The Pain of Leaving Home — Italian Emigration and Mental Health

Homesickness, uprooting, depression, and alcoholism in the lives of Italian emigrants

“They crossed the ocean in search of a better life, but they could never entirely leave behind the homeland, the people, and the memories that had shaped their identity.”

Emigration means leaving behind far more than a house, a village, or a country. It means separating from people, familiar customs, memories, and an entire world in which one has always known where one belongs.
For millions of Italians who left their homeland during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this experience was often profoundly difficult. Many departed in conditions of extreme poverty, with little education, limited resources, and no certainty about what awaited them overseas. Some headed for the United States, others for Brazil, Argentina, Canada, Australia, and other destinations across the world.
Their hopes for employment, security, and a better future were accompanied by fear of the unknown, longing for family members, and the emotional burden of abandoning everything familiar.
Today, when we study the great Italian migration, it is not enough to examine passenger lists, ships, destinations, and economic achievements. We must also consider the human consequences of this enormous movement of people: the emotional rupture, the loneliness, and the private suffering that accompanied thousands of men and women as they began their lives in unfamiliar countries.
For Italian Americans and descendants of Italian immigrants throughout the English-speaking world, understanding this emotional dimension adds something essential to the history of their families.

1. Separation and the Experience of Loss

Moving to another country involves a transformation that goes far beyond changing one's address. An emigrant leaves behind a network of human relationships, cultural references, familiar landscapes, and experiences that have helped shape an entire identity.
Family members, neighbors, the parish church, village roads, religious celebrations, local traditions, and even the smallest events of everyday life create an environment in which people feel recognized and protected.
When emigration occurs, much of that familiar world disappears.
The newcomer must rebuild a life somewhere else, establish new relationships, and learn to understand a society whose language, customs, and expectations may be entirely unfamiliar.
Even when material conditions improve, feelings of loneliness, displacement, and loss of belonging may remain.
Homesickness is one of the most recognizable expressions of this suffering. Yet it is not simply the absence of loved ones. It also involves missing a language, a landscape, a particular way of life, and a cultural identity developed over generations.
For many Italian emigrants, America represented an opportunity to escape poverty. But leaving also meant abandoning an important part of their personal history.
The wider historical background of this experience can be explored in the Portal's article When Veneto Came to Brazil — The Story Behind a Venetian Migration, which also helps descendants understand how the homeland continued to survive in family traditions after emigration.

2. The Great Italian Migration and the Difficulties of Departure

The great Italian migration of the nineteenth century was driven by a combination of economic, social, and demographic circumstances. Rural poverty, limited access to land, low agricultural incomes, unemployment, and the economic transformations following Italian unification encouraged millions of people to leave.
In Veneto, Friuli, Lombardy, and other parts of northern Italy, numerous families lived under extremely difficult conditions. Land, when available, was often insufficient to support an entire household. Agricultural labor was demanding, earnings were modest, and opportunities for the younger generations were limited.
Emigration gradually became an alternative to a future marked by uncertainty and poverty.
However, leaving required enormous sacrifices. Some families sold their few possessions, saved money for years, or borrowed funds to pay for passage. Others benefited from subsidized immigration programs offered by countries seeking agricultural and industrial workers, including Brazil.
The Atlantic crossing could be long and exhausting. Overcrowding, inadequate food, poor sanitation, and disease made the voyage physically demanding and emotionally distressing.
Farewells were particularly painful. Parents left children, husbands separated from wives, and brothers and sisters followed different destinations. Some separations were intended to be temporary. Others became permanent.
The difficulties of departure and the uncertainty surrounding the voyage are explored in The Promise of a New World — Italian Immigration to Brazil, a historical narrative that brings the human experience of crossing the Atlantic closer to the reader.

3. Arriving in a World Different from the One They Had Imagined

Reaching the destination did not necessarily mean finding the opportunities emigrants had expected.
Many had received optimistic accounts of life overseas. Recruitment agents, intermediaries, and returning emigrants sometimes described the Americas as places of extraordinary abundance, where employment, fertile land, and prosperity awaited those willing to work.
The reality was often considerably more complicated.
In the United States, Italians found employment in factories, mines, construction, railroads, agriculture, and urban services. Many settled in crowded immigrant neighborhoods, where they gradually established businesses, churches, associations, and communities.
In Brazil, numerous Italians were directed to coffee plantations in São Paulo and Espírito Santo, while others settled in agricultural colonies in Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina, and Paraná.
On plantations, some experienced difficult labor arrangements, debts, insufficient wages, and inadequate housing. In the southern colonies, isolation, forest clearing, road construction, the building of homes, and limited medical assistance created other serious challenges.
Language was another major obstacle. Many emigrants from Veneto did not speak standard Italian at home. They communicated through local Venetian varieties that could differ considerably from one another. Upon arrival, they had to learn Portuguese, English, Spanish, or another language, often without having received much formal schooling.
Discrimination and prejudice could further intensify their sense of exclusion.
Under such circumstances, frustration, insecurity, and the feeling of not belonging could affect emotional well-being. The distance between the promises of emigration and the conditions actually encountered was sometimes enormous.
The Portal's article Italians in the Coffee Fields and the Land — The Venetian Immigration to São Paulo and Southern Brazil examines some of the economic and social realities encountered by Italian families in Brazil.

4. Depression Among Italian Emigrants

Depression is a mental health condition that can affect people of different ages, cultures, and social backgrounds. It may involve persistent sadness, loss of interest or pleasure, hopelessness, changes in sleep and appetite, fatigue, difficulty concentrating, and other emotional and physical symptoms that interfere with everyday life.
Depression should not be confused with temporary sadness or the natural homesickness experienced by someone who has left home. It is a clinical condition that requires appropriate assessment, particularly when symptoms persist and affect daily functioning.
Among nineteenth-century Italian emigrants, several circumstances could have contributed to psychological distress: family separation, poverty, isolation, difficult working conditions, economic insecurity, and the challenges of adapting to a different culture.
Historical caution is essential, however. We do not possess sufficient clinical information to diagnose depression retrospectively in particular emigrants. We can identify circumstances that may have contributed to emotional suffering, but assigning individual medical diagnoses without appropriate documentation would be historically irresponsible.
At that time, medical understanding of depressive disorders was limited. Emotional distress was often interpreted in different ways, and access to specialized care was extremely restricted, particularly in rural communities.
Many individuals probably endured their difficulties without receiving specific assistance.
The absence of treatment did not mean the absence of suffering. It often meant that people had to continue working and supporting their families despite emotional difficulties that remained unrecognized.

5. Loneliness and Longing for Family

One of the most difficult aspects of emigration was separation from relatives who had remained in Italy.
In an age before telephones, the internet, and instant communication, contact depended primarily on letters. Correspondence could take weeks or even months to reach its destination. In remote settlements, transportation and postal difficulties could make communication even slower.
A letter meant much more than a piece of news. It was a connection to the world left behind.
Families waited for information about the health of parents, the growth of children, marriages, deaths, and everyday events in the village. Emigrants tried to describe their work, housing, and prospects for a better life.
The absence of an answer could cause enormous anxiety. An illness or death in the family might remain unknown for months.
Some emigrants spent years without seeing their parents or siblings again. Others never returned to Italy.
Such prolonged separation created a particularly difficult emotional experience. People had to establish new relationships while knowing that the bonds they had left behind could never be entirely replaced.
For many families, old letters remain among the most valuable surviving records of this experience. They preserve not only dates and names, but also fragments of affection, anxiety, hope, and everyday life.

6. Alcoholism as an Attempt to Relieve Emotional Suffering

Another issue deserving attention is the relationship between emotional distress and excessive alcohol consumption.
Under certain circumstances, people experiencing persistent sadness, anxiety, loneliness, or difficulties adapting to a new environment may turn to alcohol in an attempt to temporarily relieve their feelings.
The initial effects of alcohol can produce a temporary sensation of relaxation or reduced inhibition. However, frequent and excessive consumption can worsen emotional problems, disrupt sleep, damage family relationships, and increase the risk of developing or intensifying depressive symptoms.
The relationship between depression and alcohol dependence is complex. Depression may contribute to problematic drinking, while alcohol dependence can also contribute to the development or worsening of depressive symptoms. The two conditions may reinforce one another, making appropriate care and treatment important.
In the context of Italian immigration, it is understandable that loneliness, economic frustration, and separation from family could have increased the risk of excessive drinking in some individuals.
Nevertheless, this experience should never be generalized to the entire immigrant community. Alcohol consumption was also part of certain social and cultural practices of the period. Its presence alone does not establish addiction or depression.
Alcohol use disorder is a health condition, not a moral failing or a lack of character. It deserves understanding, professional attention, and appropriate treatment.

7. How Emigrants Found Ways to Cope

Despite the limited medical resources available at the time, emigrants developed different ways of facing their emotional difficulties.
Religion played an important role in the lives of many Italian families. Church services, prayer, religious celebrations, and contact with members of the community offered comfort and a sense of continuity with the homeland.
Music, traditional celebrations, family gatherings, and familiar customs also helped recreate an atmosphere of belonging.
Solidarity among people from the same village or region was another essential element. In Brazilian agricultural colonies, neighbors often shared tools, food, labor, and practical knowledge. Similar networks developed in Italian-American communities, where newcomers frequently relied on relatives and fellow countrymen to find employment, housing, and assistance.
Italian associations, mutual-aid societies, and religious institutions helped establish networks of support.
Work itself provided structure and purpose. For many emigrants, building a house, acquiring a small farm, establishing a business, or providing education for their children represented a way of transforming the suffering of departure into a concrete achievement.
These forms of support could not replace medical treatment when it was necessary, but they often provided valuable emotional and social assistance in a period when specialized services were largely inaccessible to ordinary working families.

8. How the Treatment of Depression and Alcohol Dependence Has Changed

Today, medicine and psychology possess considerably more advanced knowledge of mental health conditions and their treatment.
The treatment of depression may involve psychotherapy, antidepressant medication, and other interventions, depending on the severity of symptoms and the needs of the individual.
Modern antidepressant medications began to emerge in the 1950s, marking an important stage in the development of psychiatric treatment. Scientific research has advanced considerably since then.
Psychotherapy has also developed, offering different approaches that help individuals understand their thoughts, emotions, and behaviors while developing strategies for dealing with difficult circumstances.
The treatment of alcohol dependence may include psychological interventions, medical supervision, support groups, and medication when appropriate.
Family participation and supportive social relationships can also contribute significantly to recovery.
It is essential to recognize that depression and alcohol dependence are health conditions deserving professional attention. They should never be treated as moral weaknesses or problems that can necessarily be overcome through willpower alone.

9. The Ability to Rebuild a Life

Despite the difficulties, millions of Italian emigrants managed to overcome at least some of their initial challenges and establish new lives in their countries of destination.
They built homes, raised families, developed businesses and farms, founded associations, and contributed to the economic and cultural development of the societies that received them.
In Brazil, particularly in the Italian settlement areas of the South, the reconstruction of community life was accompanied by the preservation of customs, religious traditions, cuisine, and forms of speech that survived across generations.
In the United States and other countries, Italian immigrants likewise created neighborhoods and institutions where their cultural heritage could be maintained while new generations adapted to their adopted countries.
Adaptation did not necessarily mean abandoning an earlier identity. Many immigrants learned to live between two worlds, preserving emotional and cultural ties with Italy while building a new identity in America or elsewhere.
New relationships, the birth of children, improved material conditions, and participation in community life helped many find renewed reasons to continue.
This does not mean that everyone overcame hardship in the same way. Some prospered relatively quickly, others remained in difficult circumstances, and many carried homesickness throughout their lives.
The immigrant experience was deeply individual, even when shared by millions.

10. The Memory of Emigrants and the Value of Family Letters

The history of emigration did not end when ships reached the ports of their destinations. The experiences of earlier generations continued to live within families, passed down through stories, photographs, letters, documents, and traditions.
Many descendants grew up hearing accounts of poverty in Italy, the long voyage, the difficulties encountered overseas, and the sacrifices made by parents and grandparents.
These memories help explain values that remained important in countless families of Italian descent: hard work, family unity, thrift, faith, solidarity, and concern for the future of the children.
Genealogical research can deepen this understanding. Discovering an ancestor's village of origin, locating a passenger record, or recovering an old family letter can transform a fragmented family story into a much clearer historical journey.
For descendants researching their Italian ancestry, old correspondence may be particularly revealing. A letter can preserve details that official documents rarely record: the emotional state of a parent, the worries of a brother, the difficulties of daily life, or the hope that a family might one day be reunited.
The Portal's article The Crossing of Bartolomeo Viglietti — An Italian Immigrant Story offers another perspective on the personal experience of departure, separation, and the gradual reconstruction of family life in a new country.
Immigrants were not simply people who left in search of economic opportunities. They were individuals who had to confront loss, fear, and uncertainty while trying to build a future for themselves and their descendants.

Final Reflections — The Human Cost of Leaving Home

Emigration represents a profound transformation in human life. For Italians who left their homeland during the great migration of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, departure meant facing not only a long ocean crossing but also an emotional separation from the world in which they had been born and raised.
Poverty, insecurity, family separation, loneliness, and the difficulties of cultural adaptation could produce significant psychological distress. Under certain circumstances, these factors may have contributed to depression, alcohol-related problems, and other health difficulties.
At that time, medical knowledge was limited, and specialized treatment was practically inaccessible to much of the immigrant population. Many people had to face their difficulties with the resources available to them, relying on family, religion, work, and community solidarity.
Nevertheless, an extraordinary number managed to rebuild their lives, establish new families, and leave a legacy that remains alive in the societies that welcomed them.
When we research the history of our Italian ancestors today, we should seek to understand more than where they came from, which ships they traveled on, and where they eventually settled. We should also try, with historical sensitivity and respect, to understand the human difficulties that accompanied their decisions.
Every emigrant carried a story that could never fit inside a suitcase.
They crossed the ocean in search of a better life, but they could never entirely leave behind the homeland, the people, and the memories that had shaped their identity.

Author’s Note

Over many years devoted to the history of Italian emigration and to contact with thousands of descendants, I have come to recognize a dimension of this great human experience that deserves particular attention: the suffering that accompanied the decision to leave.
We are accustomed to remembering immigrants through their achievements, their work, and their contribution to the development of communities throughout the world. These are essential aspects of their history. Yet we must not forget that before becoming pioneers, entrepreneurs, farmers, and builders of new societies, they were men and women who had to confront uncertainty, homesickness, and the pain of separation.
I believe that understanding our ancestors requires more than collecting names, dates, and documents. It requires an effort to understand the circumstances in which they lived, the difficulties they encountered, and the emotions that accompanied their choices.
This is also why preserving the memory of the great Italian migration is so important to me. Every family story recovered offers an opportunity to restore the human dimension to people who, for too long, appeared merely as numbers in migration statistics.
The memory of emigrants deserves to be preserved in its entirety: in the achievements they accomplished, the hardships they endured, and the affections they could never leave behind.

Dr. Luiz Carlos B. Piazzetta
Author and researcher of Italian immigration and family history
Portal Emigrazione Veneta