Immigrants and Exiles

15: Walter Goes To Italy, Part TWO. The love that dares to speak its name: FAMILY, warts & all.

“Allora, Walter, tell me then… you want to tell me a bit more about your grandparents…”
 
Music: “Runaway” by Walter Musolino & Davide Musolino.

14: Walter Goes To Italy, Part ONE. When is an Italian NOT an Italian? PS: “Don’t brainwash your child!”

Welcome to the Immigrants and Exiles podcast recorded at The Beachcomber Café in St. Kilda. We’re calling this one: ‘Walter Goes To Italy’. This time Walter talks about his visits to Italy and the people he met over there. He first went back at the age of nine in 1963 although he refuses to confirm that. Walter, start talking…
 
Music: “A Girl, A Picture, A Wall” by Walter Musolino & Davide Musolino.

13: The Immigrants, Part Two: The House on The Hill and The Promise of Happiness

Welcome to the second part of an episode of the podcast series Immigrants and Exiles, which started as a conversation between myself, Walter, and my friend, Moreno, regarding his second novel: The Immigrants.
We talked about so many topics: love, loving, having loved, having no luck, staying here, leaving here – that is, Australia – going back to Italy. And we finished by talking about how he wanted to stir people up. And I said some people might think that when he’s criticising Australia, or non-migrant Australians, that he’s writing a kind of revenge story, that he’s upset about things in the past. But, in fact, his passion, his motivation, reflect the conscientious effort to validate as much of the totality of the past as he experienced it and has been officially documented as having been experienced by others. He relentlessly makes demands of readers who don’t know, or of those don’t want to know, about things that happened to people who set off in search of the El Dorado of a better life: and failed. And suffered.  He has written a book to restore historical memory, that seeks to speak truth to power, and all of which has made it an intriguing and disturbing work, full of joy and tragedy, impressive and absorbing, and shocking, and, in many parts, beautiful and comforting.

12: The Immigrants, Part One: Migrants, Melancholia and Murder

Welcome to the Immigrants and Exiles podcast recorded at The Beachcomber Café in St. Kilda. This is a conversation between me and my friend Walter. In this episode we talk about my next book to be published in July 2025, this year, called The Immigrants. Black Ink published my first book, The Fireflies of Autumn, in 2018. Now seven years later, here we are, finished the copy editing and all the other work that goes with publication and the book will be launched in a few months time. It’s currently out with reviewers and book sellers who may or may not want to stock it on their shelves. My life is on the line here, that’s how I feel. But I gave Walter a copy of the manuscript a few months ago and he was good enough to read it, made copious notes and we had a conversation about it which has turned into two of the longer podcasts and this is number one. We’re calling it Part One and then it will be followed, of course, by Part Two. So, now I’ll hand over to Walter and he will talk about the book and ask me questions.

11: Same Face, Same Race: Greeks and Italians (The Niki Baras Interview)

Hello, and welcome to Immigrants and Exiles; a series of chats recorded at the Beachcomber Café in St. Kilda between me, Walter, and my friend Moreno, the sons of Italo-Australian migrants. Today we chat with Niki Baras, a long-standing friend of Moreno’s. Over the years, they’ve been colleagues – translators and interpreters – and share an affinity as intellectuals. Niki has also worked as an academic, a union organizer and a workplace activist. She’s a force of Nature.
Music: an extract from ‘Extinction Rebellion’ by Walter Musolino & Davide Musolino.

10: 'Ukraine' Maria falls in love with Italy, the Mother of Exiles.

You’re listening to Immigrants and Exiles; a series of chats recorded at the Beachcomber Café in St. Kilda between me, Walter, and my friend Moreno. In part two of the episode dedicated to ‘Ukraine’ Maria – sorry, Maria, we know you’re really Russian – we reflect some more on twenty-first century Italy as a modern destination for new migrants, but also on why Italian cemeteries can be so welcoming and why Australia shouldn’t simply be accepting of newcomers but should also be acceptable to them: that’s right, acceptable to them.
Music: an extract from ‘Leningrad’ by Walter Musolino & Davide Musolino.

9: The Diatribe or Fighting Back: a Strategy against Stereotypes

In this two-part episode, Walter meets Franco Cozzo at the dentist, Moreno asks whether Franco Cozzo ate spaghetti, Walter has an argument with Bob Maguire, and Moreno prefers Ted Whitten to Franco Cozzo.

8: Emigration: a Psychology and a Psychosis

In this episode, we talk about what drives people to emigrate, other than war and natural disasters, Wuthering Heights gets a mention and we ask you what your parents and grandparents told you about why they came here.

7: Crimes and Punishments: the Penalty for not being English

In this episode, we discuss Australia’s shallow political culture and the complicity of migrants in promulgating terra nullius.

6: Repatriation: Trick or Treat?

This time we discuss an issue that our parents struggled with all their lives, namely: Italy or Australia? Did they do the right thing in coming to Australia?