survey of Italian writers in Australia’, in Rando, Gaetano (ed.), Italian writers in Australia: Essays and texts (Wollongong: Department of European Languages, University of Wollongong, 1983), p. 55 Google Scholar.

30 Dignan, ‘Foreword’, in A migrant's story (1994), p. ix. See also Neil J. Byrne, ‘The wartime treatment of Italians in South Queensland’, in Bonutto, A migrant's story (1994), p. 97.

31 Bonutto, A migrant's story (1963), p. 92.

32 Bonutto, A migrant's story (1963), pp. 96–8.

33 Bonutto, A migrant's story (1963), pp. 96–7.

34 Bonutto, A migrant's story (1963), p. 113.

35 Gatt-Rutter, John, ‘“You're on the list!” Writing the Australian Italian experience of war-time internment’, Flinders University Languages Group Online Review 3:2 (2008), 46 Google Scholar.

36 Rando, Gaetano, ‘Italo-Australian and after: Recent expressions of Italian Australian ethnicity and the migration experience’, Altreitalie, 20 (2000), p. 71 Google Scholar.

37 Rosa R. Cappiello's acerbic autobiographical novel exemplifies this form among Italian Australian writers, although the fictionalisation appears to be an artistic choice rather than an act of protection. See Cappiello, Rosa R., Oh lucky country (Brisbane: University of Queensland Press, 1984)Google Scholar; Carniel, Jessica, ‘“Either feed your belly or nourish your soul”: Work, artistic aspiration and autobiography in Rosa R. Cappiello’s Oh lucky country’, Interdisciplinary Literary Studies 18:1 (2016), 130–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

38 Gatt-Rutter, ‘“You're on the list!”’, p. 52.

39 Dalseno, Sugar, tears and Eyeties (Brisbane: Boolarong Books, 1994), pp. 69–70.

40 Dalseno, Sugar, tears and Eyeties, pp. 156–7.

41 Bonutto, A migrant's story (1994), p. 10.

42 Bonutto, A migrant's story (1994),

43 Dalseno, Sugar, tears and Eyeties, p. 136.

44 Dalseno, Sugar, tears and Eyeties, p. 190.

45 Dalseno, Sugar, tears and Eyeties, p. 186.

46 Dalseno, Sugar, tears and Eyeties, p. 214.

47 Dalseno, Sugar, tears and Eyeties, p. 104.

48 Dalseno, Sugar, tears and Eyeties, p. 265.

49 Dalseno, Sugar, tears and Eyeties, p. 200.

50 Dalseno, Sugar, tears and Eyeties, p. 200.

51 Dalseno, Sugar, tears and Eyeties, p. 276.

52 Dalseno, Sugar, tears and Eyeties, p. 276.

53 Dalseno, Sugar, tears and Eyeties, p. 276.

54 C. L. Ten, ‘Liberalism and multiculturalism’, in Gordan, L. Clark, Forbes, Dean and Francis, Roderick (eds), Multiculturalism, difference and postmodernism (Melbourne: Longman Cheshire, 1993), p. 56 Google Scholar. See also Hage, White Nation and, for a rejoinder to Hage's criticisms of tolerance, Hodge, Bob and O'Carroll, John, Borderwork in multicultural Australia (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2006)Google Scholar.