Diaspora – Maltese Overseas Settlement

By Prof. Henry Frendo

Published by Midsea Books, 2020

It has always been said that to truly understand someone’s plight, you have to literally walk in their shoes. This is the feeling one definitely gets when reading Henry Frendo’s latest oeuvre – Diaspora, dedicated “To all those who have felt constrained to leave their home country”.

Having gone through the migration experience myself, in circumstances much different than the forced migrations of yesteryear, when together with my young family I emigrated to Australia where I stayed for 10 years, I could understand many of the recurrent themes that are explored in this tome.

Frendo’s young family also grew up overseas, with his three children each born on a different continent. Likewise, one of my kids was born in Malta and the other in Australia. But the commonalities may stop there because I definitely do not claim to have researched migration history as the author has been doing for many decades, with the current volume featuring his rich collection of public contributions between 1985 and 2018.

My interest in migration history stems from my childhood experience on my mother’s side. Her widowed mum decided that the only viable way to survive in the 1960s was to grab her young children and emigrate to Australia. How I used to look forward to the annual phone call to Australia around Christmastime and the quarterly letters by Air Mail from my grandma (which I treasure to this very day) and the long summer visits every few years!

The author believes that one can find Maltese and Gozitans practically in all countries in the world – with a total diaspora of almost one million that can claim Maltese heritage.

Maltese emigration history goes back much farther than the post-World War II boom. Early on, taking over the Island Fortress, British authorities realised that the Maltese population growth could not be sustained and started encouraging emigration to other British colonies within the empire.

‘The Maitland connection’ was established when Malta and the Ionian Islands shared the same British governor during the first half of the 19th century, with pockets of Maltese settlements extending across the Eastern Mediterranean from Constantinople to Smyrna.

Many of the countries to which Maltese emigrated are covered extensively by the author in the almost 500-page publication.  Thus, we read about the so-called pied noir of Algeria and Tunisia, less well-known faraway migrants in countries such as Argentina and closer settlements in Europe such as France, where the current Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin is an eighth-generation Maltese from both parents’ sides.

Maltese have also set foot on Japan, Libya, Gibraltar, across the US (working with Ford in Detroit, during the gold rush in California in the late 18th century and making their mark as market gardeners in Louisiana), and South Africa.

Mass emigration on a larger scale than ever from Malta took place in the 20th century when it is estimated that more than one-third of the population moved permanently overseas. The lion’s share has been to Australia followed not so closely by the UK, Canada and the US.

Another interesting fact that comes out of Frendo’s research is that thousands of Maltese went to Australia from third countries of settlement, especially in the 1950s and 1960s.

On the whole, the Maltese emigrants established themselves in their country of adoption and not only survived well but many thrived and left their mark wherever they have been: so we find Bianchi Beach in Egypt, Limnaria Bay in Greek Kythera and many businesses with prominent Maltese surnames in Australia – Frendo visited many of the locations he speaks about and his volume includes photos taken either by himself or by the pioneers, some of which may not have been published before.

Are the Maltese overseas proud of being Maltese? Frendo observes this as a recurrent theme with Maltese emigrants – should they assimilate as fast as they could and forget about their Malteseness or transfer the traditions that they had been accustomed to back home to their new country?

I have felt this mental tug-of-war during my time in Australia. Indeed, while trying to make the mark in a new country, one would never cut the umbilical cord with the mother country. I would say this is also the reason why (besides family still living back home) many decide to return (as evidenced especially with many house names in Gozo!)

Mass emigration on a larger scale than ever from Malta took place in the 20th century when it is estimated that more than one-third of the population moved permanently overseas

The author also deals with this aspect (of coming back home) as he himself was torn between repatriating to Malta or staying indefinitely in Australia. He quotes a farewell card greeting from one of his colleagues:

“I hope returning home will be as sweet and rewarding as you hope.”

It is a sentiment I share too because the question always remains whether staying or returning would have been the best decision to take. Returning home you feel “less accepted” but also “less accepting” ‒ as eminent migrant history researcher Maurice Cauchi, whom the author quotes, used to whinge.

Frendo quotes other well-known authors who describe this dilemma. In the words of Bertolt Brecht:

“Chased from my country now I have to see

If there’s some shop or bar that I can find

Where I can sell the products of my mind

I’m on my way but don’t yet know to whom.

Wherever I go they ask me: ‘Spell your name’.”

Pablo Neruda’s navigational poem:

“Exile is round; it is a circle, a ring.

The stars are not your stars.”

To Paul Tabori in his Song of Exile: “However much you brought with you, there’s far more you’ve left behind…”

“for how can you prove what you were and what you did?”

Such was a song “that only the singer can hear”.

Although most emigrants from Malta were not exiled – as in the case of Maltese patriot Manwel Dimech, who died in exile 100 years ago, and is given his own chapter in this tome – many remain bitter about having to leave the Maltese islands not out of their own volition, but either because of lack of employment opportunities or political upheaval (as in the 1970s and 80s).

This is not the case with the latest cohort of emigrants, mainly within the EU, who do so on a purely voluntary basis.

I must also point out that the last quarter of the publication is dedicated to contributions that Frendo has made over the years in Maltese.

This also highlights one of the challenges faced by Maltese emigrants, especially those not of the first generation.

How much effort should be sustained to retain fluency in their ancestor’s mother tongue? My own experience in Australia has been that although the second generation have in the main not been encouraged to retain Maltese language proficiency, this is now being taken up by the third generation who want an opportunity to be able to maintain a conversation with their grandparents in the language these are still more comfortable with.

Although emigration history in Malta is mainly seen as a footnote, Frendo makes sure that this will become more than that.

Diaspora will definitely remain an outstanding contribution to the research of Maltese migration to date.

Indeed, it should be essential reading not just for all Maltese history buffs, but also to the thousands who have emigrated from Malta and Gozo over the years and their families back home to enable them to somewhat understand what their relatives have gone through.