Reconstructing the contemporary Greek diaspora in Italy: Second World War and student mobility

In light of the poor and fragmented literature on contemporaryGreek diaspora in Italy, not yet adequately covered by thehistorical and social disciplines, this article attempts to fill thatvoid, thus providing an essential contribution to the studies onthe Greek diaspora. Using the results of a field research, weanalyze the two main push and pull factors of Greek migration toItaly in the second half of the twentieth century, namely thestudent migration and the migration related to the Second WorldWar. Through the narrative reconstruction by the secondgeneration members, we retrace the most important phases thathave characterized the migratory experience of Greek migrants inItaly within a wider historical framework of analysis, also by usingunpublished documents collected in Greek, Italian and Americanhistorical archives. We use an analysis method that combines thenarratives of second generation members with the statisticalanalysis of the variables, by reconstructing the family historythrough the use of data derived from both questionnaires and lifestories.