On 2 June 1946 the people of Italy went to the polls to throw out the monarchy and form the first Italian Republic. Sort of. There was indeed an Italian Republic that was set up by Napoleon in 1802, but it lasted only 3 years.
And of course my lot were running a republic for about a thousand years after we tossed Tarquin out in 509 BC. Though, yeah, I agree that it was really a republic in name only after Octavian did his thing. And it wasn't really an Italian republic; there was a reason that we put the "R" in SPQR. And nobody mention the Social Wars (or Bellum Sociale, as we called it back then). It's Hollywood's fault that people forget about the time when Rome and Italy were two separate things.
So, OK, 2 June 1946 marks the effective founding of the first republic of Italy as we know the country today. (What we have today is officially termed the Second Republic, which is sort of regarded as having commenced in 1992 despite the fact that the closest thing there was to a constitutional change around that time was the 1993 referendum which changed the Senate to proportional representation.)
2 June is a public holiday in Italia with major celebrations. It is therefore also Italian week in Wollongong with a celebration called "Tutti In Piazza". (All / everybody in the square / mall.) It was organised by the Italian Teachers' Association of the Illawarra (ITAI).
Aaah... if this is "tutti", we may have a problem. Granted it's the middle of winter here... well, it's the start of winter here, but that's all the more reason why what is needed is hot, hearty and pasta based. In reality there were about half a dozen tents selling cold food and sweet treats. Now all that said... even though the high water mark of Italians in the Illawarra was perhaps 40 to 50 years ago now when the steel mills were in full swing and before the economy of Italy recovered from the war, the I.T.A.I. seems to have improved its web site considerably since I last looked at it. (Though it still has a very 1999ish flavour to it.) More importantly the range of activities that it has been organising seems to have been increasing of late. More importantly still it seems to be getting better at making sure that information about time and dates is there. If the administrators keep going as they are, they may yet be able to fire up a revival of Italian culture in the region and have events which are better attended than today's is.
Spero di sì.
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Update July 2024. I had to update this when I noticed that for the past 7 years it had the name of I.T.A.I as including the word "teacher's" instead of "teachers'". How embarrassing! But that said... I'm wondering how many active teachers, plural, they still have.
The web site seems to have been modernised, and certainly no longer has a 1999 vibe. BUT. They supposedly offer 3 levels of classes for adults (Beginner, Pre-Intermediate and Intermediate) plus an After School course for children up to year 6. None of those show any active courses to book, and all show "This service has no availability in the next 6 months. Please contact us or check out our other services.". There is no reference to Tutti in Piazza or any other community events (and I can't see any indication through a web search that the event has been held in the 2020s at all; with this turnout it's not surprising), though there is a mention of an outreach program in nursing homes... except that the state minister who approved it last held that portfolio in 2019. So... not recent.
Apparently they organise trips as well, and the link to the 2019 trip brings up one for December of this year. Which... probably isn't going to attract a lot of attention under a 2019 label.
The truth is that Italian culture may not be dying in the Illawarra, but it's not thriving either. The region still has above average Italian ancestry. As of the 2021 census, 5th position with 5.4% of the population versus 3.7% for NSW and 4.4% for Australia. Interestingly this was an increase over the 2016 Census where the percentages were 3.8%, 2.8% and 3.2% respectively, though in the 2011 census they were 4%, 2.8% and 3.3%. So they swung down and back up? Eeeh, not necessarily. It's faded into history now but the 2016 Census was a cluster-frack. The Chief Statistician decided to make providing your name and address compulsory for long term retention. And large parts of Australia said "**** you, bureaucrat, we didn't agree to this" and fudged their information, and THEN there were system outages throughout the country on Census night. So I would not regard the 2016 census as being wholly reliable.
If you accept the line between 2011 and 2021, though, yes, the proportion of people with Italian ancestry has increased in the Illawarra. It's possible that more Italians have moved to the Illawarra (the total increased from 14,402 in 2011 to 17,066 in 2021, compared to an overall increase of around 38,000 over that period)... it's equally possible that they're just outliving the hell out of other ethnic groups, which Italians are pretty good at doing.
The number actually born in Italia, though, went from 1.2% (3,412) to 0.9% (2,782), so the number of first generation immigrants aren't being replaced by new ones. And despite the increase of those with Italian ancestry... the second, third, fourth generations probably aren't as interested in learning the ways of the old country, since they speak English most of the time and have their existing local culture to adapt to.
Other changes I noted; Gloria Jeans Coffee was still operating in Wollongong. It's long gone from there, and the last one that I know of in the Illawarra (Corrimal) finally went bust (with the premises being repossessed by the landlord) a couple of weeks back. The St George Bank on the left is also gone, though it has been merged with the branch of its parent bank (Westpac) which is a couple of hundred metres behind me.
