ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the historical development of autonomous associations of women immigrants. we have seen previously that Italian-run organizations, including those organized on the basis of gender, have not always been able to meet the needs of migrant women. This has been due in part to early oversights that defined the migrant population as male and temporary and in part to the failure of Italian women’s associations to confront adequately and in a timely fashion issues raised by globalization, migration, and female difference. Migrant women’s concerns were defined in terms of multiple identities, and no existing structure was prepared to provide the sorts of services and support networks they wanted or needed. Schrover and Vermeulen have argued that migrant organizations are valuable for “understanding immigration and integration processes, because the extent to which immigrants cluster in organizations is a critical measure of collectively expressed and collectivity ascribed identity.”2 In the case of women’s associations, gender is of course a key component of identity, but since migrant women’s self-organizing is based also on other identities such as nationality, race, and religion, or on a shared commitment to a particular issue, such as being informed about immigrants’ rights, it is important to make distinctions among migrant women’s groups and their activities. I want to show that migration patterns, the size of migrant communities, and migrants’ relationships to the host society and to each other must be factored into
a comprehensive analysis of migrant women’s associations. The chapter begins with a detailed account of the history of the earliest migrations of women from mostly female migrant groups who were the first to form independent migrant women’s associations in Italy. I then proceed to discuss women’s groups that emerged in mixedsex migrant populations and analyze the significance of multiethnic organizations. This analysis will show that identities may be maintained, bridged, or overlapped as circumstances require.
