ABSTRACT
This chapter considers a handful of unsolicited letters, printed within the Italian migrant press and explores how individual migrants responded to the external influences of nationalism, imperialism and racism. Scholarly attention to Italian migrant letter writing began to increase with an interest in social history. The Italian migrant press in Australian history is comparatively limited, but reveals a somewhat different response through first-hand accounts of working-and peasant-class migrants. Burke's discussion of people's history highlights certain awkward truths' Ibid. facing scholars in exploring any field of study. Against a background of anti-Italian prejudice and Italy's imperial efforts to strengthen Italian unity and patriotism abroad, migrants' letters to the three newspapers' editors provide us with a means of assessing their wider social and nationalising experiences. In the act of writing for a public audience and in the content they discuss, these letter writers enrich our understanding of people's history within Italian migration studies.
