ITALIANS AROUND THE WORLD
Studying migration to understand today’s connections
The great migrations do not belong only to the past. They live on in languages, family memories, communities, and the relationships that new generations build with Italy.
Giorgia Miazzo studies and shares this heritage through research, books, encounters, travel, and public outreach, following the paths of Italians across Europe and, above all, the Americas.
MEMORY · NEW CONNECTIONS
The great migrations as living heritage
Giorgia Miazzo is a linguist, author, and researcher specializing in Italian migration. She chairs the Centro Studi Grandi Migrazioni APS, and her work focuses on the tangible and intangible heritage of Italian communities around the world.
FIELD RESEARCH
Meeting communities
Schools, universities, associations, and institutions become places where stories of departure, linguistic change, and new forms of belonging can be reconstructed. Her work spans Europe and the Americas, with a particular focus on Latin America and Brazil.
BOOKS AND MEDIA
Telling the story of a changing geography
In 2026, Migrazioni italiane in Europa expanded the research to Belgium, France, Switzerland, and Germany. On GEO, broadcast by Rai 3, Miazzo has also explored the United States, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, and Canada.
NETWORKS AND COMMUNITIES
A window onto the present
Since August 2026, Giorgia Miazzo has served on the Consulta dei Veneti nel mondo, representing the Research Center: another vantage point for observing associations, communities, and new generations of Italian heritage.
Why this matters to Abruzzo Connections
Her work helps us understand how communities shaped by migration continue to evolve. Memory is more than an inheritance: it can foster curiosity, dialogue, knowledge, and new relationships with places across Italy.
From Memory to New Connections: Three Questions for Giorgia Miazzo
Language, participation, and professional networks: in their relationship with Italy, younger generations are also looking for opportunities to feel part of its present. We spoke with Giorgia Miazzo, linguist, author, and president of Centro Studi Grandi Migrazioni APS.
What are younger generations of people with Italian heritage looking for in their relationship with Italy today?
Today, younger generations are no longer looking for a purely nostalgic connection, but for a dynamic, contemporary identity. There is strong interest in learning Italian, exploring their roots through travel, and discovering the small towns their ancestors left, as well as in building professional networks.
People with Italian heritage want to feel part of today’s Italy through art, food, and innovation, rather than simply serving as guardians of the past.
In your work in Brazil, what role have you seen young people take on?
In the states of Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina, Paraná, and Espírito Santo, I have seen young people reclaim their history by bringing their ancestors’ culture together with digital technologies.
They did more than listen to their grandparents’ stories: they digitized them, mapped them, and shared them on social media, becoming active participants. Giving their creativity room to flourish is the key to sparking pride and encouraging a fresh, contemporary transition to the next generation.
What first step do you envision for Abruzzo Connections? And where can digital tools help?
A first step could be an online initiative that allows young people abroad to virtually “adopt” a small town in Abruzzo, discovering its history through the voices of the people who live there today.
Digital tools can provide an initial bridge: they overcome distance, help build networks, and make archives of shared memory accessible and easy to share.
The emotional experience of returning, however, comes from experiencing the place itself: meeting the community, enjoying its food, and connecting with people in the places of one’s origins. Digital tools lay the groundwork for that in-person encounter and those relationships, which can motivate young people to get to know their “adopted” town.
Email interview, October 2026. The responses were edited and approved by Giorgia Miazzo in Italian. This is an English translation of the approved Italian text.
Virtually adopting small towns is an idea proposed by Giorgia, not a project approved, funded, or already launched by Abruzzo Connections.
THREE READING PATHS
Exploring her work through books
A selection of three publications offering an accessible way into the places and themes explored by Giorgia Miazzo.
Migrazioni italiane in America Latina
Giorgia Miazzo
Editoriale Programma, 2023
From Mexico to Argentina, a journey through departures, settlement, and transformation that helped reshape the New World.
La Mèrica degli Italiani
Giorgia Miazzo
Biblos, 2023
The great migrations to the United States and Canada, explored through communities, identity, language, stereotypes, and new forms of belonging.
Italiani nel Mondo
Giorgia Miazzo and Gianluca Parise
ALMA Edizioni, 2025
A Grand Tour of Italian heritage across five continents, through migration routes, cities, personal accounts, and the cultural heritage of Italian communities.
FROM MEMORY TO CONNECTION
Communities change. The bond continues.
Studying the great migrations also means understanding how the communities created by those departures continue to evolve. Today, new generations, associations, professionals, and families sustain relationships with Italy that are very different from those of a century ago.
This is the same space of connection that Abruzzo Connections explores through the lens of Abruzzo: starting from memory to build contemporary relationships between the region and communities around the world.
Research, outreach, community
Giorgia Miazzo’s work shows how migration memory can help us understand the present: changing languages, evolving identities, and networks that keep relationships between people and places alive.
This is an independent editorial feature. It does not imply a partnership, endorsement, or formal support by Giorgia Miazzo or the Centro Studi Grandi Migrazioni for Abruzzo Connections.
SOURCES
The interview features a direct contribution from Giorgia Miazzo, whose responses were edited and approved by her in Italian in October 2026. The profile and background sections also draw on publicly available sources, including:
Centro Studi Grandi Migrazioni — the Center and its mission
Centro Studi Grandi Migrazioni — publications
RaiPlay — GEO: “Grandi migrazioni italiane: Canada,” February 26, 2026
Regione del Veneto — appointment of the Consulta dei Veneti nel mondo, August 19, 2026
Images
Giorgia Miazzo — photo provided by the interviewee.
Opening image: panoramic view of Rio de Janeiro with Christ the Redeemer and Sugarloaf Mountain. Image selected through Beautiful.ai.
Second image: European immigrants in the courtyard of the Hospedaria dos Imigrantes, São Paulo, circa 1890. Photo by Guilherme Gaensly. Source: Fundação Patrimônio da Energia de São Paulo – Memorial do Imigrante / Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain Mark 1.0.
Updates or corrections to the biographical information may be sent to Abruzzo Connections.
ROOTS AND RELATIONSHIPS
Roots continue to create connections
Discover more stories and voices that keep the relationship between Abruzzo and Italian-heritage communities around the world alive.
ABRUZZO CONNECTIONS
From Roots to Relationships
A digital space to connect Abruzzo, Abruzzese communities around the world, stories, territories, experiences, and local know-how.
QUICK LINKS
THE PROJECT
Abruzzo Connections was created as part of the “Radici che Uniscono” project, promoted by the Association of Abruzzese People in Paraguay and carried out with the support of CRAM – Regional Council of Abruzzese Communities Abroad / Abruzzo Region. CUP: C74H25000280009.
Photo credits: Marco Cirulli, Daniele Mauro, Angelo Ninni, Onayer Rosa Garrido, and Giampaolo Di Biase
© 2026 Associazione degli Abruzzesi in Paraguay — Abruzzo Connections.
All rights reserved, except for materials credited to their respective authors and rights holders.
All rights reserved, except for materials credited to their respective authors and rights holders.