From Cercenasco to the World

The book “Da Cercenasco nel Mondo” is the result of almost three years of research carried out by two Italian authors, Mariagrazia Alliaudi and Silvio Genero, on behalf of the Town Council of Cercenasco (a village in the province of Turin, in the north of Italy). The book tells the story of many families from Cercenasco who left Italy at the end of the XIX century and at the beginning of the XX century in the hope of a better life in Texas. As a matter of fact, at that time Italy was facing a very bad economic situation: heavy taxes to pay, new structures to build in a newly set up country, not to mention a series of diseases that seriously damaged crops and brought poverty to all Italian villages. Therefore, poor farmers saw emigration as their only possibility to start a new life abroad. From 1880 to 1930 more than 150 people settled in the Galveston County, along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, in the three main closed centres of League City, Hitchcock and Dickinson. The emigrants from Cercenasco worked as farmers growing vegetables and strawberries which were sold to markets in Galveston and later on in Houston. After a few years some families opened grocery stores and small shops. The pages of this book are a portrait of the community and describe in great detail the way of life in those times. Italian customs and traditions were taken abroad and kept alive also for several generations. Poor farmers’ children have become respectable American citizens, who are still very proud of their Italian heritage. The second and third part of the book talk about emigration to Argentina and France. From 1880 onwards many inhabitants of Cercenasco arrived at Buenos Aires to begin all over again. They settled in the agricultural provinces of Cordoba and Santa Fe. At that time the Argentine government encouraged Europeans to move to its country in order to cultivate the huge expanses of land. The experience of emigration to South America was really very hard because Argentina had not yet been colonized. Emigration to France took place much earlier than emigration to America for several reasons. French customs and traditions, quite similar to Italian ones, helped emigrants to adapt much more quickly to their new environment. Moreover, as Northern Italy was also part of France for many years, emigrants who headed to France did not feel as uprooted. Together with the book the reader will also find a CD-ROM showing old pictures of several families, interesting data from the disembarkment lists of Ellis Island (New York) and many family trees of the emigrated families. This book is a true homage to the Italian origins and culture.