Focus: Sicilia e migrazioni La Merica for children: Emigration in Luigi Capuana’s Gli «americani» di Ràbbato Chiara Mazzucchelli University of Central Florida Tortu nun ci nni fazzu a chisti amici Chi partinu pi la merica mischini Chi cca si fa una vita infilici Di scarsizzi e miserii senza fini. Domenico Azzaretto, «La partenza dell’operaio per l’America» During the first three decades of the twentieth century, leaving became a significant part of the life of Sicilians. For reasons that are both geographical and historical, which ultimately caused the economic collapse of the island, at the beginning of last century Sicily experienced a massive displacement of its people to the United States, a movement that resembles that of Ireland during the second half of the nineteenth century and Puerto Rico since World War II. In his 1963 study L’emigrazione in Sicilia, historian Francesco Renda reports that in 1900, about 29,000 migrants left Sicily, 21,000 of whom headed to the United States. Only six years later, in 1906, the number of Sicilians leaving the island had grown to more than 127,000, with 70 percent of them directed to the New World (p. 48). Born in 1839 in Mineo, in the province of Catania, Luigi Capuana witnessed first-hand the effects of the Sicilian diaspora on the families and communities left behind, so much so that he made emigration the topic of his 1912 children’s book Gli «americani» di Ràbbato. In this short novel written toward the end of his literary career and life, Capuana combined two of his lifelong preoccupations: the necessity of constructing a national 60 Altreitalie gennaio-giugno 2019 identity in post-Unification Italy and the crucial role played by education in this process. In this paper, I look at how Capuana reflects on these themes and intertwines them with the issue of the increasing migratory movement from Sicily to the United States in Gli «americani» di Ràbbato, with the purpose of teaching children a lesson on the importance of one’s roots while, at the same time, encouraging young readers to broaden their life experiences. Capuana and Children’s Literature in the Post-Unification Years Together with fellow Sicilian writers Giovanni Verga and Federico De Roberto, Capuana is credited for being an early exponent of Verismo, a movement that blossomed in late nineteenth century Italian literary and artistic circles, which aimed to re-create «objective» and «authentic» representations of the life of the working classes. In fact, Capuana’s 1879 novel Giacinta – which the author dedicated to Emile Zola, arguably the leading figure of French Naturalism – is generally considered the manifesto of Verismo. In reality, Capuana was a very eclectic author whose sundry interests are reflected in the many genres in which he engaged, rather successfully, throughout the years; he was at once poet, playwright, journalist, essayist, and prolific writer of children’s literature.1 In an 1894 interview with Ugo Ojetti, Capuana described how his engagement with youth fiction began when his nephews asked him for a fairy tale: Le mie prime fiabe furono scritte così. Ero a Mineo, in Sicilia, nella casa paterna, e i miei nipotini (che adesso sono grandi e grossi) una sera mi chiesero una favola. La mattina dopo ne avevo scritta una [«La reginotta»]; e così via, una per giorno per dodici giorni. Le riunii in un volume del Treves, rièdito poi dal Paggi-Bemporad di Firenze. (Capuana, 2010, p. 7) The volume to which he referred is the 1882 C’era una volta, the first of many collections the author wrote in which fairies and magicians grant the wishes of and cast their spells on kings and servants alike.2 But it is with his children’s short novels that Capuana makes a breakthrough in the genre, namely, Scurpiddu (1898), Gambalesta (1902), Cardello (1907), and, finally, Gli «americani» di Ràbbato.3 With these works, Capuana joined in the efforts of other Italian writers who, in the post-Unification years, resorted to young adult literature to instill in the new generation basic ethical principles such as kindness and honesty and, especially, to inspire in them the spirit of good citizenship in the newly born country.4 The now-classic Le avventure di Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi (1883) and Cuore by Edmondo De Amicis (1886) paved the way for the adventures of Capuana’s Sicilian little rascals.5 61 Altreitalie gennaio-giugno 2019 The so-called questione della lingua was also at the core of all these works that targeted school-age children and preteens. In his 1963 Storia linguistica dell’Italia unita, Tullio De Mauro calculated that in 1861, only 2.5 percent of the Italian population was italophone, in the sense of being able to read and write in what was considered «standard» Italian without a significant effort (p. 37). Therefore, the linguistic homogenization of the country was seen as a necessary requisite to «make Italians» once Italy was made, to paraphrase the now-cliché dictum popularly attributed to Massimo D’Azeglio. To this end, immediately after his nomination to the Ministry of Public Education in 1867, Emilio Broglio formed a committee to take care of the much-debated questione della lingua. Presided over by Alessandro Manzoni, the committee produced the famous document «Dell’unità della lingua e dei mezzi di diffonderla,» in which it was suggested that contemporary spoken Florentine should be adopted as the national Italian language. The Sicilian Capuana had embraced that solution even before the Milanese Manzoni and his committee had formally concluded their work. In an 1864 poem tellingly titled La lingua italiana published in the monthly journal La Gioventù, Capuana reviewed the history of Italian language from the poetry of the scuola siciliana to his days through Dante, and he embraced the adoption of fiorentino parlato in the peninsula and its islands as the koine for the newborn state in the following octave: Ed ecco; pellegrini innamorati A te venian dal siculo paese, E in un amplesso ci stringiam coi nati Del diletto toscan suolo cortese; E più cari gli abbracci e più beati Ci fa il pensiero dell’antiche offese, E i comuni perigli e la vittoria E la rinata al sole itala gloria! (pp. 380-81) All in all, the works of Collodi, De Amicis, and Capuana played a key role in the process of linguistic unification of the newly formed Kingdom of Italy. The question of linguistic homogeneity was, obviously, one of the aspects of the much bigger issue of the construction of a unified national identity, for which Capuana strongly advocated. The roots of the writer’s patriotic spirit can be traced back to his participation in his hometown’s insurrection to win independence from Bourbon rule in 1859.6 Capuana infused many of his literary works for children with his personal experiences and childhood memories. For instance, Rosaria Sardo defines Gambalesta «romanzo ‘garibaldino’» (p. 366) because of its patriotic theme and points out: 62 Altreitalie gennaio-giugno 2019 Alla grande avventura dell’Italia unita Cuddu parteciperà in modo fortuito e inconsapevole, col suo entusiasmo, con la sua incoscienza, con la sua gioia di vivere. Capuana stesso aveva vissuto a vent’anni questa grande avventura e mirabilmente riesce a renderla viva attraverso gli occhi e le emozioni di Gambalesta, il piccolo abitante di Ràbbato, Mineo. (p. 368) «Viva la Talia,» Gambalesta exclaims at one point, although he is not com- pletely sure what that means. But the Risorgimento and its aftermath have a significant impact on the life of the child, and children’s literature becomes an ideal means for readers to gain an overall understanding of historical events and for the author to build the foundations of patriotic education. Sicily and Emigration in the Early Twentieth Century The post-Unification bliss was short-lived and soon Sicilians started to leave the island in great numbers. It is easy to understand how the island’s finite geography translates into limited resources and, in most extreme scenarios, of access to decent standards of living, therefore encouraging emigration.7 Since the Unification, all of the aforementioned phenomena, exacerbated by the newborn state’s failure to adequately address the different realities of the Italian mosaic, caused the whole Italian South to experience periods of intense emigration flows to the other side of the ocean, mainly to Brazil, Argentina, and the United States. Historian Matteo Pretelli further notes: Alla svolta del secolo i flussi migratori dalla penisola si modificarono. Sebbene nei precedenti vent’anni già 800 mila italiani fossero giunti negli Stati Uniti, adesso la repubblica statunitense divenne la loro meta privilegiata […]. La composizione del flusso fu prevalentemente meridionale, con una larga componente di siciliani spinti alla partenza da crisi vinicole e agrarie che portarono all’esplosione nel 1892-94 del movimento dei Fasci siciliani. (p. 87) The movement soon spread throughout the island and evolved into a real diaspora.8 Sicilian authors who witnessed these periods of intense emigration flows were quick to use their literary platforms as ways to present and discuss what emigration meant for those who left as well as those who stayed behind. Giovanni Verga’s 1881 I Malavoglia, Domenico Azzaretto’s 1906 dialect poem La partenza dell’operaio per l’America, and some of Maria Messina’s and Luigi Pirandello’s short stories are infused with themes and motifs inspired by emigration. However, in his 2011 study of emigration in Italian literature Vite ritrovate, Gianni Paoletti rightfully observes that: 63 Altreitalie gennaio-giugno 2019 Fatto salvo per Capuana, tuttavia, nessuno dei narratori isolani che hanno toccata l’emigrazione ha scritto un’opera interamente dedicata al tema, lasciando, piuttosto, che esso emergesse come canovaccio novellistico, come accenno o come occasione per qualche breve racconto.