“At the Tra Noi center, she used to set up her little stall on Sundays to sell her handmade crafts. It was always a chance for me to stop by, chat for a while, and reconnect—through shared memories—the threads migration had frayed.”
Speaking is Alicia Lopes Araújo, an Italian journalist born in Cape Verde who has recently begun an important project to collect oral histories and preserve a story we must not lose. This year marks the 60th anniversary of the first large-scale migration wave to Italy. It began in 1963 when Cape Verdean women started arriving in Rome, initiating a journey that still holds valuable lessons about mutual recognition and cultural enrichment. Though not without pain and exploitation, the migration from the West African archipelago is largely a story of successful integration between origin and host communities. Yet, it is also a story that includes vulnerability, suffering, and mental illness. “These themes,” Araújo explains, “surface again and again in the pioneers’ accounts—though there was also, at times, meaningful care and listening.”
The woman with the craft stall was Agata, who lived with schizophrenia. For decades she tried to piece her life back together through embroidery and crochet. “She arrived in Rome very young, with natural elegance,” recalls Araújo. “She proudly told me her employers used to say she could have been a model. Her first major crisis happened one summer in Cortina, where she was vacationing with the family she worked for. Hospitalized near the Austrian border, she was visited by her Cape Verdean friends—also in Cortina as domestic workers—who defied strict border controls just to be by her side. The diagnosis of schizophrenia came much later. After multiple hospitalizations at San Camillo Forlanini (where I visited her as a teenager with my mother), she was first taken in by a fellow Cape Verdean, and later welcomed into a group home thanks to the support of the Tra Noi Movement,” founded in the 1970s in Rome to assist migrant women. Over time, Agata managed to support herself through the sale of her handcrafted goods.
“Having experienced immigration firsthand since childhood,” Araújo continues, “I’ve encountered many stories marked by deep loneliness, shattered expectations, social exclusion, and a lack of emotional and family networks. Lives pushed to the margins, where suffering often turned into physical symptoms and mental distress. Maria, Georgina, Giulietta, Agata—each deserves to be remembered, because their stories are also filled with acts of solidarity and kindness.”
Maria, for example, has lived in the Termini area for many years. There, she is regularly visited by Antonita, a Cape Verdean psychotherapist who came to Rome decades ago. She brings a folding chair so they can talk comfortably. On Wednesdays, she meets Georgina in Casal Palocco park, bringing her lunch— canja (a traditional Cape Verdean soup), but never with tuna or chicken (“that’s for poor people,” says Georgina), only with beef. Then there’s Giulietta, who fell into depression but was supported for years by an ex-partner who left her his apartment and a monthly stipend until she qualified for a pension.
“Emigration isn’t for everyone,” says a Cape Verdean proverb. “Many women have suffered immensely, showing signs of serious mental illness,” including paranoia, panic attacks, exhaustion, identity crises, cultural dislocation, and depersonalization—one of the most common symptoms among migrants, as studied in ethnopsychiatry. “Some of these women remain in Italy; others were sent back to Cape Verde. Still others, though they wanted to return, gave up because the archipelago lacked adequate medical and psychiatric care.”
“Separation, journeying into the unknown, and arrival in a new country—these are all deeply destabilizing events,” Araújo reflects. “There is no single migration story, but many share common elements—geographical, emotional, and psychological journeys.” The reasons for emigrating and the initial contact with the host country can shape the entire process of redefining one’s life. Not everyone emerges victorious. Not everyone manages to mourn the separation or rebuild meaning in their existence.”
Some stories stretch back to the 1960s. Araújo tells us about Rosa, hospitalized at Santa Maria della Pietà. “She had been cleared for discharge three months earlier, but the hospital wouldn’t release her. Lea Manzone, a social worker and one of the first Italian women involved with Tra Noi, spoke with the doctor, who admitted he couldn’t let Rosa leave because she had nowhere to go. The Portuguese consulate (Cape Verde only gained independence in 1975) was willing to assist—but only if she was repatriated. Rosa, however, needed a period of post-hospital adjustment before boarding a plane.” There was also a deeper issue: “The hospital never managed to give a precise diagnosis. Without knowing Rosa’s cultural background, they couldn’t interpret her behavior.” Things became clearer later, when Rosa had a relapse in the group home. It wasn’t cultural disorientation—it was schizophrenia.
Overall, Araújo says, “these women experienced profound pain. Many had intense hysterical episodes, often on Sunday evenings around 6 or 7 PM at the Tra Noi center. As they prepared to return to work, some would collapse from stress. It was always the same few—the most fragile. Their cultural dislocation had become too much to bear. Manzone, alarmed, consulted a psychiatrist at the Gemelli hospital. His response: ‘I’d like to witness one of these episodes in person. We only read about them in textbooks—we’ve never seen them.’”
The doctor at Santa Maria della Pietà, the psychiatrist at Gemelli—it’s striking to see how aware Italian healthcare professionals were, even then, that they were facing something unfamiliar. And it’s equally striking to witness a journalist today who is committed to reconstructing this painful but ultimately hopeful story of integration. Because to address mental health and human vulnerability, we must first seek to understand the person.
