The dialectics of immigrant “integration” and marginality in industrialising America and post-industrial

Immigration policies in Italy and Spain – even the restrictive policies put in place over the last several years – emphasise the importance of immigrant ‘integration’. At the same time, immi-grants are welcome largely on the grounds that they fill important niches in the labour market, such as low-end jobs in construction, agriculture, and domestic service, that locals shun. This article explores the relationship between immigrants ’ economic function in this southern flank of the European fortress, and their ability to integrate into the host society. Specifically, it argues that it is immigrants ’ ‘otherness ’ that is their calling card – their passport – in these new countries of immigration, and that their full integration into Spanish and Italian societies pre-sumably would spell an end to their utility as ‘others’. Further, it documents the difficulties of integrating those who are legally and economically marginalised and for whom that margi-nality is seen as their chief virtue. The author makes comparisons with ‘Americanisation ’ pro-grammes in industrialising America and suggests that in both cases, the contradiction between the cheap labour of immigrants and the need to integrate them helps explain both the moti-vation for integration efforts and their complications. Sommair