Migrant mother, sister, daughter : women immigrants in the Bel Paese

Abstract

This project is comprised of two parts, a reporting project published on Medium about the lives of women migrants in Italy and a professional analysis of the practices of multilingual international journalists. The reporting project looks at the lives of women immigrants in Italy, where the wave of immigration in recent years is now deemed a crisis. As so much coverage focuses on the border crossings and long journeys of immigrants and refugees, this project sought to delve into the complicated lives of migrants who have already settled into life in Italy for a few years. The stories of women immigrants in Italy reveal trends that are both empowering and troubling, given the work opportunities for women migrants in Italy as majority-female diasporas have formed over the years. The three women profiled in the project share their stories of how they came to Italy from their respective countries and what they make of life as a woman migrant. The second portion is the professional analysis. From reporting and interviewing for the first time in another language, I became interested in understanding the best practices of multilingual journalists. For the analysis, I interviewed seven journalists on their practices of reporting, interviewing and translating when dealing with sources who speak another language. From these interviews, I compiled eight practices that the journalists have in common, the most important being the value of speaking a source's language.