Hi all! This is an alt for anonymity. Please be gentle, this is a hard topic for me to discuss.
I’m a progressive United States citizen who is looking to get out. I’m of Italian descent so I’m working on getting Italian citizenship through jure sanguinis, but it’s going to take some time, if it works at all (gotta substantiate some relations) and won’t extend to my husband until he completes a citizenship test, which he can do after living in Italy for two years.
Here’s my big question: is moving to Italy even a good idea?
I know there’s a significant element of fascism there, but that seems to be the case to varying extents throughout Europe. I’ve visited a few times as a tourist and everyone was very kind. I also have a US cousin that lives there as a permanent resident near Napoli and she is very encouraging, saying people will be welcoming. We don’t want much, just to make a living and maybe have a kid.
Lol my country is falling to the fascists. I may as well move to a country that has already fallen to the fascists.
Italian fascists are left wing compared to the Trump admin
I mean you don’t have to live in Italy after getting your citizenship they are an EU country with freedom of moment.
True, but my husband does for two years prior to getting his citizenship.
Not really. Being married to an EU/EEA citizen he’ll get a residence in any of the other ones. But having a full passport will cut down on paperwork in the long term.
Also, it’s nice here in Italy. Come over! The wife and I have been here for 7 years and once the bureaucracy is dealt with it’s (mostly) quite pleasant.
Ah yeah that will be the wrinkle
Not to hate but what steps have you made to change your current situation? All Europe is moving towards the far right spectrum, if Italy were to be in the same boat are you going to keep on running? Why not try to improve your local community and make a change instead of running away. That’s the main reason why we are in this mess, instead of communities coming together, people leave and the o lay ones left behind are the ones voting for where we are at now.
Life is most certainly better in an Italian city then an America mid tier nothing city.
No hate at all, it’s a good question. We’re both politically active, we even met at a protest lol. We’ve been involved in local politics for over a decade.
We’re now in our thirties and are just tired of the US employment rat race and general political apathy. I’m not going to pretend we’re not being selfish. We’re just tired.
What’s one guy gonna do against 52% of Americans who came together in their communities and expressed the democratic will to choose Fascism?
Unite his community, find like minded people and create a movement to vote these guys out? That’s literally the American dream
52% of those who voted
In reality, Trump was voted in by around 32% of Americans who are eligible to vote. He’s tearing everything apart with a mandate from 23% of the US population.
Democracy, baby!
You should drop this argument. Those who haven’t voted are assumed to have the same distribution as those who did.
Republicans turned out at slightly higher numbers than Democrats relative to their representation in the U.S. population (8 points vs. 5 points).
And there’s a lot there suggesting a leftward lean from the independent portion (eg. disproportionately non-white, non-Christian and urban)
Edit: If anyone has a counter argument I’d love to hear it. Its just weird to dismiss the entire massive non-voting bloc in a country with a long history of right wing voter suppression and anemic left wing opposition.
Republicans put a ton of effort into voter restrictions, ostensibly to prevent mass voter fraud which study after study proves does not exist. Why do they go through the trouble?
The far right national government certainly isn’t good, but you’re right that it’s probably not that far off from most other big european countries right now. Definitely research the specific region you’re moving to, there are often extremely large differences between regions in european countries when it comes to political leanings, general tolerance and economic opportunities and it’s not always as clear-cut as “big cities good, countryside bad” or “north good, south bad”.
You emigrate to Italy and then you’ll be an immigrant from the US. One’s a verb, the other a noun.
Once you have Italian citizenship you’ll be able to live an work anywhere in the Schengen region. So a lot more options once you’re in.
That’s not the difference. Both words have noun and verb forms.
Immigrate = to move to a place
Emigrate = to move from a place
Immigrant = a person who moved to a place
Emigrant = a person who moved from a place
So they would be emigrating from the US and immigrating to Italy. They would be a US emigrant and an Italian immigrant.
In the future, consider ensuring you actually know what you’re talking about before attempting pedantic corrections.
You do realize you’re attempting to move to the country that invented fascism in an attempt to…escape fascism?
They aren’t too far behind us on the backslide either atm
they’re ahead of us; they’ve had a fascist leaders for a couple of years and have already legally disenfranchised many.
There is a fascist party in power there rn
We are also the first country that got rid of fascism 😉
Are you a cis woman? I ask because you said you have a husband and you may want a kid. Italy is going against gay adoption, and I think it’s not easier if you’re a trans woman with a cis man, for example. You could try to have some information about abortion, because right to abort isn’t the same thing to access to this right. It’s not specific to Italy, and I think a lot of European countries are currently going the same way.
Edit: I mean, if you like the country, have family and really want to leave, I don’t think it’s a bad idea.
Italian living in Italy here.
Yes we have fascists but the americans who commented this post ignore a couple things:- our form of government is different from yours, the multi-partisan system helps keeping those things in check;
- Italy is a founding member of EU and is financially depending on it, so even the fascist know that they cannot just do what they want, otherwhise Bruxelles might pull the plug.
Thus said, the problem here is another: jobs. There is a high level of unemployment, expecially among people that don’t work in super specialized environments, like engineering, CS or healthcare, just to make some examples. I have a lot of friends and relatives that had to move abroad just to make a living.
And I mean A LOT: my best friend lives in Australia, my brother in Ireland, literally half of the company I hanged out with as a teenager lives in Holland and I myself lived in Spain for a couple years before getting an opportunity here. So, unless you work one of these jobs I suggest you to priorityze another country.Yes, we very very very strong 🥰 big Forza Bruxelles, Belgians mightiest of all Europe. Our history is countless won battles one after another. We ruled the whole world, you know?
Thanks for your response. The multi-party government is exactly what kept us interested in Italy. We can both work remotely, so that’s the plan for income, plus we inherited a bit of money when my husband’s father passed. Nothing huge but we won’t show up destitute.
If you have the possibility to work remotely, this might help a lot.
On a side note, there is something I feel I have to be honest towards you: Jure Sanguinis is a gimmick of the fascist party (they are so fond of Latin names).
They think you have more right to be Italian if your grandfather left the country, because it was a shit place job-wise as it is now, and you know fuck all of our culture than if you lived here your whole life, perfectly integrated, went through school here, work here, pay taxes here but just happened to be born in another country: a friend of mine from Albania had to jump through incredible hoops and managed to get citizenship at 26 despite living here since she was fucking 2 y.o.
Do what you will with this information.
you’re aware that italy is ahead of us in the fascism timeline, right?
No self-coup happened yet, most constitutional freedoms are still respected, there are no political extra-judicial arrests (or at least not that many). Except for some repression of communitarian spaces and public protests, it is not sensibly different from any center/center-right neoliberal government.
if by “self-coup” you referring to trump’s election; they did the same thing with their own fascists and their parliament helped in the same way that our congress helped and their repression is also focused on lgbt arena’s like ours is; but goes well beyond minor policy changes and it’s here where they’ve gone further down the fascism timeline than we have.
I’m talking about a private individual invading the physical and digital spaces of public institutions with the president providing political cover and stopping other parts of the state to intervene. That’s a self-coup. Nothing like that happened in Italy and so far the government is operating within legality.
No, that’s still just a normal coup of congress’s authority
Yeah but their velocity is much much lower atm.
how so?
Outside of losing a war, I’m not sure of any civilization that’s changed as hard and fast as America is at the moment. And it’s only going to get worse as the economy crashes.
the united states is part of a civilization that’s changing more rapidly than the rest of it and even then, only its privileged classes; italy’s another part of western civilization that has also changed in the same manner and to a further degree than americans have (so far).
Just wanna say warm wishes, share your research if you find anything.
Italy has just changed it’s rules on citizenship. You now need to prove you had an Italian parent or grandparent in order to be eligible. Before, there was no generational cut off.
I literally just read about this. There goes that opportunity. Ugh.
Depends on how committed you are to the change.
Here’s the Reddit sub on the issue of citizenship by ancestry: https://www.reddit.com/r/juresanguinis/
Thanks for the link. I don’t understand your comment, though.
You would have to move to Italy and live there for a certain number of years. For you it is probably 10 years continuous residency although as your ancestor was Italian it might be much shorter. To go and live there you would need a visa - a work visa or maybe something like an elective visa (private income so you’re not a burden on the sate), or an investor visa (buying residency).
If you were to have a child while there I don’t know what that would mean. It probably means they would be eligible and you would have the right to stay and look after them. But you would need to carefully assess what that would mean for the child’s statehood and identity.
Unless you’re a directly targeted demographic, leaving the US is the coward’s way out. You abandon everyone who doesn’t have the means to flee. Stay and fight for something. Running away from problems doesn’t solve them, it just cedes power to the problem.
TIL: disinformation is a synonym for “presumptuous asshole”. Who knew?
TIL a ham sandwich is a synonym for cowardly pig. But we both knew that already.
You don’t know anything about this person or their personal circumstances. The only thing I know about you, based on your post history and these two comments, is you’re a divisive moron.
Dogmatic idiots like you made your country the shit hole it is today. Fuck off, blue MAGA.
Italy is being run by fascist lite.
Is that any worse though?
Fascista Leggera ⚖️ Full blown McFascism
Fascista Superleggera V12
So like the US dems?
I can’t offer much but to say I’m quite jealous, lol. My wife and I have researched just about every possible opportunity to do the same, just to find everything either doesn’t apply to us or is just out of reach at this time (and for the foreseeable future). Asking for help around this topic typically leads to an insane amount of backlash online, so I’ve found…
Yeah, the Italian subs on the other place weren’t very kind when I asked a few years ago.
If I might offer some possibly applicable advice, hire a genealogist if you think you’re eligible but are stuck. I spent ten of hours researching what seemed like a dead end. We hired a genealogist who found what I needed in less than two hours and pointed out another eligible line I didn’t know qualified.
We’ve explored that route pretty thoroughly, unfortunately… Neither of us are eligible.
If you’re able, come as an expat. There are lot’s of jobs that allow you to stay and after 5 years (differs by country), you can request citizenship.
If you contribute financially you will find a warmer welcome, I guess
