The Reggiane Factory and New Immigrants: Memory and Local History to Strengthen Integration

The knowledge of the local history can be a important tool to promote a deeper understanding and to strengthen the sense of belonging to the place where immigrants live. The link to the past events allows to find common elements and common roots, and it permit to live the present with more open-minded attitudes and hopes. Istoreco is the Historical Institute of contemporary age in the city of Reggio Emilia (Italy) and its mission is to preserve and divulgate the history of its territory in XIX and XX century, with particular attention to the second world war years. For free public use the Institute preserve many historical archives of Italian political parties, trade unions, veterans associations, public administrations, companies, private archives, war diaries and a big photographic archive. To give a sample of a operative approaches to interculturalism towards the memory heritage and the historical signs on the urban areas, we want to focus on a particular project. In the worker class slum of Santa Croce, in the city of Reggio Emilia, since 100 years ago, a big factory called Reggiane had welcomed generations of immigrants, at first from the South of Italy, later from foreigner countries. During all its existence the Reggiane had made agricultural machineries, railways material, aircrafts and dock equipments and had employed dozens of thousands of men and women. For many years the prosperity of the factory had coincided with the prosperity of the city. The factory is closed now, but Santa Croce district is still populated by many immigrants; many of them absolutely ignore the story of the district and of its factory. In 2010 Istoreco and the Municipality of Reggio Emilia prepared a project aimed to divulgate the story of the district and of the Reggiane to the actual inhabitants of Santa Croce. The project was named “Noi non vogliamo lavorare per la Guerra” (“We don’t want to work for the war”, as a 1943 antifascist strikers’ motto said) and followed three steps. At first, the Istoreco officers met the foreign communities of the city for to expose the idea; secondly, it had been a guided visit to Santa Croce and its historical places linked to Reggiane; finally, they organized a visit to the Istoreco headequarter, to learn from the historical archives of Reggio Emilia and to see and touch original papers and documents. The whole project had been documented in a film presented on May 2011 at the national festival “Filmare la storia” (“Shooting history”), and it had been awarded for its ability to explain the history of Reggio Emilia to foreign students and workers.