by Tessa Copland
One 19th-century promoter of Italian immigration pointed out that New Zealand ‘bears a striking resemblance to … Italy, turned upside down with the foot end facing up’. Links were forged between the two countries when, during the late 1800s, Italians left a life of poverty and hardship to look for ‘la bella fortuna’. Migration chains led from rural Italy to several locations in New Zealand, where communities formed on the basis of work and kinship.
Main image: Painting of emigrant families on a dock in southern Italy
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