Thursday, April 26, 2007

Chinese in Milan Create Problems

The ANNOTICO Report

 

The exponential proliferation of blue metal pushcart that the many Chinese wholesale clothing merchants use to ferry huge volumes of cheap shirts, shoes and jeans to the idling vans and cars has made some roads impassable in Milan, and created a crackdown that caused riots with protestors carrying the Chinese Flag.

 

The Italians also complain that the Chinese Immigrants have taken over the neighborhood stores from Italians, but they haven't developed relationships with the residents.

 

There are further complaints that the Chinese are insular. They shop at their own stores - their culture closes them off,

 

 It is more the "new" breed of young Chinese immigrant that has "upset the equilibrium" in the area, where Chinese and Italians had previously coexisted, "upsetting the unwritten rules of nearly a century."

The new immigrants, "don't learn Italian" and tend to isolate themselves. And criminal gangs of Chinese youth are on the rise.

Chinese have been moving to Europe, and to Italy, in growing numbers since the 1930s.Then, as now, the vast majority came from the area around Wenzhou, a city on the southeastern coast. Through the 1990s, the Chinese opened small factories - mostly leather and textile workshops staffed by immigrants - or worked in restaurants.

"Italy was transformed from an emigration country to an immigration country," In the 1990s, we had a case of cohabitation where the Italian majority well tolerated the immigrant minority, which was mostly Chinese."

But that has changed dramatically in the past five years, As it became easier for Chinese to leave their homeland, numbers swelled. Officially, the Chinese community in Milan numbers 13,000 in a city of 1.3 million, but including illegal immigrants, it could be nearly double that.

As China has became wealthier and begun to export more and more, Chinese stores here started selling wholesale goods - legal and illegal - that were made cheaply in China. As the immigrants prospered, they began buying up local real estate, paying high prices to Italian landlords and property owners. They often bought small shops that had gone out of business in the face of competition from an influx of supermarket chains and megastores.

Those on the street are second-generation Chinese who are totally integrated and speak and dress Italian, But  "They have an awareness that they haven't abandoned a poor country. They are proud. They are cosmopolitan Chinese with a strong double identity."

What irks many of the Italians is that many of the Chinese immigrants have no desire to become Italian citizens.Typically, Jessica Cheng, a Chinese citizen who has a suburban store, said she did not want an Italian passport, although she speaks Italian and has lived in Italy for seven years.

 

A Pushcart War in the Streets of Milan's Chinatown

 

International Herald Tribune

By Elisabeth Rosenthal and Elisabetta Povoledo

Thursday, April 26, 2007  

MILAN: A battle of cultures, business and lifestyles is being waged in Milan's Chinatown, one that has been quietly escalating in recent weeks. The symbol of the war - and its unlikely booty - has been the blue metal pushcart that the many Chinese wholesale clothing merchants have long used to ferry huge volumes of cheap shirts, shoes and jeans to the idling vans and cars of local buyers.

In response to complaints from local residents, Milan's city administration, elected last year, decided to crack down on practices that had long been tolerated and are at the core of the Chinese businesses: The pushcarts, they say, create hazards on the sidewalks to old people and children. The waiting cars and vans, they note, are private vehicles that are not licensed to ferry commercial goods. The police began to hand out fines - lots of them.

"This used to be a Milanese neighborhood with stores to buy thread, bread, electrical things - the kind of stores neighborhoods have," said Corrado Borrelli, a business consultant and longtime resident of the neighborhood that centers around a street named after Paolo Sarpi, a 16th-century statesman. "It's not just about the carts. The Chinese have taken over the neighborhood, they have stolen spaces from Italians, but they haven't developed relationships with the residents."

"They shop at their own stores - their culture closes them off," he added. "And there are small things, like they speak too loudly."

Earlier this month, long simmering tensions burst into the open when 300 Chinese protesters clashed with the police on the streets. The protesters carried the Chinese flag - for lack, they said, of a more appropriate banner for the rally. Although leaders of the Chinese community have since met with the mayor to try to resolve the issue, resentment is rampant among the Chinese, who feel they have been unfairly targeted, and solutions are still far away.

"They held up the flag because it is a symbol of belonging to something," said Angelo Ou, a local businessman and one of four representatives of the Chinese community who met with city officials to negotiate a truce. Ou noted that the protests had caught the interest of the Chinese government and that Prime Minister Wen Jiabao had reportedly requested a report on the riot and on the situation of the Chinese in Italy.

"In other years, this would have been seen as a minor moment, but it's significant that even Chinese officials addressed what happened," said Daniele Cologna, a sociologist who teaches Chinese at the University of Pavia.

Italian officials have played down the events, explaining that the growth in the wholesale trade in a historic neighborhood of tight-knit streets had necessitated greater control of the area.

"There was no reason to enforce the laws before," said Ricardo de Corato, the deputy mayor of Milan. "That changed over the last four to five years, when retail businesses became wholesale. We're not passing new laws targeting Chinese, we're just enforcing the traffic codes."

He said he was "surprised that within minutes they were on the streets, with flags and megaphones."

"All for a fine," he added, "18 people ended up in the hospital."

Still, Corato said, a new breed of young Chinese immigrant had "upset the equilibrium" in the area, where Chinese and Italians had previously coexisted, "upsetting the unwritten rules of nearly a century."

The new immigrants, he added, "don't learn Italian" and tend to isolate themselves. And criminal gangs of Chinese youth are on the rise, he said.

Ou, the Chinese businessman, said he was perplexed by the government's hardened attitude.

"Just 15 months ago the previous mayor came to Chinatown and gave a dinner for 500, thanking the Chinese for their contribution," he said.

Such conflicts are likely to multiply in Italy and throughout Europe as the number of Chinese immigrants and businesses grow and as Europe's old cultures struggle to absorb and accept them.

Chinese have been moving to Europe, and to Italy, in growing numbers since the 1930s, said Ou, who has a Chinese father and an Italian mother. Then, as now, the vast majority came from the area around Wenzhou, a city on the southeastern coast.

Through the 1990s, the Chinese opened small factories - mostly leather and textile workshops staffed by immigrants - or worked in restaurants. As is the case with Italians who migrated to the United States a century ago, one family member followed another, asking little in the way of public assistance.

"Italy was transformed from an emigration country to an immigration country," said Arturo Lanzani, an expert in urban planning at the Milan Politecnico. "In Via Sarpi in the 1990s, we had a case of cohabitation where the Italian majority well tolerated the immigrant minority, which was mostly Chinese."

But that has changed dramatically in the past five years, Lanzani said. As it became easier for Chinese to leave their homeland, numbers swelled. Officially, the Chinese community in Milan numbers 13,000 in a city of 1.3 million, but some officials say that, including illegal immigrants, it could be nearly double that.

As China has became wealthier and begun to export more and more, Chinese stores here started selling wholesale goods - legal and illegal - that were made cheaply in China. As the immigrants prospered, they began buying up local real estate, paying high prices to Italian landlords and property owners. They often bought small shops that had gone out of business in the face of competition from an influx of supermarket chains and megastores. Consumed with building businesses, the Chinese were neither political not organized.

"The Chinese community, which is very industrious, has better things to do than demonstrate," Cologna said. "It doesn't make itself heard much, which is why the riots made waves."

Protests, he said, "damage their business dealings."

But the city's campaign against the pushcart set off a new type of reaction in the Chinese community. Tired of what they saw as an unfair persecution of their business practices and perhaps emboldened by their financial success and pride in the rise of their country of origin, the Chinese merchants reacted.

"These people on the street are second-generation Chinese who are totally integrated and speak Italian - did you see how they were dressed?" Lanzani asked. "They have an awareness that they haven't abandoned a poor country. They are proud. They are cosmopolitan Chinese with a strong double identity."

Some of the Chinese immigrants said they had no desire to become Italian citizens. Jessica Cheng, a Chinese citizen who was loading large plastic bags of clothes into the back of a station wagon in an alley off Via Sarpi to sell at her suburban store, said she did not want an Italian passport, although she speaks Italian and has lived in Italy for seven years.

"The Chinese one is fine, and then to travel back to China I don't need a visa," said Cheng, 28, who was fashionably dressed in jeans and had streaked purple hair.

In fact, more prosperity and greater ease of travel to and from China have meant that many arrivals in the past 10 years have kept close ties to their homeland. Ou said many businessmen sent their children back to China for language training during summer vacations, and young children are often sent home to be cared for by their grandparents.

Some experts say that the Chinese in Milan have been unfairly singled out by the authorities, who have been considerably more lax with native Italians. When laws are enforced in such an inconsistent manner it becomes a case of discrimination, Lanzani said.

On Via Sarpi last week, Chinese merchants raced clandestinely from stores to cars idling in alleyways, lugging huge plastic bags of clothes because they could no longer use their illegal pushcarts. Meanwhile, in front of one of Via Sarpi's traditional Italian butchers, cars were double-parked, clogging traffic, all with seeming impunity.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/04/26/

europe/italy.1-38752.php

 

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