The Italians of Port Pirie

Abstract

This study is concerned with Italian settlement in the industrial city of Port Pirie, South Australia. The problem to explain the kind and degree of assimilation among migrants of Italian descent was bound up with the problem of group integration, since the Italians who appeared least assimilated formed themselves into a cohesive racial group, and the most assimilated Italians resisted group integration. Because of this variation in grouping the study of the assimilation of Italians in Port Pirie became one of the effect of group integration on assimilation into the host society _ that is, that portion of the adopted country where the migrants chose to settle. The degree of assimilation was not amenable to quantative measurement but was gauged comparatively by the knowledge that the migrants had of the host society, their readiness to accept its norms, and the willingness of the host society to accept them on a similar footing in the society. The problem of assimilation was complicated because the adopted country and the host society were not themselves uniform and it is dubious whether there was any one set of values about which all Australians were agreed. Thus the type of explanation which depended on the replacement of an Australian ethos, described by listing typical Australian behaviour traits and expectations as ortteri by an Italian ethos was too facile, and the study of such a transformation would have meant that equal attention should be given to Australian and Italian folkways. Such a study would have demanded time and resources than I had at disposal.