Asmara and Carrara through the Ages, the Burden of the Past, the Promise of the Future

In the early 1930s, Silvio Fruzzetti leaves Carrara like many Italians in search of work heading to the colonies. He emigrates to Eritrea which at that time was already a rapidly developing colony with its capital Asmara, in its later phase of expansion, in industrial, residential, and communication by roads, a railway linking the major towns in the different regions of the country. There were employment opportunities especially in the roads been built to join towns and villages. The society he finds is divided between Italians and the local people who far outnumber the colonizers. The port city of Massawa is also linked by train to move goods to Asmara and beyond. There is a significant Italian presence in all the major country towns with their own local administrative setup linked to the capital city. Up to the introduction of Mussolini’s racial laws, Italians freely intermarry local women but all along enter common-law alliances and establish families. Chapter four extends the family discussions of the previous chapters to include the younger generations, grandchildren of Silvio and Lucia in Carrara and Asmara. It also explores the history and experiences of the extended family members in Europe children of Lucia’s elder brothers Berhane and Mehari, the former living in Sweden and the latter in Germany. In Carrara, we include the descendants of Silvio’s Italian family, as well as his sister Maria’s and brother Andrea’s. The substance of these conversations goes beyond family matters and dispositions to embrace the contexts of local history as well as reflections on the world beyond the locality. There are generational differences in the definitions and meaning and value of family, relatives, friends, and workplace relationships.

Here we create the widest context for the families previously discussed to include the relation to politics, history, and nationalism. Some of the contents come from the recorded interviews in family members' own words, but there are also interviews with local historians, politicians, artists, workers, miners. In addition, the carefully chosen linked sources range far beyond to include existing and found archival and library materials in Italy as well as Asmara. There are links to other primary and secondary print sources and commented bibliographies relating to colonialism, imperialism before WW2, in Italian and English materials gleaned from diasporas, recent revisionist as well as radical/progressive histories.