Second-Generations Asking for Citizenship. the Italian G2 Network Against the Consequences of Migration

Migrants’ descendants associations are now quite common in Italy. Their main claims are focused on the issue of citizenship, demanding a redefinition of the law that takes note of the changed conditions of the country after migration flows.

This is the case of Rete G2 that, along with other more or less formalized groups, have recently given birth to the media campaign on the rights of citizenship named “I am Italy, too” (L’Italia sono anch’io), and to a large number of petitions and claims.

A lack of recognition of equal opportunities in the labor market, but also the exclusion from active participation in the political and social life of the country to which they feel they belong are the main topics of their claims. Thus, the “right to difference”, often invoked by their parents, becomes a handicap for their full social integration: being different involves the risk of becoming “second-class citizens.”

Second-generation youth believe they have gained the same rights of mobility of their native peers, but they often remain anchored to the subordinate social position of their parents. They do not feel like foreigners even though they are placed as such, at least from a legal point of view. They live the complexity of migration without being migrants adding to the typical adolescent insecurity conflicts emerging from the inter-relationships between home country, parents and receiving society. In this context, the construction of a balanced definition of identity in a plural sense often becomes uncertain.

The paper aims at examining the underlying reasons of migrants’ descendants protests relating to social inclusion, as unexpected and unwanted consequences of migration, and looking at these associations/movements as one of the possible agents of legislative/institutional as well as cultural change. The speech will also be articulated referring to empirical data collected on the ground.