Cabo-verdianas imigrantes em Itália, entre a submissão e a emancipação

The contribution presents the phenomenon of female immigration from Cape Verde to Italy, which began between the late 1950s and the early 1960s, highlighting the pull and push factors and focusing on the processes of social and cultural integration of Cape Verdean women into Italian society. The focus of the contribution is the analysis of relations with Italian society, particularly with regard to the labour dimension, the formation of family units, participation in associative life and educational and vocational training paths. It will be shown how interaction with Italian society leads to a restructuring of links with the country of origin and intergenerational relations. It will be shown how the process of integration of the first Cape Verdean women in Italy had a dialectical tendency between, on the one hand, an attitude of submission rooted in colonialism and, on the other, a strong commitment to their own emancipation with largely positive and original personal trajectories. All this within a regulatory, political and cultural framework characterised by closures and forms of institutional racism that slowed down the process of inclusion for first generation immigrants, with repercussions for subsequent generations, including those born and raised in Italy.