This article, based on ethnographic research, describes the precarious integration of Africans, Asians and others in the Sicilian city of Palermo. Most newcomers perform low-status jobs (particularly domestic work), have little access to state-sponsored services, lack political representation and suffer from derogatory stereotypes of non-whites and non-Westerners. In this context, immigrants express frustration at their marginality and they obtain jobs, housing, information and mutual aid from family and co-national networks that span the city, Italy itself and international borders.