Chinese Arrived, And Italy Shifted
PRATO, Italy — Like everyone in her family and most of the people in the factories where she labored in this town nurtured by the textile trade, Roberta Travaglini counted herself as an unwavering supporter of the political left.
As a child, her father brought her to Communist Party rallies full of music, dancing and fiery speeches championing workers. When she turned 18, she took a job at a textile mill and voted for the party herself.
But that was before everything changed — before China emerged as a textile powerhouse, undercutting local businesses; before she and her co-workers lost their jobs; before she found herself, a mother of two grown boys, living off her retired parents; before Chinese immigrants arrived in Prato, leasing shuttered textile mills and stitching clothing all hours of the night.
In last year’s national elections, Ms. Travaglini, 61, cast her vote for the League, an extreme right-wing party whose leader, Matteo Salvini, offered a solution to Italy’s travails: Close the borders.
Denigrating Islam, and warning of an “invasion” that threatened Italians with “ethnic cleansing,” he vowed to bar boats bringing miAt
grants from North Africa. He presented himself as a nationalist who would rescue the dispossessed from the Italian left, long since metamorphosed into a distant elite.
To Ms. Travaglini’s ear, Mr. Salvini was speaking to people like her, and offering a coherent explanation for what had happened to their lives: Shadowy global forces and morally reprobate immigrants had stolen their Italian birthright — the promise of a comfortable life.
“We are in the hands of the world elites that want to keep us poorer and poorer,” Ms. Travaglini said.
The rise of the League — now exiled from the government, yet poised to lead whenever national elections are next held — is typically explained by public rage over immigration. This is clearly a major factor. But the foundations of the shift were laid decades ago, as textile towns like Prato found themselves upended by global economic forces, and by competition from a rapidly evolving China.
Italy has proved especially vulnerable to competition from China, given that many of its artisanal trades — textiles, leather, shoemaking — have long been dominated by small, family-run operations lacking the scale to compete with factories in a nation of 1.4 billion people. Four Italian regions — Tuscany, Umbria, Marche and Emilia-Romagna — that were electing Communists and then supporting center-left candidates in the 1980s have in recent years swung toward the extreme right.
Italy’s official unemployment rate has exceeded 10 percent for most of the last decade. High public debt combined with European rules limiting deficits have prevented the government from spending to promote growth. Banks choked with bad loans are not lending. The population is aging, tax evasion is rampant, and talented young people are leaving.
“When people do not feel secure economically, they cannot stand the fact that guarantees are given to people who come from abroad,” said Mauro Lucentini, a League member who holds a seat on the council in Montegranaro.
The reasons for his community’s troubles are many, Mr. Lucentini conceded. Still, he maintained, the League is correct to focus on halting immigration as a solution to economic troubles, along with lowering taxes.
“We can’t help the last person in Africa and not help our neighbor,” he said.
As long ago as the 12th century, people were making fabric in Prato. The modern boom came after World War II, as people poured into the city to work in the mills. Textile operations stayed small and specialized, so they could pivot quickly to satisfy changing fashion tastes. Entrepreneurs watched runway models wearing their creations on catwalks in Paris and Milan.
“We lived in a place where everything had been good for 40 years,” said Edoardo Nesi, who ran the factory started by his grandfather. “Nobody was afraid of the future.”
In retrospect, they should have been. By the 1990s, the Germans were buying cheaper fabrics woven in Bulgaria and Romania. Then, they shifted their sights to China. The German customers felt pressure to find savings because enormous new retailers — like Zara and H&M — were carving into their businesses.
Chinese factories were buying the same German-made machinery used by the mills in Prato. They were hiring Italian consultants who were instructing them on the modern arts of the trade.
Some companies adapted by elevating their quality. One mill, Marini, followed brands as they gravitated to China, shipping its fabric there.
From 2001 to 2011, Prato’s 6,000 textile companies became 3,000, as those employed in the industry dropped to 19,000 from 40,000, according to Confindustria, an Italian trade association.
As Prato’s factories went dark, Chinese began arriving to exploit an opportunity.
Most were from Wenzhou, a city famed for its entrepreneurial spirit. They took over failed workshops and built new factories. They imported fabric from China. They imitated the styles of Italian fashion brands, while affixing a valuable label to their creations — “Made in Italy.”
Today, more than a tenth of the city’s 200,000 inhabitants are Chinese immigrants here legally, plus, by varying estimates, perhaps 15,000 who lack proper documents.
“I don’t think it’s fair that they come to take jobs away from Italians,” said Ms. Travaglini, who has survived by fixing clothes for neighbors. “There are no jobs, not even for young people.”
Chinese-owned factories have jobs, she acknowledged, but she will not apply. “That’s all Chinese people,” she said. “I don’t feel at ease.”
She insisted that Italy is for Italians — a term that can never be extended to Chinese people, not even to Italian-born Chinese people. “They are Italianized,” she said, “but they are still not Italian.”
Within the Chinese community, people protest that their contributions to the local economy are dismissed.
“These warehouses were empty before Chinese people came,” said Marco Weng, 20, whose parents arrived from China three decades ago. “Chinese people didn’t take jobs. We have created jobs.”
Marco Hong, 23, a second-generation Chinese Italian, oversees production at the clothing company started by his parents. It buys fabric from Prato mills, sewing clothes that land on shelves in Spain and Germany. Some 35 people work at the factory, roughly half of them Italians.
“People who know the sector know that work has increased since the Chinese arrived,” Mr. Hong said.
What Ms. Travaglini knows is downward mobility. She buys groceries with cash from her parents. She can no longer afford to shop at the city’s clothing boutiques. Recently, she went to a Chinese-run outlet and surveyed the inventory, much of it made in Prato by Chinese companies.
“They are pretty things,” she said, “and they are not too expensive.”
“These warehouses were empty before Chinese people came. Chinese people didn’t take jobs. We have created jobs.”
MARCO WENG
Son of Chinese migrants who moved to Italy 30 years ago