Asio and Italian ' Persons of Interest' : A History of Sydney's Federation of Italian Migrants and Their Families (Filef)

When an organisation was an "ethnic" one, drawing support, ideas and inspiration from its foreign mentor, claims of sedition, treason, subversion and of being un-Australian were levelled without hard evidence, justified only by the abysmal ignorance of the motivations, aspirations and actual policies pursued by this organisation. This was the case for the Federation of Italian Migrants and their Families (FILEF) in Sydney. Its members were spied upon by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), ostracised by a large part of the Italian migrant community and its media, embarrassingly acknowledged by Italian diplomatic and consular representatives, fearful of losing their jobs because of their political beliefs, demonised by the Australian Establishment as the Trojan Horse of Italian communism, even when FILEF?s members claimed to have a human face. After forty years of militancy, time has come to record FILEF?s journey through Australian and migrant politics, welfare, arts, education and union activities.