Tremosine sul Garda, like many other small Italian villages, has experienced the phenomenon of overseas emigration, especially in the difficult years before and after the two Great Wars.
Many people from the Tremosine sul Garda area met again in the United States or in South America, but they never forgot their land and their small rural villages overlooking Lake Garda.
The phenomenon of emigration to America
The so-called "great emigration" is the one that took place between the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century - the phenomenon never really stopped, and continued also during the two world wars.
The motivations that led the inhabitants of Tremosine sul Garda to abandon their community, sometimes for life and sometimes only for a few years, were strictly economic - the closure of various craft and industrial activities in the municipality of Tremosine sul Garda, like those in Val di Brasa, in addition to the national crises in the period between 1900 and 1915.
On the other hand, work on the Forra road made many people decide to stay in the area, with the possibility of earning some extra money to restore debts or improve the quality of their lives.
Stories of Tremosine sul Garda emigrants
Those who left had to face long journeys, even more than two weeks sailing, sometimes with very young children in tow, and arrived in New York or other main cities of North America often feeling lost, with little money in their pockets.
The network of those who had emigrated first helped new arrivals to find a job and a roof: in fact, many people decided to head to America because there were relatives and friends who could help out.
Working conditions were harsh, so much so that some people from Tremosine sul Garda tell us that those who arrived to America believed they could find "money on the trees", but then had to face homesickness and fatigue.
However, many decided to stay: for example, some women from the Tremosine sul Garda community of North Adams talk of a better life for women, with more freedom and the opportunity to study and emancipate themselves.
New arrivals to the USA said they were very impressed by how big everything was in America, by the huge spaces and buildings, but also by the amount of food available to the Americans.
In the eyes of those who came from poor, predominantly agricultural countries, it was all magnificent and frightening at the same time, as it was for the other Italian emigrant communities.
So far, so close: the twinning with North Adams
The Tremosine sul Garda community of North Adams, an American town in Massachusetts, is very large and those who never returned from America still keep in touch with Tremosine sul Garda and their relatives overseas.
For this reason, in 2005, John Berret, mayor of the American town, proposed the twinning of the two cities to the mayor of Tremosine sul Garda, Francesco Briarava.
Thus, an "American" delegation returns regularly to Tremosine sul Garda to visit relatives, and remember the years when poverty led the inhabitants of Tremosine sul Garda to try their luck overseas.
