There is an Italy thousands of kilometers from Rome, yet it continues to speak Italian, cook recipes passed down from its grandparents, retain Italian surnames, and consider the Peninsula its homeland.
It is the Italy of South America.
The numbers help us understand the scale of a phenomenon that has no parallel in the world. According to data recently released by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, approximately 1,000 people live in Brazil. 32 million people of Italian origin, while in Argentina they are more than 20 million descendants of Italians.
This means that, considering only these two countries, there are over 52 million people with Italian roots.
Brazil and Argentina, two great Italies across the ocean
Today, Brazil represents what the Farnesina defines as the largest community of Italian descendants in the world.
In addition to the approximately 32 million Brazilians of Italian origin, there are also approximately one million Italian citizensA bond built across more than a century and a half of migration, beginning especially in the second half of the nineteenth century and capable of leaving a profound mark on Brazilian society.
The situation in Argentina is not very different.
Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, during his recent visit to Buenos Aires, spoke of over one million Italian citizens residing in the country and more than 20 million descendants of Italian origin.
Huge numbers, behind which millions of family stories are hidden.
Calabrians, Sicilians, Piedmontese, Venetians, Campanians, Ligurians, Lombards, and citizens from practically every region of Italy crossed the Atlantic between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in search of a better future.
Many of them never returned.
But Italy, somehow, remained with them.
A bond that doesn't just belong to the past
However, it would be a mistake to think of Italian emigration exclusively as a page in history.
Argentina and Brazil continue to have very close relations with Italy, not only culturally but also economically and politically.
Just in the last few days an Italian delegation led by Minister Tajani and accompanied by approximately 100 companies He visited Buenos Aires and Sao Paulo with the aim of further strengthening relations between Italy and the two main economies of South America.
Brazil is already Italy's leading trading partner in South America: in 2025, trade between the two countries exceeded 11 billion euros. In Argentina, however, more than 300 Italian-owned companies.
But behind economic relationships there continues to be something even deeper: people.
Families in which a surname, a recipe, a photograph, or the name of a small Italian town continue to be passed down from one generation to the next.
Descendants and the rediscovery of their origins
In recent years the relationship between Italy and the descendants of emigrants is also taking on new forms, and we know this well, having been at the forefront for years in making our splendid Italy known, especially to the descendants of Italians around the world.
There is growing interest in genealogical research, in Italian citizenship and in the so-called root tourism: journeys that bring children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren of emigrants to the towns from which their ancestors departed.
For many South American families, Italy is not simply a tourist destination.
It is the place of a family history.
It could be a town in Calabria with a few thousand inhabitants, a Sicilian hamlet, a city in Veneto, or a house that no longer exists. Often, the name written on an old certificate is enough to begin a search that spans generations and continents.
And it is precisely here that perhaps the deepest meaning of those 52 million lies.
They don't represent 52 million Italians in a legal sense. Nor do they all maintain the same relationship with their country of origin.
However, they represent a gigantic community of people for whom Italy is part, to varying degrees, of their family history.
A human heritage that connects thousands of Italian municipalities to Buenos Aires, São Paulo and hundreds of other cities in South America.
More than a century after the great emigration, that bridge over the Atlantic still exists.
And today, perhaps more than ever, Italy has the opportunity to rediscover it.
