Chinese migration(s) to Italy beyond stereotypes and simplistic views: the case of the graphic novels Primavere e Autunni and Chinamen

The current contribution aims at describing some key-aspects of Rocchi andDemonte’s graphic novels Primavere e Autunni (2015) and Chinamen (2017), especially inrelation to: 1) the historical reconstruction of Chinese migration to Italy; 2) the challengeof widespreading negative stereotypes against Chinese migrants, which still characterizedominant public discourse in the Italian society. The first paragraph will highlight theoreticalaspects of both works, in particular relation to the literature on migration and of migration,with Sinoitalian literature, as well as with macro- and micro-aspects of Chinese migrationto Italy. After that, some common points of both works will be underlined, including structureand style, semiotic aspects, communicative functions and multimodality. The thirdparagraph will specifically focus on a series of key-figures described in the graphic novels,which contribute to draw the attention to specific aspects regarding Chinese historicalpresence in Milan and in Italy.