The Ethics of Immigration--in New Territory

We’re all familiar with the ongoing debate on illegal immigration in the U.S. Opponents of current immigration standards argue that illegal immigrants are stealing jobs from citizens and as their profits go untaxed, the economy loses capital. Many solutions have been offered to remedy the situation, but in them, ethical concerns have arisen. One being that those who come up with these sometimes fail to recognize immigrants and illegal immigrants as a collection of individuals each facing different issues and that not all indulge in law-abusing behavior. 

Apparently, Italy is facing somewhat of the same issue on a much smaller scale. As reported in a recent article in the New York Times, “Chinese Remake the ‘Made in Italy’ Fashion Label” by Rachel Donadio, Chinese immigrants have been changing the structure of the economy in Prato a town outside of Florence, Italy. Italy took it upon itself to provide quality fashion since “it could no longer compete with China on price” when producing garments. Chinese laborers began immigrating to Prato in the late 1980s and since then “transformed the textile hub into a low-end garment.” This transformation has caused an uproar in Prato with arguments such as they’re suppressing the “classic Italian feel” and that they’re beating them at their own game by committing crimes like tax evasion as well as the rest of them.

Protests are being made to the Italian government in order to crack down on the illegal finance operations that is being claimed to be occurring in Prato by the Chinese. One suggestion is that the Italian government work with China to form an agreement on a deportation process.
 
Really, the only companies and consumers who have responded to this issue are those directly affected by the protests. I find that the Chinese immigrants and Chinese-Italians in the area have capitalized on an opportunity that the natives missed. If production of high quality garments is what Italian business owners want to push in the markets, they need to come up with more effective ways to market it and make a larger profit. What I see are two competing entities in a free market that are competing to match each other’s prices. China is winning.

 

Written by 

Leya Abebe

Article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/13/world/europe/13prato.html?_r=1