ABSTRACT
This chapter provides some insight into the construction of white 'normality' and universality. It seeks to destabilize generalized notions of ethnicity in Britain by positing that the London Italian identity project cannot solely be understood in racialized terms. The chapter explains the Italian project of recovery is tied in with conditions of continuing racism that interpellate Italians in historically specific ways. The indeterminacy of the Italians' presence in Britain is seized in the figure of 'invisible immigrants'. 'Invisibility', in the British context, is a notion caught up with 'race struggles' that makes its appropriation by Italians both arrogant and challenging. The Italian presence in the British isles results from a history of emigration that reached important proportions in the aftermath of the unification and proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy by Victor-Emmanuel II in 1861.
