The Italian city of Prato, second largest city in Tuscany, 17km northwest of Florence, has seen the greatest number of Chinese immigrants to Italy since the mid-1990s. In 1989, there were 38 Chinese people in Prato. Today, they represent more than a quarter of the total population of roughly 192,500, with about 3 per cent having chosen to become naturalised Italians.
Prato’s ethnically Chinese citizens hail mostly from Zhejiang province, particularly the city of Wenzhou and its surroundings. They migrated to this attractive medieval postcode mainly because of its ancient textiles industry, which in more recent times has offered many entry-level jobs incorporating training on sewing machines or in textile recycling: Prato’s historical connections have seen it dubbed la città degli stracci (“the city of rags”). The presence of an employed Chinese diaspora meant that more people from Zhejiang then decided to join those they knew, or knew of, who had established themselves.
Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, the immigrants started to thrive in their jobs. They then saved enough to buy textiles factories struggling, ironically, in the face of competition from products made in China – especially after 2001, when China joined the World Trade Organization. Many of the usual stereotypes that come with large waves of immigration began to gain ground – “Chinese menace”, “yellow peril” – not least because of the speed of change.
In 2010, Prato novelist Edoardo Nesi p.