Wales, English, and the Bracchi Factor: the co-construction of national identity in devolutionary Wales

This article examines the nature of Italian immigration to Wales over the last century and images of Italy in the collective consciousness. It considers the unique role played by Italians in the gradual development of Wales as an English speaking country. From the end of the 19th century, until well into the second half of the 20th, incoming Italians virtually invented the catering trade in Wales. Unlike other immigrant communities, which settled in the towns and remained compact, the Italian distribution was capillary across industrial south Wales and beyond; even the smallest mining village had its Italian café. After considering cross-cultural and linguistic aspects of the phenomenon – a minority community (Italians) within a minority community (Wales) in a context of an apparently irreversible process of anglicisation - the article concludes by referring to the recent reciprocal rediscovery of national identity within a context of devolution..