Interview with Don Giovanni Lano
Priest, Turin, Italy
Q: Sometimes you would go to Porta Nuova to meet the trains ... what do you remember about that scene?
Lano: Remembering those times is always a bit sad. One would see the trains coming in from the South and unloading these men. They had all their baggage and above all their hearts were full of hope for a better life.
They came to look for a job in order to get a wife, and then their greatest dream, a car. They weren't impossible dreams. People just wanted to achieve the standard of living they saw on television.
Still, it was sad: The crowd of people would arrive with nothing and would find themselves disoriented in a big city. It was the moment when people met others from the same village that was most moving.... the warmth of their embrace, the assurances on the part of those who were already here as though to say, "you'll see, we'll make it together, we will manage to overcome these moments and then for our families there will be times of serenity and a better life."
Q: What sorts of problems did the workers come to you with?
Lano: Initially their main problem was the fact that they were alone. They found themselves removed from the smaller context of their village... and from the feeling that there were many people around them who breathed and spoke and thought in the same way.
Their goal was to be able to have a small house and to bring their families here. They would come to us priests to explain their unhappiness and to ask if we could give them a hand in order to ease their burden of loneliness .
The most striking memory is that of the children... They missed their children very much. They thought that their children, coming to a bigger environment like Turin, could benefit by securing a better and more secure future. Consequently this was not only an economic improvement but also an enrichment of their whole way of thinking and behaving.
The difficulties were with the adults whose mentality was much more entrenched in what was a southern cultural context. ... It was much easier for the young people to get on with each other. The young people would overlook many things which the adults would regard with distrust.
Q: Why did so many Southerners come up to Turin? ... What were they looking for? What were their dreams?
Lano: They were only looking for one thing - work -- and with work the possibility of improving their family circumstances.
At that time, the socialists established that it was the "three M's" which made people come up North. They said they came to look for a mestiere, a job, in order to get a moglie, a wife, and their last dream -- a macchina, a car ... this dream of the car constituted the allure of prosperity and also the possibility of getting about more quickly and going back to the village with the car and making the village people there feel envious and jealous.
Q: Did the workers talk to you about their hopes and their dreams?
Lano: Yes, yes, they always talked about them, because talking about their families was like warming their hearts, which in this rather cold Turin they kept closed and melancholic ... they are normally very open and friendly.
Workers don't think much about large principles ... they are concerned with the concrete problems of their lives and their families. Only later did they become social beings and feel themselves to be part of a work force.
Q: How would you describe the character of the Southerners who came up to Turin?
Lano: It is difficult, because the Southern people are a brilliant people. They are people who live together with all that surrounds them... They have a strong sense of family, but most of the time their family is connected to all of the other families. There is this cordial nature, this hospitality, this support which they provide to each other. The character of the Piedmontese is different.
Q: Was this difference in character a cause of conflict or tension?
Lano: Certainly differences in character and mind set caused some tensions. First of all the Southerners considered the Piedmontese to be rather cold and reserved people. They would have liked to feel more welcomed.
The Piedmontese also maintained a certain distance defending their own character. The Southerners revised the popular saying, "When in Rome, do as the Romans do ..." Very often, not all of them, obviously, but ... the Southerners would say "When in Rome, do as you've always done"... and this caused some tension.
Q: Did Fiat provide any social services to these people -- medical care, housing?
Lano: Initially no, but then Fiat noticed the difficulties they were having so they tried to set up some welcome centers. Later they also provided buildings where workers could live for the first few months while waiting to find their own lodgings...
... As for medical care there was no problem at that time, because Fiat had its own internal organization, the so-called MALFA, and in this respect Fiat workers were better off than other people who relied on the public health service.
Q: What practical problems did they encounter once their families came to Turin?
Lano: Initially, when the workers were on their own, the problems of house, school, and hospital didn't exist. When the families came up and lived along with the workers, then the city exploded...
Turin came close to a population of one million while the infrastructure -- schools, nurseries, hospitals -- was designed for a population of seven or eight hundred thousand... so the problem is evident.
Q: How did the workers feel you could help them? Why did they come to you?
Lano: Well, they came because the priest had always been a point of reference where they came from. They saw a continuation of their way of life down South ...
Also, their problems were mainly human problems and they felt that a priest could provide them with support, and give them strength and serenity.
There are many memories, but I especially recall one man who came to me all trembling. He had finally succeeded in finding two rooms and so he felt that his family could soon join him.
He confided in me his fear: "But my wife and my children -- how will they be able to make friends with other people, because for us," he said, meaning for us workers, "we find each other in the workplace, but where will my children and my wife make friends ... where and how?"
This was their problem, so they would turn to us priests. The priest was connected to the neighborhood of the parish and the parish would then realize that it was necessary to create meeting points for social gatherings ...
Q: Did you manage to find practical solutions to the problems of these Southerners' daily lives?
Lano: We succeeded quite well in Turin. The parishes provided support in terms of socializing and friendships. And by going to school, the children made friends much more easily amongst themselves and, fortunately, did not have many of the prejudices which their parents had ...
Q: Earlier you mentioned that Southerners felt priests could in some ways make everything right for them and that this did not always reflect the reality of Turin ...
Lano: This is a bit of a tricky question ... however, it is true, we Turinese priests would find it rather irksome when these workers would come to us with the determined belief that we, with our magic wands, would be able to solve absolutely all of their problems. They believed that we had the ability to solve these problems and that if we didn't do so it was because we didn't try hard enough.
And this would irritate us.
Especially when they would conclude a conversation during which one had tried every way of explaining why something was not possible and why one did not have the means to intervene, and they would add the comment "Yes, yes, but if you want to, you can." This was a knife in the ribs for us.
Certainly a priest's situation in Turin, a big city, is very different to the situation of a priest in a small center where he knows everybody and where he can at times put in a word of influence one way or another. Turin is a much bigger city, and the relationships between the political, economic and social aspects, were completely different.
Q: Why did things really deteriorate in 1968 and '69? Why was there this explosion?
Lano: Explosions always occur after things have been boiling internally for years and years. Some external event occurs and it triggers an explosion ...
The difficulties that these workers felt are obvious -- initially by having been uprooted from their families. Then, when their families joined them, they had difficulty finding accommodations, schools and hospitals ... All of this, combined with the international unrest of 1968, had the effect of triggering off the trade union conflicts.
The workers knew that they, as a work force, as a skilled labor force, provided an important contribution to the general prosperity. Perhaps they felt that they were not adequately remunerated. They had a greater awareness of their strength, a strong sense of unionization....
And the trade union was thriving at that time... it was a living force.
Q: Did you sympathize with the workers' demands?
Lano: Of course. When one feels that a grievance is real, one cannot do other than sympathize. But there is never a clear cut situation with good all on one side and bad on the other.
Q: Why did it take the workers so long to react in an organized way...?
Lano: In human affairs things need time to mature and grow... The farmer who sows his seed in October cannot harvest the grain in December. And it is the same for human affairs. In the early days the main concern was to have a job.
Then when there was work and there was also remuneration, one became aware that it was not just money which could solve problems ... there were also conditions of life to take into account. And there was also an increased cultural awareness of who one was and the effect that one had one had on society.
Q: Could you give me an example of who would come to you with their problems .... in 1968-69? You told us about a young man who came to ask you if you thought it was right to go on strike or not...
Lano: I remember the workers' discomfort in living through the strikes ... they had not been brought up to analyze events on a global level, beyond their practical problems. For some of them ..only for some... this caused... discomfort. But they could see that many of the arguments that were being put forward were right and that a solution had to be found. This was their problem.
Q: The historians and sociologists tell us that these were the years of the "economic miracle." Do you think that this is a correct description?
Lano: The word "miracle" makes me laugh a bit. We take words and use them like elastics to stretch any way we want. It is obvious that for me the word "miracle" has a very concrete and definite meaning, but let's leave that aside. The term which is used by the sociologists indicates unexpected progress and which was probably not even planned for. But it was not the result of a wave of a magic wand. It was the result of convergence ... on the part of the businessmen who displayed farsightedness, and the labor force provided by the skilled workers. The combination of these two things, without undue conflict, brought about what the sociologists call "the Italian economic miracle".
Q: Did the Fiat workers enjoy a better standard of living than workers in other factories?
Lano: At that time, the financial situation of those who worked for Fiat was better than for others, both in terms of remuneration and also in terms of social welfare... Fiat provided a special insurance, they looked after the children in the summer holidays ... and then, something which was very important for them, they provided security. Fiat represented stability and one of the things which the young people said they were looking for in their work was precisely stability and security. This was in the early 1960s.
Towards the end of the 1960s I remember very well that there was a poll taken among the young Fiat trainees. They no longer put job security at the top of their priorities, they put job satisfaction. This is a sign of maturity and of change... for better or worse. as with all human affairs... which always include an element of both.
Q: In this period of rapid development and increase in material progress did spiritual values keep up?
Lano: I would say no. I would say that the material and financial aspect overrode the rest.... due to an initial impetus which they carried inside them.
Q: Did you feel the effects of the economic boom in the 1960s in Turin?
Lano: When a society grows, all of the members of that society feel a benefit, and undoubtedly also the church. Economic prosperity is something valid but which can also be an explosive bomb ... If it isn't handled carefully it can be a problem rather than a benefit.
Q: Can you give me an example of how you personally benefited?
Lano: Yes, certainly. I bought my first bicycle in 1952 and then by the early 1960s I had a car. In just a few years I went from the bicycle to the car. This is an indication of economic progress. When I bought my first bicycle I never dreamed that in only eight years time I would have a car. But my experience was common to everyone who lived in Turin at that time.
To tell an ordinary person who lived in Turin in the '50s that he would own a car in eight years was like telling someone in 1500 that you will take them to the moon.
Q: Were the problems the workers came to you with in the 1950s very different to the ones they had in the 1960s?
Lano: People's problems are fundamentally always the same. Only the details change. Their problems were to have financial peace of mind and harmony within the family... and to have time to spare for leisure.
These are always man's fundamental problems... both in the stone age and in the car age. But in the car age there are additional problems emerging ... pollution, the problem of having to stay closed up in your car with nervous stress ... there are benefits but sometimes you pay a very high price for them.
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