The issue of emigration/immigration is one of the hottest and most controversial current issues, the subject of countless debates, populist electoral promises, questionable nostalgia for the past, etc.

Yet, history teaches that emigration, and the debates and reactions it generates with their respective contrasting points of view, are not new or recent phenomena. It has happened many times in the past and, often, our ancestors have themselves been part of this migratory process.

Moschiano, in fact, has always been and continues to be a town of emigrants. Over the years, the destinations have changed and gradually moved from the North American continent between the end of the 1800s and the beginning of the 1900s to the South American continent and to European countries, especially after the Second World War, to end with internal emigration in the 50s and 60s and following years and which in some respects still continues.

We present here an essay written by Carmine Manfredi who describes how this phenomenon was experienced by the citizens of Moschiano who chose America in general and New York in particular as their destination between 1880 and 1920, years in which it saw its maximum concentration of emigrants.

The author, with this work, directed mainly at the citizens of Moschiano and the descendants of its emigrants, offers us a reminder of how what is happening today is nothing more than the repetition, and perhaps continuation, of a history already seen and of which our ancestors were protagonists.

Through the documentation and analysis of facts, citations of names and events that really happened, description of experiences, sacrifices, fears, hopes, dreams that came true but also disappointments, he offers us the story of a reality, perhaps little known to us, during a specific historical period.

The list of the names of our grandparents, great-grandparents and / or various relatives who during those forty years at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries decided to "go and seek their fortune" in distant countries, unknown to them, and the related events of which they were protagonists, makes the work less theoretical and more realistic and closer to us.

Every citizen, or person originally from Moschiano, or coming from there, will find among these names a relative, friend, acquaintance. This shows that emigration is not something that concerns only others but belongs to us, has formed us and has had socio-political, cultural and economic consequences for us and our country as well.

For those who do not find themselves in these names, then knowing the history of our emigrants and what they went to meet and did will help not only to increase the culture of the reader but also to keep their memory alive.