The South La Vega (Peñuelas) Colony of La Serena

In February 1951, the selection of the first 20 families began, who boarded the Amerigo Vespucci ship on April 18, and on May 19 they disembarked in Coquimbo to settle on the lands of South La Vega (^{Grosselli, 2010}). The first planned migration project for agricultural purposes was a reality now, but the first problems began to manifest themselves: four of the 20 houses under construction were still not finished, and likewise the irrigation system. On the other hand, the land was not ready for the start of agricultural work, and there were several swampy soils that the reclamation process had not been able to transform into land suitable for cultivation. Electricity and drinking water were lacking (^{Iribarren Avilés, 2010}). The settlers’ discontent quickly became public knowledge. After a year, and as the technicians of the second ICLE mission were no longer in Chile and there was no other support, settlers had to ask for technical assistance and tools. In particular, two major agricultural problems affected the project: the incomplete construction of the irrigation canals and the poor quality of the land improvement operations. There were two additional drawbacks that were also experienced in the rest of the Italian colonization projects carried out by CITAL: the enormous difficulty in finalizing the purchase of the plots, which was agreed by contract, and the accumulation of large debts by the settlers, given that the actual conditions made it difficult to start up agricultural activities with a certain profitability (Grosselli, 2010). In spite of everything, most of the families stayed in South La Vega (or Peñuelas) colony and continued farming. In the medium and long term, the project had some success; the migrants were able to stabilize their household economies and project a better quality of life.

When the first negative news about the colonists arrived in Italy-especially in the province of Trento-during the second half of 1951, plans were already being made to send a second group to the lands of North La Vega, always in La Serena. However, the idea did not prosper, and the process of colonization of the San Manuel de Parral estate, in the central Chilean valley south of Santiago, in the Maule region, began to take hold.

San Manuel de Parral

The San Manuel estate, acquired by ICLE at the end of 1950, had an area of 31 000 hectares, of which only 700 were suitable for agriculture and only 170 were irrigated. It was located about 40 km from Parral, and the Italian technicians of the second mission evaluated as medium-low the yields of the productions and the quality of the land (ICLE, 1953). Nevertheless, at the end of 1951, the local authorities of the province of Trento began the process of calling and selection, which was not carried out as a public competition given how small the number of people required was. The ICLE was in charge of compiling the background information and preparing all the necessary formalities for the trip. Possibly because of the negative news coming from La Serena, the response from the local population was not massive, and the selection was then opened also in the Abruzzo region, much further south (^{Grosselli, 2010}).

While the CITAL began to operate formally in Santiago (^{CITAL, 1951b}), the construction of houses began in February 1952, and the discussion on the contracts for the settlers started in March. Despite new negative technical opinions about the quality of the estate (^{Grigolli, 2005}), and the emergence of the first concerns about the proposals made by the technical commission, especially in terms of the low budget allocated to irrigation works and the profitability of the farmland, which would not be parceled out and would remain under the direct management of the Company for its exploitation (^{CITAL, 1951a}), preparations continued. Administrators for the colony were hired in Italy and machinery was purchased, as well as a large number of sheep and cattle (^{Martini, 1994}). This stage signified important expenses for the CITAL, which did not record any income during the period. The manager then presented a budget with special attention to the direct exploitation of part of the estate, which also included the sale of wood and charcoal, products for which regional markets supposedly existed (^{CITAL, 1951c}). In October, the selection of families began (^{CITAL, 1951d}), and at the beginning of 1952 President Palma informed the directors that Chile had just joined the International Migration Committee in Brussels,³ thus having now the option of bringing four thousand people to the country free of charge (^{CITAL, 1952a}).

In July 1952, CORFO (majority shareholder of the Company) approved the budget plan (^{CITAL, 1952c}), and in September, 20 families traveled to Parral (^{CITAL, 1952d}). The agreement between each head of household and CITAL foresaw that the plots would be handed out based on a discretionary evaluation of the labor capabilities of each family, and that the average size of each plot would be of approximately 45 hectares (12 with irrigation). The base price of each plot, including the cost of the irrigation system, housing, land preparation and a fee for the organization’s general expenses, was set at 400 000 CLP (^{Fainella, 2002}). This value underwent rapid upward changes (^{CITAL, 1952d}), as a result of inflation and CITAL’s inability to fulfill its commitment to transfer the land to the families as property once they arrived in Chile.

Italian immigrants found in San Manuel a reality very different from the one they had dreamed of: they were far from the commercialization centers, the soils were of poor quality (some were very stony), the animals they received soon began to die because of the change of environment (they had been acquired in Punta Arenas, a southern city), they could not sign their purchase contracts for the plots, and relations with the administrators of the colony were strained from the onset (^{Grosselli, 2010}; ^{Martini, 1994}). On the other hand, the Board of Directors, which met in Santiago, quickly reported the first liquidity problems of the Company, which had practically all its capital tied up (^{CITAL, 1952d}). There were also technical problems with the crops, which the administrators did not know how to solve in a timely manner. Some settlers abandoned San Manuel due to the impossibility of improving their quality of life and paying their debts (Martini, 1994). In April 1953 there was a change in the presidency of the CITAL (^{CITAL, 1953a}); a little more than a year after the Italian settlement, the first institutional crisis was unleashed with the visit to Chile of the director of ICLE, Carlo Tomazzoli, and the resignation of the manager Mariottini (^{CITAL, 1953b}). The poor results obtained in San Manuel, the increasingly frequent departure of colonists, and the voices of alarm coming from the colonies in the north weighed heavily. Tomazzoli’s report was lapidary, and did cast serious doubts on the viability of the project (Grosselli, 2010). In addition to the obvious problems in planning, the Company did not have the liquidity to operate in a context in which the projected income of the colony was much lower than the real one. In December the Company attempted to set new prices for the plots, establishing variable costs between 430 000 and 835 000 CLP (Chilean pesos) each. At the same time, the Board of Directors agreed to initiate-contrary to what Tomazzoli relied in his report- arrangements for the arrival in Chile of 10 new families to occupy the plots that had been vacated, a matter that nonetheless never materialized (^{CITAL, 1953c}). The situation was chaotic in terms of management, and confusion prevailed in San Manuel; during the first two years, 16 families left (Martini, 1994).

In 1954, new changes of institutional representation were made in the CITAL, as well as the controversial decision to replace the families that had left San Manuel with others (a total of fifteen), coming from the colonies of La Serena and Coquimbo (^{Grosselli, 2010}). At the same time, they sought to absorb the financial problems through the eviction of 10 workers employed at the San Manuel hacienda, and the clearance sale of all livestock, household goods and tools, the sawmill, three trucks, a Jeep, the carpentry machinery, the lumber merchandise, and the mechanical workshop (^{CITAL, 1954a}). In September 1954, a distressing cash flow problem was openly acknowledged, in view of the scarcity of liquid funds and the innumerable obligations that within the year were to become due from creditors (^{CITAL, 1954b}). The colony was in full crisis, and throughout the following year there were alternating departures and arrivals of new families who, after all, had to adapt to subsistence agriculture (^{CITAL, 1955a}). In the second half of 1955, the minute book recorded the visit to San Manuel of the vice-president of ICLE Vittorio Chiri, to inquire in greater detail about the situation of the settlers, but he left no particular instructions or comments on the matter (^{CITAL, 1955b}). The year then closed with new changes in the internal structure of the Company (^{CITAL, 1955c}).

In October 1956, CITAL reorganized the colony and readjusted the price of the plots, which fluctuated between 3 000 000 and 5 160 000 CLP, with between 16.5 and 29.57 cultivable hectares. The transfer of the land had not yet been completed when the Company then established that the settlers sign a simple lease contract or with a promise of sale equivalent to 6% of the value of the plot (^{CITAL, 1956}), which translated into new conflicts. By 1957 many families had left, and the Company was in such a deep crisis that it could not even pay the salaries of its employees. Given the difficult scenario, in 1957 the Company accepted an offer from CORFO to lease, until April 30, 1960, the entire unsettled part of the estate, and to purchase the machinery, tools and animals necessary to make the land productive (^{CITAL, 1957}). Then, starting in 1961, a process of plot sale began that would last more than 10 years before it was completed. This would lead a few Italian families to achieve the goal of becoming landowners, while the rest had to reinsert themselves in other Chilean territories, or return to Italy in poverty. It also meant the sale of about 3 000 hectares of the former San Manuel estate to a German sect (^{CITAL, 1961}): the sadly known Colonia Dignidad (Dignity Colony), which later became the scenario for the perpetration of crimes such as sexual abuse of minors, production and sale of firearms, torture, and disappearance of political opponents of the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, etc. (^{Hevia & Stehle, 2015}; ^{Salinas & Stange, 2006}). The colonization process resulted in a total failure, and the Chilean and Italian States, represented in the CITAL, never assumed the moral, political and administrative responsibilities linked to the experience.

Santa Inés, San Ramón, Mirador, and Rinconada de Coquimbo

In March 1952, while the call for the San Manuel colony was being carried out, the minutes of the Board of Directors recorded the wish of president González Videla to expand the colonization experiment with Italians in the north (^{CITAL, 1952b}), and the agricultural estate of the Coll Brothers, 1 715 hectares, located in the sectors of Santa Inés, San Ramón, Mirador, and Rinconada, in the region of Coquimbo, was purchased. This purchase was made under very disadvantageous conditions, both for CITAL and for the future settlers, since the Coll Brothers obtained the right to exploit the acquired estates until the total cancellation of the debt by the Company. The soils were then proven to be of poor quality, mostly without irrigation, and so they could not be intervened before the arrival of the settlers in Chile (^{Grosselli, 2010}).

In this case, the selection of the families, all from the province of Trento, was carried out very quickly, given the commitment of the Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration (ICEM) to finance the trip under the condition that the operation be carried out within the current year. Finally, approximately 100 families left Italy, for a total of almost 1 000 people, and the first arrived in San Ramón in October (the last group arrived on January 17, 1953) (^{Grigolli, 2005}). The first problem was housing: of much lower quality than the houses in South La Vega, they were small, without drinking water or electricity, and in some cases had no windows or doors. Many were not habitable. Then, the European farmers realized that the land was poor, had not been leveled, was full of stones, had few irrigation canals, and that these also suffered significant water losses in their spans. The difficulties to start up the productive units meant the accumulation of considerable debt on the part of the families, and the environment started to become conflictive, the lack of adequate technical and social assistance also playing a part in it. The shortage of drinking water and poor food, together with overcrowding, favored the spread of diseases, and a typhus epidemic claimed the lives of some children and adults. In 1953, a few months after arrival, the situation (especially in San Ramón) was dramatic, and the first groups began to abandon the project to seek better luck in other estates in the area, near Santiago, or to be employed in La Serena or Coquimbo in the most varied occupations (^{Iribarren Avilés, 2010}).

Unlike the experience in San Manuel, here there was a higher level of internal organization, and, with the help of Scalabrinian priests, the settlers voiced their problems in different ways, organizing themselves into 11 groups that together formed a popular committee, setting up an agricultural cooperative and a community cheese factory (^{Grosselli, 2010}).

The already mentioned visit to Chile by Carlo Tomazzoli took place at that moment of crisis and meant the reorganization of the Mariottini colony (^{CITAL, 1953b}). The conflict escalated and came to also involve the institutional parties of both countries (especially ICLE and CORFO, which represented the stronger powers of the Company) (^{Grosselli, 2010}), in a context where the political architects of the initiative-González Videla and De Gasperi-had ceased to occupy positions of power in the respective governments.

In 1954, and in spite of the attempts to normalize the colonization process, the first planned departures began: nine families went to San Manuel-at the end there would be fifteen-, three to Argentina, while fifteen benefited from the contact networks of the Scalabrinian priests and were inserted in Santiago. As explained in the previous section, at that time, the CITAL was in full financial crisis (^{CITAL, 1954b}). The costs derived from the sustenance of the personnel, the provisioning of subsidies to the colonists, and the immobilization of most of its capital meant an early indebtedness with several international banks, which ICLE and CORFO were not able to solve adequately.

As ^{Grosselli (2010}) relates in his book Un urlo da San Ramón, a subsequent attempt by CORFO to take action on the matter did not bear fruit and the popular committee of settlers then began a much more aggressive campaign. By the end of 1954, only 471 people remained in the colony out of the initial almost 1 000. As a last measure, the CITAL formed an ad hoc commission that parleyed and negotiated with the representatives of the families, and the result was the dissolution of the colony as it had been planned at the beginning. A small number of families, whose debts were cancelled and whose plots of land were enlarged, stayed in the area, while the rest went different ways. Some were repatriated, facing the difficulties of a return in worse conditions than those they were in before migrating; others were transferred to Brazil, into a colony managed by the Companhia Brasileiro-Italiana de Colonização e Imigração. The last few families were accompanied to Santiago with the promise of support. A promise that was never fulfilled.

Assisted Migration: Theoretical Approaches to its Interpretation

The first theories aimed at explaining migration processes are essentially ascribed to the liberal economic paradigm, which assumes the rationality of the migrant as the central axis of the decision to move to a country other than the country of origin, with the aim of maximizing benefits and minimizing costs (^{Stefoni, 2014}). Until about 1980, this approach interpreted human mobility as the result of a set of individual decisions that ended up rounding up in a common good for the collectivity. It is undoubtedly possible to identify certain nuances in this block of theories, predominant in the 20th century (^{Massey et al., 1993}), that would later identify other relevant factors, such as the role of the family (^{Stark, 1991}), the market structure, or public policies (^{Mármora, 2003}).

In the case of planned migration, the dominant idea is that human mobility is based on institutional factors, linked to policies and programs set forth by national States. In fact, ^{Favero et al. (1999}) define as assisted, regulated or managed, a type of migration in which the objectives are set externally and the group or individual is induced to move in order to achieve them. These objectives may coincide totally or partially in the intentionality of the two parties, but an exogenous component is undoubtedly involved. In the history of migration theories, the institutionalist approach is the one that emphasizes the importance of public policy designs and laws in the expulsion and attraction populations (^{Massey et al., 1993}; ^{Stefoni, 2014}).

In addition, macro-structural factors are particularly important in assisted migration, linked above all-although not exclusively-to economic and labor issues (^{Stefoni, 2014}). Here it is worth recalling the set of arguments (grouped under what is called the push and pull theory) aimed at explaining why people leave a certain place and arrive in another, whose precursor was ^{Ravenstein (1885}), with his famous laws of migration, later expanded by ^{Lee (1966}). Among the macro factors that are considered to be push factors:

are those related to labor opportunities and conditions, poverty, overpopulation, pressure for land, environmental problems, low quality of life, insufficient basic services, political repression, religious persecution, harassment problems, discrimination, wars, etc. Among the attracting factors, being able to access better living conditions, a better job-or at least with higher remuneration-, enjoying a system with more social guarantees, and a better climate can be highlighted (^{García Sánchez, 2018}, p. 202).

On the other hand, the proposals of labor market theory represent a kind of reinterpretation and evolution of the push and pull approach, from the orthodox or neoclassical economic side. From this perspective, human mobility would serve to reduce existing imbalances between the labor markets of different countries in terms of wages and employment rates. Migration would therefore respond to “the structural conditions of the world market, and legislation, as well as to the physical barriers erected in each country” (^{García Sánchez, 2018}, p. 205).

Despite the importance of macro-structural and institutional factors, for the same author, the intervention of organizations (public or private, present in the place of origin or destination, etc.) alone cannot explain migration, unless it is complemented by the theory of migration networks (^{García Sánchez, 2018}). This passage is interesting, in that it represents one of the rings of conjunction between a macro reading of human mobility, and a micro one. In this sense, it should be noted that both perspectives of analysis of the migration phenomenon are not exclusive and opposed, rather allowing to interpret different levels of the same process. On the other hand, it is important to mention some theoretical perspectives that seem appropriate for the interpretation of the cases under examination, understanding the need to include structural and individual elements in the analysis of human mobility, and-as proposed by ^{Míguez (1995}) and ^{Zang and Fantín (2020})-to make use of different approaches without focusing on a single theoretical input ignoring the contribution of others.

Specifically, in addition to the push and pull factors mentioned above, there is a set of personal characteristics of the migrant, which determine, on the one hand, the motivations for moving and, on the other, the possibility of doing so, based on information management, personal contacts, etc. (^{García Abad, 2003}), which influence the formation of migration networks. In this sense, from the perspective of ^{Lee (1966}), migration would be a selective process, given that the socioeconomic conditions of each individual (age, gender, social class, level of education, etc.) define how he or she responds to the expulsion factors.

As for motivations, ^{Domínguez Villalobos and Vázquez Maggio (2018}) point out that there is a wide variety of microeconomic models that seek to explain why people migrate, and at least three perspectives can be accounted for. The first perceives the migrant as a rational being, the movement originating thus in the decision to maximize economic benefits (^{Borjas, 1989}). The second, although not rejecting the postulate of the first, deepens the analysis and visualizes a group of motivations linked to quality of life, such as environmental factors (pollution) and crime (^{Bonasia & Napolitano, 2012}). Finally, a third group of motivations would be linked to variables such as self-esteem, personal fulfillment, learning and social status (^{Tupa & Strunz, 2013}).

On the other hand, the migration networks are understood as

sets of interpersonal ties that connect migrants with other migrants who preceded them and with non-migrants in the areas of origin and destination through familial, friendship and country ties. These ties increase the likelihood of international movement, as they lower the costs and risks of movement and increase the net income from migration (^{Massey et al., 2000}, p. 25).

As pointed out by ^{Zang and Fantín (2020}), concepts such as social networks and migration chains-equivalent to migration networks-were used to understand the dynamics of the flows that characterized human mobility from Europe to America during the second half of the 19th century.

[These] categories emphasize the social ties of a given group, as well as the solidarity networks that emerge within it, and the information networks that circulate and influence the decision to emigrate (^{Massena, 2013}, p. 96).

These networks represent a form of social capital (^{Arango, 2002}) built on dynamics of reciprocity, trust, and access to information, among other elements, and which plays a central role in the process of insertion of migrants in the new society (^{Portes, 1999}). It is therefore possible to suggest the relevance they have not only in the place of destination, but also in the territory of origin; the decision to migrate is forged there, and a dynamic of cumulative causality is also produced (^{Izcara-Palacios, 2011}), when previous migration experiences generate unsatisfied values, desires, and preferences in the community (^{Herrera Carassou, 2006}).

To close this section, it is worth noting that many of the theories mentioned so far-especially those referring to the neoclassical economic approach-have been the target of criticism and were overwhelmed by the changes in the characteristics of migration processes in recent decades; it is still important to discuss them in a contextualized manner, also seeking to account for the rationality of the (individual, collective, and institutional) actors who led the agricultural colonization processes in Chile in the mid-20th century, in a context of an incipient Cold War. In this sense, the view of ^{Castles (2010}, ²⁰¹⁴), who argues that migration is only one component of a process of structural and institutional transformation arising from global changes, is assumed and applied to a historical context.

Structural Push/Pull Factors

The migration process in the post-World War II period is part of a long period of more than a century and a half in which about forty-eight million Europeans traveled to America, and which ended in 1960, when the strategies in which the States had a leading role in guiding the flows were abandoned. In Italy, the debate on colonization projects was intense throughout the first half of the twentieth century, although very few initiatives were carried out. In particular, the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Agriculture, which saw these projects as opportunities to solve the problems of unemployment and underemployment, especially in rural areas, were engaged in carrying out studies and proposals. All this lasted until the mid-1950s, when the signing of the treaties for the constitution of the European Coal and Steel Community, and later of the European Economic Community, outlined an institutional framework to support the regulation of migration movements into Europe (^{Favero et al., 1999}).

Evidently, the socioeconomic situation was dramatic in Italy by the end of World War II. It is in this context that the macro-structural factors that determined the flow to Chile can be identified. As ^{Grigolli (2005}) relates, in the province of Trento (where most of the migrants came from), there was at that time a surplus population in relation to the territory available for agriculture, which represented the main activity at the local level, in which more than 40% of the inhabitants occupied themselves, who numbered 394 704 in 1951. Only 17.7% lived in sectors located at elevations below 750 meters above sea level. The property structure was very fragmented: 66.5% of the land had a maximum extension of two hectares and less than 3% of the properties exceeded 10 hectares. Of the 7 565 small and medium-sized enterprises in the territory, 90% were artisanal in nature, with fewer than five employees. Manufacturing and commercial activities were also characterized by their small size. Unemployment was a structural phenomenon, aggravated by the post-war situation: the monthly average calculated for the first half of 1959 was 15 398 unemployed, compared to 9 680 in 1938. In this context, it was not possible to conceive of a strengthening of the agricultural sector, nor of a process of industrialization relevant to local needs (Grigolli, 2005). Given the impossibility of guaranteeing employment to the many unemployed, migration emerged as a short and medium-term solution.

In addition to these structural push factors, there was the effect of the pull factors of the Chilean territory. In the middle of the 20th century, the country had an available agricultural area of 21 391 000 hectares; almost six million hectares represented potential land for crops, of which only 23% was used proper (^{Grigolli, 2005}). In this historical period, privately-owned extensive lands for cultivation were undergoing a major crisis, after the golden wheat cycle that had concluded at the end of the 19th century. Creole landowners did not bother to modernize the sector, and the system became obsolete in its labor relations and productive capacity (^{Bengoa, 2015}). Before embarking on the path of agrarian reform in the 1960s, which aimed at redistributing land by deconcentrating ownership and increasing productivity, an attempt was made to artificially build a class of small and medium farmers through the colonization of unexploited agricultural land with foreign communities. It was presented as a promising destination, considering the agro-climatic characteristics of the Central Valley.

Institutional action was decisive in launching the various migration initiatives. The activation (in the 1920s) of intermediate technical structures such as the ICLE in Italy and the CORFO in Chile, altogether with the availability of resources produced by a special Marshall Plan fund, allowed the projects to take off. The political will of both governments, within the context of an incipient Cold War, represented the last missing component. In addition to the State agencies just mentioned, in Chile the Ministry of Lands and Colonization and the Agricultural Colonization Fund were directly involved, while in Italy the autonomous province of Trento and the municipalities where the call for proposals was disseminated played a role, although they were not legally involved in the project. As mentioned above, the CITAL was created for the administration of the colonization initiatives, with a capital stock of 40 000 000 CLP, divided into 40 000 shares divided as follows: 16 000 subscribed by ICLE, 16 000 by CORFO and the Agricultural Colonization Fund in equal parts, and 8 000 by Chilean individuals or legal entities (ICLE, 1953).

Although it is not the purpose of this article to analyze the type of public policies that supported the migration process, it is relevant to note that, on the basis of an economic and productive need, governments operated with the racist assumption that Italian settlers were morally and occupationally better than their Chilean counterparts. As happened in other Latin American countries, the European migrant was identified as someone associated with to hard work (^{Devoto, 2009}) and the civilizing ideal, an individual with the characteristics desired by the ruling classes (^{Halpern, 2009}). In this sense, the institutional factor that sustained this experience of assisted migration was framed within a broader Chilean policy of selective immigration aimed at improving the race, establishing a hierarchy of nations and races, and operating under the logic of a civilizing enterprise where Europeans would have a privileged place as precursors of modernity. It can be understood, consequently, that immigration was used as an element of racialized public policies, and accounts for the subordinate position assumed by Chilean society (^{Palominos, 2015}).

In summary, it is possible to identify in the opportunity of access to land and labor one of the most relevant structural factors for the conformation of this migration flow. By referring to the laws formulated by ^{Ravenstein (1885}), it is possible to observe that they confirm the idea that the main causes of the migratory movement are economic, and that, in particular, it is the rural inhabitants who move (all the families that traveled to Chile came from small mountain villages). However, most of the laws do not apply to the case under examination, and could not be different in that the scheme represents an attractive simplification (^{García Abad, 2003}) that must necessarily be studied to further depth. The next section will address some of the micro factors that characterized this process.

Micro Factors

Beyond the structural analysis, an approach to the experience from a micro perspective, which accounts for individual and family experiences, will make it possible to better reconstruct the fabric of life trajectories and social relations. Evidently, as ^{Zang and Fantin (2020}) put it, “structural factors have social and psychological repercussions in the population, which do not necessarily involve an individual in isolation, but rather represent a family survival strategy” (p. 13).

In this regard, it is useful to analyze the personal motivations that drove migrants to move. Overcoming a family situation of poverty to different degrees was a central element. In this context, it is not difficult to imagine that the socioeconomic conditions imposed by a five-year war had an impact on the living conditions of the people of that land, which were already complex due to the macro-structural factors mentioned above. “I had nothing to feed the children after the war,” commented a former settler (^{Grosselli, 1992}, p. 2). In the same vein, a woman related: “we were literally starving” (Grosselli, 1992, p. 1).

However, not all situations were this dramatic. Overall, we could speak of conditions of poverty in which survival was certain, but where there was a shortage of resources to develop in any other area of life. In this regard, one of the interviewees commented:

We were always in debt, with little money and always working. There was my mother and my brothers. My brother worked the land and I worked here and there; before, I worked the land and he went out to work. But we had a less than normal, rather poor life (^{Grosselli, 1992}, p. 1).

It can also be seen that the lack of permanent employment-apart from agricultural and domestic work-weighed heavily on family economies and, in the end, the members of the families had to take advantage of any opportunity that would allow them to earn money. The possibilities of projecting an improvement in their quality of life in the medium term were very scarce, and migration to Chile was perceived in many cases as a bet on the future, a mechanism for social ascent. A former settler put it this way: “We lived badly, because money was scarce and we were many. We lived like poor people. Hearing about America, for my father, was an opportunity to amass fortune” (^{Grosselli, 1992}, p. 7). In the same way, another interviewee confirms: “my father wanted to leave because there were no job prospects here, and he said: let’s try” (Grosselli, 1992, p. 14).

It should be noted that in these projections, Chile could represent a desired final destination (in most cases), but also a second or third option given the impossibility of emigrating to other, more attractive countries for the local imaginary, or an intermediate and provisional stage leading to the place that would represent the conclusive stage of the journey (and which was almost never reached). An example of the first case is the story of a former settler: “[my father] first tried to emigrate to Australia, but they only accepted families with a maximum of three children, and there were four of us. He had also tried Canada” (^{Grosselli, 1992}, p. 5). In turn, another interviewee recalls: “We had to go to Brazil, and there was this emigration to San Manuel and we took the opportunity” (Grosselli, 1992, p. 2).

In relation to the second case, an interviewee commented: “my father wanted to travel to Chile and then move to Brazil; but we stayed here” (^{Grosselli, 1992}, p. 3). These dynamics are similar to those reported by ^{Iribarren Avilés (2010}) in his text Trentinos, largo surco hacia un destino, about a family that settled in the colony of La Serena:

But I wanted that to be me, I had an uncle who was in North America and he came to my town, he had a gold chain with a watch, I want to be like that, I also want the gold watch, with the part that comes here in the pocket with the gold watch. And that always stayed with me, and then the emigrants went to Australia, whole families went, but I could not go because I was an attaché, I had no family, then I fell in love with my wife because I was coming to Chile, to get to Chile, and then from here to the USA, and I am still here (^{Iribarren Avilés, 2010}, p. 124).

If we consider as the first element the need to improve the family economy, there is then a factor that emerged very clearly in the accounts given by the interviewees, and that we could consider as a non-conventional institutional factor. The siren songs of the Italian public administration triggered the desire to emigrate, or else were ultimately decisive in a social context where the myth of successful Italians in the United States was already consolidated. “They had us all worked up with the idea of making it in America,” commented a former settler (^{Grosselli, 1992}, p. 1). It is clear that many had no reference to the Chilean reality, which they imagined as an Argentine province. The offers were tempting: “They promised us animals, land, a house ready, they told us it was a good business, everything was set,” commented another interviewee (Grosselli, 1992, p. 2). Above all, the possibility of becoming the owner of extensions of productive land that were impossible to obtain in the place of origin was very attractive.⁴ In addition, there were technical considerations that could be defined as at least optimistic: “they told us that in Chile, at that time, we could harvest four times a year. The land was harvested four times a year, do you understand what that means?” (Grosselli, 1992, p. 2).

There were also stories in which, along with promises, there were veiled threats from the institutions that were organizing the process, which can be related to the poor results obtained by the first experiments on Chilean soil, as one interviewee added:

There were three proposals: Chile, Australia or Canada. To make another life for yourself, you couldn’t live here any longer. I wanted to improve at all costs. I chose Chile because it was the closest one, and they also made us some promises: land, aid, etc. The lawyer (...) phoned and threatened us that if we did not leave, my husband would not have received any more work because of his disability (^{Grosselli, 1992}, p. 2).

Many of the promises were not fulfilled, and the impact with the Chilean reality was brutal from the beginning for many people, as confirmed by this account of a former settler: “the contract said that the land was fertile and ready to be worked, but we arrived and found uncultivated land, wooded and full of sand and stones” (^{Grosselli, 1992}, p. 3). This is also confirmed by some interviews in the text of ^{Iribarren Avilés (2010}):

We were a bit shaken when we saw the conditions, the atmosphere and all the things, so much that other families did not want to get off the boat and returned in the very same boat to Italy, because they could not see a very good future here (p. 112).

(...) what they promised us, ah, none of that! They didn’t even give us a fifth of that, they promised a lot and gave little (p. 133).

The interviews allowed us to corroborate the central relevance of the economic factor in the decision to emigrate, but beyond understanding the future settlers as exclusively rational beings entirely oriented towards maximizing their benefits, we can rather state that in general the family yearnings were related to expanding their development options, improving other aspects of their quality of life such as their personal/labor realization and their social status; In short, they projected family wellbeing through the construction of horizons that seemed impossible to reach in their place of origin, as one of the interviewees expressed very graphically: “I thought of emigrating to find something, a future” (^{Grosselli, 1992}, p. 2).

On the contrary, the presence of motivations linked to the second group identified in the theoretical framework, linked to environmental factors (which at the time we are analyzing were not yet strongly and clearly understood) and crime, is much less explicit. However, in relation to this second point, it is possible to identify a sense of insecurity resulting from the experience of two world wars in a very short period of time, as well as the first signs of Cold War tensions, which framed a very unstable international context. In this sense, the outbreak of the Korean War represented the realization of these fears, spreading the somewhat irrational fear of a communist invasion.

I was not very sure about leaving, but between my brother writing, on the one hand, and on the other hand my parents pushing me, because they were afraid again, because that year, between Yugoslavia and Italy, it seemed that another war was coming. Again, the war was coming again (^{Grosselli, 1992}, p. 8).

This fear was also confirmed by interviews from other research:

[My husband] was not a farmer either. Ah! This Chile thing came about, and mostly because of the war, he came mostly because of the war, because every five years there is a war and they used to call him, he hated to go under the government, so we decided to come here (^{Iribarren Avilés, 2010}, p. 134).

In any case, the deep psychosocial consequences suffered by this population exposed to the war resurfaced in the complex Chilean decade of the 1970s, characterized by a period of great reforms promoted by the left and by the following coup d’état, which established a long civil-military dictatorship in the country that substantially increased social and political violence. That was the moment when many people questioned again the of leaving Italy and opted for repatriation:

[In 1973] my mom was a little scared and she was thinking about the fact that she had already been through war and had seen violence and all the rest, so she thought it was better to go back to Italy. So she sold her plot of land and left. He sold it very cheap. And all the work of those years disappeared right there (^{Grosselli, 1992}, p. 8).

It is also relevant to introduce the component of networks and information management in our analysis. From the institutional level, it is worth noting that the process of disseminating information on the colonization projects was centrally managed by ICLE, in conjunction with the local governments of the province of Trento. In this sense, it is not clear what criteria were used-beyond the dissemination of some communiqués in local newspapers of provincial scope-to notify certain communes and not others (^{Grigolli, 2005}). Community networks played an essential role in the social dissemination of the initiatives, and being a territory made up of small and relatively isolated towns, the origin of most of the settlers who arrived in Chile was quite homogeneous and determined by institutional decisions.

In concrete terms, former settlers report having found out about the opportunity through the municipality, the news of families who had already left, or the local media: “I was a 15-year-old girl in Italy. My mother bought… she would buy the newspaper every now and then, and it was written there that people were needed in Chile to come and work” (^{Iribarren Avilés, 2010}, p. 121).

People were also informed by people relevant at the community level, such as the town priest or someone they knew. One interviewee stated: “[We learned about it from] Panizza [another future settler], they were advertising it in Vermiglio⁵ that it was possible to travel to Chile” (^{Grosselli, 1992}, p. 2).

The channel linked to workspaces deserves special mention. One of the interviewees points out how she found out about it: “[through] a friend who worked with me in the factory and had a brother-in-law who knew about these things” (^{Grosselli, 1992}, p. 2). Apparently, this mechanism made it possible to increase the scope of the call, given that the production centers were normally located in the valleys, and that was where the workers from the mountain villages went.

It can be noted that, according to ^{Granovetter (1973}), the networks were constituted by weak ties (contact with agents outside the community) or strong ties (kinship, friendships), forming social capital. Thus, the information provided by these networks was incomplete and unequally distributed among community members (^{Martínez Veiga, 2000}), in contrast to the neoclassical model, which assumes that the migrant has all the information needed to make decisions.

On the other hand, it is important to note that the urgency of the deadlines imposed by the institutional framework (and linked to the possibility of CIME financing the settlers’ travel expenses), did not allow the few networks that made possible the exchange of information to consolidate as social networks before departure, and thus contribute to a better adaptation at the destination. In fact, many of the interviewees pointed out that they had little time to complete the administrative and legal formalities, and to meet once with the local people in charge of the process before leaving: “I found out from my brother. My mother went to find out, and in a month we decided to leave and went through the process” (^{Grosselli, 1992}, p. 2).