Dual Citizenship in Italian Baseball - an in-depth explanation
by
Riccardo Schiroli
FIBS Communications manager
The foreign born players who represent Italy in international baseball are in most of the cases Italian citizens from birth. Only in rare occasions (Carlos GUZMAN, born in Guatemala, in the 1970ies; David SHELDON and Daniel NEWMAN, born in the US, in the 1990ies; Laidell CHAPELLI, born in Cuba, in 2007) we saw naturalized players represent Italy in international baseball.
The Italian law gives citizenship on the base of descent and states very clearly that “anyone who is born from an Italian parent is an Italian citizen”. The law also states that “There is no limit to generations”, thus meaning that someone whose great grandfather emigrated and never gave up his citizenship has the right to claim his Italian citizenship simply presenting the appropriate paperwork to an Italian Consulate. The process is know as “citizenship recognition” and can happen at any stage in life. At the end of the process, the person is recognized an “Italian citizen from birth”. It is pretty obvious that the case is quite different from naturalization, even if the effects are practically the same.
The law is pretty old (1912) and was written when Italy was a land of emigrants and not one of the G8 countries, but the Italian Parliament has never showed the intention of changing its basics, even though the law went through massive modifications through the years.
The topic is discussed. Some find it unfair that the child of immigrants who is born in Italy does not have the right to claim his Italian citizenship before 10 years of residence in the country where he/she was born. But this is the law and only a Parliament elected in Democracy can change it.
The Italian law on citizenship does not require any knowledge of the Italian Language to have citizenship recognized. The Dutch law in this sense is less ‘liberal’, but the Italian Constitution states clearly that the land will give freedom of “language and religion” to anybody. In fact, in Italy there are regions where German is the mother language (Alto Adige, Sued Tirol in German) and others where the first language is French (a part of Valle d’Aosta).
The USA, as all of the American countries, have a citizenship law based on place of birth. “Anyone who is born on the US territory is a US citizen”.
This is one of the reasons why both countries (Italy and the US…but it’s the same between Italy and Argentina, Italy and Venezuela, Italy and the Dominican Republic) recognize “dual citizenship”. In short, this means that for Italian authorities the “dual citizen” has the privilege and the duties of every other Italian citizen and for the US authorities he has the privileges and duties of any other US citizen.
The history of Italian sport has been written also by these descendants of Italian immigrants. In the 1930ies Italy won two soccer World Cup also thanks to players like Raimundo ORSI, a son of immigrants born in Argentina. The 2006 Italian squad that won the forth World title for Italy had a regular starter in Mauro CAMORANESI, born in Tandil (Argentina).
When ORSI played for Italy in 1934, the fascist regime (that ruled the country from 1922 to 1943 and was an example of brutal sciovinism, as 1938 racial laws prove) did not accept dual citizenship and created the status of “oriundo”, a term that comes from the old Latin language and means “descendant”. But nowadays the status of “oriundo” does not have any sense, since dual citizenship is recognized and there are only two categories for the Republic of Italy: Italians and foreigners. Well, to be honest three: Italian, other EU citizens and foreigners. But this distinction does not involve citizenship, since any country in the EU is a ’sovereign country’.
In the Italian Baseball League in fact, following a directive of the Olympic Committee, the Federation has created the status of the “Player representing the Italian School of Baseball”.
That is to say someone who has Italian citizenship and has developed as a player in the FIBS youth program or has played at least 6 years in the League. Each team must have 5 players of these status in the line up for each game, including game 3 pitchers of each series. Foreign-born Italians who have not played for 6 seasons do not have the status and cannot pitch in game 3.
Giovanni CARRARA, the former Big Leaguer who represented Italy in the 2007 Euros, had never completed his “citizenship recognition process” (while his brother and sister had) before coming to Italy because his father Ettore (born in a small town near Bergamo, in the north of the country) had given up his citizenship before his birth. Here in Italy Giovanni discovered that his mom (born JIMENEZ in Venezuela, that’s why Giovanni’s full name as a Venezuelan citizen is Giovanni CARRARA JIMENEZ; his full name as an Italian citizen is Giovanni CARRARA, period) had become an Italian citizen (thanks to a part of the law that has been abrogated in the 1980ies) marrying his father before Giovanni was born and so he had the right to go through the process. CARRARA played the whole season as an import pitcher for Nettuno, but his birth certificate now states “Italian citizenship from birth”.
The debate in Italy about these players has been hot for years.
While it may be true that some of them do go through the paperwork only to extend their baseball careers, it is also obvious that their decision cannot be questioned and belongs only to them. The debate, of course, should never forget what the law of the Republic of Italy says.
The Italian Federation, with its Academy, with the rule protecting the players “Product of the Italian School of Baseball” and (why not?) winning the 2007 Under 18 European Championship, has already showed that there’s no addiction in Italy to foreign born baseball players and that Team Italy’s coaches only try to name the best teams possible.
