Download (14Mb) - VUIR - Victoria University

What wdll emerge is how the settlers laid the foundations for a recognisable Italian-
speaking community within Australian society.
While several factors were responsible for the ItaUan speakers' decision to
remain in AustraUa, chief among them was debt. Many had remained unable to repay
the money borrowed from village councils or wealthy citizens for the cost of their
joumey ~ the despair epitomised by FiUppo Tunzi's lament that 'non avremo mai piii
il denaro di venire a casa, la speranza e perduta '."* In order to reduce their debt many
immigrants sold property in Ticino or Italy, letters written home during the early years
often being requests to have such sales enacted. Giuseppe BedoUa of Ticino's Brione
Verzasca, who sold land in 1863 and 1864 in order to repay debts incurred ten years
eariier, provides one example as does the sale of family land by the wife of Giovanni
Bisi in 1864.* Researching this period, Cheda states:
Tra il 1858 e il 1866 abbiame trevate decine di mutui ipetecari e di
vendite immobiliari sottoscritti dagli stessi emigranti e dai lore
familiari per saldare il debito iniziale.
The inabUity to repay debts remained with many immigrants 30 years or more, causing
Giovanni TartagUa from Gordevio to write home in 1883: 'sono imposibilitato di
pagarli ma pero potrete impagarvi in mia proprietd ma non nella casa ma in qualche
pezzo di terra'.' Many immigrants fretted about the burden placed on family members
empowered to carry out these sales, ageing parents often having to stmggle with
unfamiliar and confusing legal terms. More traumatic, however, was the further slide
into poverty which the sale represented, and the destmction of a centuries old
interaction of land ovmership, labour and family home — 'the peasant triangle' - which
had protected family and community survival. Even with the land sales, however, it
296