American Emigrants under Fascist Italy

Michael B Limmer, University of Missouri - Columbia

Developing from the first chapter of my dissertation, “America’s Roman Holidays: American Soldiers and Other Emigrants in World War II and Postwar Italy,” this paper examines the experiences of American emigrants—expatriates, diplomats, and tourists—who embraced and challenged Fascist Italy. Focusing on the period from 1922 to 1941, I move beyond the infamous celebrity of figures like Ezra Pound to highlight the overlooked experiences of everyday Americans in Fascist Italy. I consider how American emigrants both thought about and leveraged their positions abroad under fascism. Drawing on archival research from the Ministero degli Affari Esteri and Archivio Centrale dello Stato on fascist surveillance of expatriate Americans and organizational emigrants, I explore how these individuals engaged with Italians and fascism in complex and often contradictory ways—shaped by their simultaneously precarious and privileged positions abroad. I focus on organizational and expatriate networks and in doing so build on the work of Leo Lucassen, Nancy L. Green, and others who expanded our understandings of who is considered a “migrant” and what are the consequences of their mobility on sending and receiving societies. By incorporating archival sources from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Italy, I reveal the local and transnational social networks that influenced both personal and broader perceptions of fascism. Ultimately, this study underscores the significance of these Americans’ deliberations on their roles and social relationships abroad during a time of crisis under a far-right, authoritarian, and ultranationalist regime in the years leading up to World War II.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 58. Migrant Lives at the Margins