A myth dispelled: Maltese diaspora to Australia not greater than 200,000
For decades, it was believed that more than double Malta’s population was to be found in Down Under’s long line of émigrés. JAMES DEBONO bursts a population bubble
In a nutshell, the population of Maltese migrants to that great land of hope on the other side of the world is no more than 200,000.
The figure has been confirmed by statistics submitted in parliament on the number of people with Maltese descent who live abroad, which stands at anywhere between 356,000 and 370,000: 98% of which live in the post-war magnets of immigration – Australia, the USA, Canada and the United Kingdom.
Even historian Dr Barry York – born Loretu Meilak before changing the name bestowed upon him by his Gozitan parents – will agree. “In 1986 for the first time the Australian Census asked a question about people’s ancestries,” he wrote back in 1995, on the first attempt in Australia to accurately estimate its ethnic strength.
That census found that the oft-touted figure of 400,000 “way off-target, a gross exaggeration. Some people in the community – myself included – had keenly accepted the 400,000 figure,” York had written.
Even the Australian department of immigration’s history unit in 1974 had estimated the Maltese community at 400,000 until York discovered belatedly that the history unit was “basically just two individuals who rather uncritically accepted the estimates of enthusiastic advocates within the Maltese communities.”
One of the problems with these estimates was whether the descendants of Maltese migrants actually identified themselves as ‘Maltese’ down the generation line.
The first Maltese immigrant to Australia was Antonio Azzopardi, who arrived in 1838. In 1846, he married Margaret Sandeman, a Scottish woman. This in itself presented a debatable point – shouldn’t their descendants be considered half-Maltese and half-Scottish.
The 1986 census revealed that 110,237 persons said they had Maltese ancestry, as a first response. The figure goes up to 136,000 with those who added Maltese as a ‘second response’ (half and half).
Today that figure does not stand at more than 200,000 – taking into account the children born to those who consider themselves to be ethnically Maltese – as provided in the data collected from embassies and consuls by the foreign ministry.
Big in Corfu
Only surpassed by the big four, the Greek island of Corfu boasts the fifth largest community of Maltese descendents, with the Maltese government estimating their numbers at 3,500.
The connection between the Greek island and Malta dates back to the early 19th century when the British authorities transported skilled Maltese masons and their wives to the island. Other Maltese followed in their footpaths but all migration stopped by the end of the 19th century. Some 800 people with the surname Psaila presently live on the Greek island. But although their descendents retained their Catholic religion, none of them speak Maltese anymore.
The statistics shows that only 2,356 Maltese currently live in EU countries, apart from the United Kingdom, which hosts 30,178 persons of Maltese descent.
90,120 live in the American cities of Detriot, San Francisco, New York and Minneapolis.
Italy, France and Belgium are the European countries with the largest number of Maltese residents.
The Arab country hosting the largest number of Maltese is the United Arab Emirates, the oil-rich country of the Abu Dhabi and Dubai emirates – which hosts 250 Maltese. Only 30 live in neighbouring Libya and 20 live in Saudi Arabia.
The world’s most populous country, China, only hosts 50 Maltese, 20 of which live in Hong Kong.
Some 8% of Gibraltar’s population of 30,000 is also made up of Maltese descendants who first settled there in 1704. Llanito is an Andalusian Spanish-based language which includes a mix of British English, Maltese, Portuguese, and Italian words. Its chief minister is Peter Caruana.
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