Many of the four million Italian immigrants concluded their turbulent voyages at Ellis Island during The Great Arrival (1880 – 1920), but where did their journeys begin?
A brand new museum in Genoa, Italy — MEI (the National Museum of Italian Emigration) — now serves as a trans-Atlantic cousin to Ellis Island from the perspective of the Italian diaspora’s departure.
Genoa, like Naples, Palermo and Trieste, was a key exit point for those leaving the country (not only for the U.S., but also to other destinations including Brazil, Argentina, Africa and Australia).
According to Forbes magazine, MEI provides a compelling and unflinching overview of the Italian peninsula’s migration history, not only during the peak years of the 19th and 20th centuries, but also from prehistoric times to the present. Additionally, the museum details migration within Italy, when Italians, in large numbers starting in the 1950s, moved from the countryside to cities, and from South to North in search of work.
Despite being rooted in the past, MEI is a 21st-century complex with three floors of multimedia installations, displays and interactive stations. All the collections are digitized, including “The Maze,” which pulls museum-goers into a virtual-interactive experience that shows just how challenging it was for immigrants to navigate through language barriers and find work and housing.
Some studies estimate that 80 million people throughout the world can claim Italian ancestry today. Census.gov puts the number of Americans with Italian heritage at close to 16 million. At MEI, as with Ellis Island, you can search ancestral records, here at a special digitized kiosk with a database and archive organized by CISEI, the International Center for Studies on Italian Emigration. You can also use the CISEI database here: http://www.ciseionline.it/2012/uk_index.asp
The museum site is located in the Commenda di San Giovanni di Prè, a medieval ecclesiastical and former hospital complex dating from 1180 AD that once served as a way station for religious pilgrims making their own long-distance journeys by sea to the Holy Land.
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