ABSTRACT
This chapter on the Christian Democratic city of Brescia starts with a description of the “Struggle of the crane,” a protest organized in 2010 by undocumented immigrants and radical left actors calling for the regularization of thousands of undocumented immigrants working in the underground economy. The protest resulted in a radicalization of the forms of immigrants’ political participation. There was no similar protest in the country in terms of duration, intensity, and immigrants’ visibility. The protest was triggered by the overt anti-immigrant policies introduced by the local right-wing administration with a strong presence of the anti-immigrant party, the Northern League, and it exposed important conflicts between key pro-immigrant organizations in the city—the Catholic Church and trade unions—and immigrant activists allied with the radical left. The chapter investigates why immigrant activists mobilized in a particular way by drawing links between specific interactions among local actors and the approaches to inclusion that prevailed in that city. Here, the “visible” immigrant activists were mostly vulnerable and precarious immigrant workers, enrolled in radical trade unions of the metalworkers, the CGIL-FIOM, and non-unionized undocumented migrants. Examining the discourses and practices of key actors, including immigrant activists, I unveil the role of conflicts and alliances in the city, and particularly the role of the radical left in promoting the participation and rights claims of vulnerable immigrants, in the absence of substantial incentives from other actors.
