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THE American actor Richard Gere is one among several wit- nesses scheduled to testify at the high-profile trial of the Italian politician Matteo Salvini, Italy's former interior minister. Salvini is facing charges of kidnapping after allegedly blocking the hu- manitarian ship Open Arms carrying 147 migrants from docking at the Sicilian port of Lampedusa in 2019. He has been accused of hold- ing all passengers hostage as they languished at sea in the Mediterranean summer heat for 19 days. If found guilty, Sal- vini could face up to 15 years in prison. Gere is expected to tell the court how he came to sup- ply the migrants on the Open Arms with food. Despite Salvini's attempts to discredit the trial process, his hearing has just got underway in Palermo, Sicily. For those of us in the fight to increase the rights of today's global migrants, Salvini's tri- al is a sign of hope. It is a very public instance of state offi- cials being held accountable amid the narratives of aliena- tion that have been inflicted on migrants in the country in the past few years. Still identifying as a coun- try of emigrants rather than for immigrants, Italy struggles not only to empathise with the lives of people who arrive in search of better opportunities but also to adapt to its con- temporary socio-demograph- ic reality. It's a country that is more and more diverse and its people older and older. Mean- while, the younger generations are increasingly embracing cosmopolitan ideals. Citizenship debate Italy's citizenship law and the many years of debate about changing it reflect these strug- gles and the country's paradox- es. They raise questions about current configurations of being a citizen, and about how they address the rights of the sec- ond generation of immigrants and of the children who are born or raised in the country by foreign parents. Different proposals have been generated along the years to replace the current system of jus sanguinis (recognising the right to citizenship only for children born from Italian citi- zens). Initially aiming to apply the principle of jus soli (recog- nising the right to citizenship to all children born on Italian ground), the latest proponents have been pushing for a stra- tegically less radical jus cultu- rae (enabling minors born and raised in Italy who have com- pleted a cycle of study in the country to become citizens). Along with these proposals, different grassroots solidari- ty groups in the country have been promoting a different narrative about migrants and changes to citizenship laws. Among the most vocal propo- nents of them have been sec- ond-generation black Italian activists, who have been push- ing for citizenship reform for the past decade. As extensively documented by scholars Camilla Hawthorne and Angelica Pesarini, their ef- forts to seek a pathway to cit- izenship for the one million children of immigrants born in Italy gained heightened visibil- ity in the summer of 2020, with the Black Lives Matter protests that swept Italy in the wake of George Floyd's murder. In her work, Pesarini urg- es against a separation of the movement for Black Lives from "the question of immigration". She argues that these efforts would be further strengthened through explicit alignment with groups that are advocat- ing for broadening the rights of recently arrived migrants. Fitting in Both second generations and newly arrived migrants have experienced racialised crimi- nalisation and marginalisation, and are subjected to anti-black sentiment. Their belonging is perpetually held in question and they exist outside the cate- gory of "real Italians". They are embedded in the Italian culture, but also in their parents' heritage, giving them the benefits of having had to negotiate among different cultures. Their backgrounds should represent a source of cultural enrichment – not rec- ognising this potential renders Italy a hostile place for both citizens and non-citizens. But from our continuing re- search in Sicily, for instance, we have observed that organi- sations working to advance the rights of migrants are not really examining the experiences of the second generations. And, similarly, black Italian activists – among other second-genera- tion activists – are likewise not explicitly including recently arrived migrants. Essentially, these activities are happening independently of one another. This needs to change, not on- ly because migrants represent the future of Italy and it is their offspring who will still be de- nied the rights to participate in the country's political life if it did not – but because doing so would yield to much broader transformations and advances in social justice. Coalitions of different mi- nority groups, such as that which we are proposing, do not represent anything new. They have already proved to be essential in advancing rights for people elsewhere. In the US, for example, movements of mixed-status immigrants (among them the Dreamers and the 1.5 youth, No Person Is Illegal, AbolishICE and No- tOneMore) have been working together for years towards the common goal of being allowed to legally stay in the country and the ability to eventually obtain a path to citizenship. Together, they have been able to advance important policies like the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca), which allowed undocument- ed young people to receive a conditionally renewable two- year permit to study and work in the country. Their work has also contributed to shifting ideas around what "real citi- zens" look like, and how laws regulating citizenship might be based on arbitrary frameworks. Those already advocating for changes to Italy's citizenship laws would benefit from organ- ising and creating coalitions between the second generation and more recently arrived im- migrant youth. The movement would leverage the institution- al knowledge of the first group, but also become a stronger and more transformational voice by including the second. TheConversation.eu 13 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 26 DECEMBER 2021 OPINION Megan A. Carney & Sara Vannini Italy's citizenship debate: a country of emigrants learns to live with immigrants Megan A. Carney is Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of Arizona Sara Vannini is lecturer in Information Systems, University of Sheffield Migrants marched in Naples for the event Reddito e diritti per tutte e tutti Nessuno escluso