Roasio: The village with the suitcase

The experience

Founded in 2001, the Museum of the Emigrant of Roasio brings together
the memories of five generations of emigrants who fought for the lives and well-being of their families facing the difficult roads of the world.

In fact, the first data concerning Roasian emigration date back to the second half of the seventeenth century. At first, the exits from the territory were towards Rome and Turin, and then, in the following centuries, extended beyond the Alps, towards France and French-speaking Switzerland. Here the Roasians worked mainly as labourers, masons, interior and exterior decorators, and also as miners. The emigration of this small Piedmontese town, however, took over in the second half of the 1800s, when people began to emigrate to the Americas, but above all when they left with their suitcase in hand for the African continent, where the Roasians specialized in the construction field, giving rise to real entrepreneurial dynasties.

The Museum

The permanent exhibition of the Museum of the Emigrant includes three rooms full of testimonies of life lived by the Roasians in the countries of emigration. Among the paper documents we can find passports, employment contracts, letters, travel tickets, bank cheques, honors and vintage postcards. Also on display are more than 300 images that tell the story of the work, travels and daily life of the Roasians in the most distant countries of the world.

The country with the suitcase

The town of Roasio, in the province of Vercelli, is known as ‘The town with the suitcase’ because entire generations have left to seek better living conditions for them and their families, fueling an emigration that is lost in the mists of time, and which continues to this day.

Each letter and every photograph exhibited in the Museum of the Emigrant of Roasio tells a story made up of so much suffering, of daily struggle, of nostalgia for one’s home, one’s land and one’s loved ones. Here, the Roasians, no matter where life has taken them in the world, will be able to return and rediscover their roots.