All photographs, on cover and in text, courtesy of Gia Marie Amella and Beppe Mangione of Modio Media
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“A former farmer reflects on returning to his native Sicilian village, the effects of emigration, and the abandonment of the land”
When I lived in Palermo, I often traveled to my grandfather’s village of San Biagio Platani, about an hour’s drive north of Agrigento. Sicily’s deep interior is scattered with small towns connected by curved narrow roads. As you move into higher altitudes, layers of craggy mountains magnify the interior’s remoteness. The Sicani originated from here, a pre-Hellenic people who protected their land and livestock from invaders with warrior-like fierceness. San Biagio’s renowned for its sumptuously decorated Easter arches erected and embellished by hand using natural materials. It’s one of the few times of the year that the town’s population swells with returning natives who’ve traveled from abroad to take part in the festivities. Once there, they’re swept up in that indescribable sense of belonging that comes from seeing familiar faces on the street, and one’s mountains again. In summer of 1999, I interviewed Nino Alba, who was introduced to me by a cousin and had moved back to San Biagio after spending a number of years abroad. Quick-witted, opinionated, he talked about growing up in a village that’s lost a good part of its population to emigration, similar to countless Italian villages and towns that even today are being impacted by depopulation. Alba had always worked in farming alongside his parents. When agriculture became less economically viable, he followed countless sambiagesi and found steady work abroad. It’s been over a quarter of a century since Alba and I met up on the outskirts of town where he owned a plot of land that he still cultivated. Before the August heat settled in, he drew a portrait of a once thriving village in distress, the demise of agriculture as a viable livelihood, and how children of immigrants resisted returning to a town that offered few amusements except a visit to one of the few coffee bars left. What he shares here feels equally relevant to the current situation in Italy: young Italians who continue to move abroad for better opportunities, emptied towns that grow emptier, and the psychological weight of leaving one’s native land behind.
This translated interview has been shortened and edited for clarity.
Gia Marie Amella: What was life once like in San Biagio Platani compared to today?
Nino Alba: Life was different because everyone was here in San Biagio Platani. In other words, there was no emigration and families were much closer. This is the reality that existed once upon a time. Everyone worked in the countryside and there was a lot more familiarity. Today, everyone has emigrated and the problems are different. Everyone tries to work for themselves. They no longer live off agriculture. Everyone tries to go abroad to bring home a piece of bread. In the past, bread came from the countryside. Now, it comes from the city, from Germany, France, England, the United States. As you’ve noted, agriculture has been completely abandoned. Very few plots of land are cultivated. So, people are leaving and moving abroad for work because here in Sicily, nothing has changed. We change, but nothing else does.
GMA: What was your childhood like and how have things changed?
NA: My childhood revolved around farming. As youngster, all of my friends worked in the fields. Many friends and peers now live abroad and only visit during vacation so we see each other once a year. Right now, it’s August and the town is full of people. In a week’s time, there will be no one left, not even in the town square. What does this mean? That there’s no work and people are leaving. I was luckier because I found a job in this part of Sicily. [People who left] are considered Italians abroad, immigrants. When they are back to visit San Biagio, even we see them as immigrants. There’s always been emigration to Germany and France. When they return to San Biagio they can’t find running water, a basic necessity. After a few weeks of being here, everyone wants to leave because, as I said earlier, compared to other countries, we are still 50, 60 years behind the times.
GMA: How does daily life unfold in a small town?
NA: What we we used to do regularly was go to the movies. Then the cinema disappeared and we found ourselves watching television. First, there was the cinema then came television. It’s not like there are other activities in San Biagio. They don’t exist. There’s no theater. You have to go to Palermo to see a show. In the evening, you meet up with friends at the bar to have a coffee or drink a beer and then say good night. The next evening, it’s the same thing. Unfortunately, this is life.
GMA: How did your parents earn their living?
NA: My parents were well off and owned property. My father farmed and so did my mother. We lived off agriculture because there’s no industry here. There never has been and there still isn’t any. We worked the wheat harvest, cultivated olives, pistachios, almonds. Compared to others, I consider myself one of the lucky ones because I worked for myself. For the past 20 years, I have worked in a factory under the watch of others. But up until the age of 30, I was my own boss, working in agriculture.
GMA: What are the biggest changes to farming that you have seen?
NA: In the past, human hands worked the land. Today, agriculture is mechanized with threshers and tractors, whereas before, all this work was done by people. Where we are now, there were several families who lived here year-round and worked the land for the local feudal lord, a count. For just one person. Agriculture’s evolved over time. Today, hands no longer work the land, machine’s do. This is evolution. It’s agriculture that’s going backwards because there’s no one to tend to the land. It doesn’t exist and this land is destined to disappear. We’re living like we did in the early 1960s. The situation is getting worse because there are no people.
GMA: You spent some decades working abroad? What was that experience like?
NA: When I emigrated to France, it was a different world. In the 1960s, nobody even knew what canned meat was. When we worked on a construction site in France, the French workers ate in a restaurant. To save a penny, we ate at the construction site. After emigration began, evolution began. Money from Germany, France, and England started pouring not only into San Biagio but into many towns in Sicily. The Sicilians achieved some prosperity. If you saw San Biagio in the past, where were all these new houses? In the old city center, people were living in two square meters that doubled as animal stalls, bedroom, dining and living room — all in one room. All this change has been happening over the past 30 years. Before then, we lived like animals.
My own family lived reasonably well. My father owned 7 or 8 hectares of land where he cultivated pistachios and olives. He kept a dignified home, was respectful to others. He didn’t have a big home. At the time, his thinking was to always purchase land because bread came from the land. There was no ambition to say, “I’m going to build myself a nice house.” The ambition was to say, “I’ll buy a piece of land because with land I can feed my children.” Things began to change after the mid-1960s. It’s not like my generation is filled with dull-witted people. They built San Biagio with money that they earned abroad. All this new construction that you see isn’t money from here. It’s money that people earned abroad. And these are people who once couldn’t afford to buy a pack of cigarettes.
GMA: How do their offspring, perhaps born and raised abroad, see San Biagio?
NA: Their children no longer come to visit. They go to Rimini on vacation. Why? Because they’re used to a different mentality. While people from my generation try to return for a month every year, their children don’t because they’ve lived with a different mindset. Up until about 25 years ago, San Biagio had no middle school. Those who could study were the landowners’ children even if they weren’t the brightest bulbs on the tree. Then you had kids whose parents didn’t have the means to send them to school who turned out to be very intelligent people. They were working in the fields at 7 or 8 years old. Many were illiterate. I myself only finished fifth grade. This is the story of San Biagio and the South.
Now of course, people complain: “Times were better back than they are today.” Better today! People have the opportunity to leave and stand up for themselves and before they had no chance to do that. People who had in their mind to do something and had intelligence to do it, did that. Today, you see their children becoming lawyers, engineers, doctors. It’s clear now why the people who ran this fiefdom had the chance to do so many things while those with intelligence might have stayed put because they lacked opportunity. Thankfully, this situation no longer exists because the state gives every child a chance to study. Those still alive from the previous generation sometimes say that we’re all made equal. Li munnizzara fiurieru, li jardina siccaru, meaning garbage has flourished and the gardens have dried up. In other words, people who were once well-off have wilted. They were in charge and accomplished what they wanted. They can’t afford to do that anymore because times have changed.
GMA: What’s your view on Sicily achieving greater economic stability at the close of the 20th century?
NA: Because Southern Sicily is only focused on tourism and tourism development, why bring a factory to San Biagio when transporting goods to Milan is too expensive? We don’t have roads. From San Biagio to Palermo, it takes two and a half hours to get to the airport. Palermo to Rome by plane takes half an hour. There’s no airport near Agrigento so if we set up a business in San Biagio, we have to sell to Milan at cost price. But, we have the sun and fresh air in Sicily, the sea and the mountains. We have everything, but it’s still undeveloped. First off, you won’t find anything like this anywhere else in the world. You can go anywhere but you always want to return. You see people who leave saying they’ll never come back. When a person emigrates, when they retire, or go to live in Rome, Palermo, or Milan, they always want to return to their hometown. This is a land that attracts you and draws you in.
My daughter-in-law’s uncle lives in Milan. He has a married son and another who’s getting married. He returns to San Biagio three times a year. When he comes here, he feels free. He sure isn’t going to say, “I’ll never go back to Sicily.” Maybe it’s in our character as Southerners, as Sicilians, even if they’re in America. Wherever they go, they always want to come back. We’re not Northerners. We’re different from Northerners. We’re attached to the land. They’re not traditionalists like we are and there’s nothing we can do about it. It’s in our roots.
GMA: What’s your opinion on how Sicilians are seen by others?
NA: When emigration to the U.S. began at the start of the century, Sicily was a land of banditry. Many people lived like that because they had nothing to eat. They stole to survive. What did they steal? Sheep to feed their families. People who emigrated to the North or to America had nothing. Once abroad, they found themselves faced with a wealth of things. They made space for themselves because wherever Sicilians goes, they carve out a space for themselves in one way or another. That’s our mentality, entering into indeterminate situations. (Alba pauses). It’s not a trivial question.
GMA: With the world rapidly evolving how can Sicily maintain its traditions?
NA: Our traditions will remain. They may change, but they’ll remain. Take Saint Joseph’s Day for example. As children, we used to wait with anticipation for the feast because there was one stall that sold certain items we liked. We maintain our traditions and pass them on to our children. And our children still hold onto them. Evolution happens, life may change and improve, but we’re still attached to our traditions.
A seasoned writer, producer and director of award-winning branded content and long-form documentaries that have been seen globally, Gia Marie Amella also writes for print and online publications about hidden and endangered traditions, Italy’s less-explored corners, and sustainability in its many forms. Her words have appeared in CNN, National Geographic, Green Living Magazine, Bellissimo, The Italian American Review, and The Dreaming Machine. Supported by a Fulbright grant, she spent a year documenting popular traditions and rural and urban life in Sicily. In 2026, she’ll co-teach a video laboratory as part of an E.U.-funded initiative to revitalize abandoned villages across Italy. A Chicago native, she lives in Tuscany’s spectacular Valdarno with her spouse and rescue cat. Read more of her writings on her personal website.
