Immigrants’ social identity, racial hate crimes, and public backlash: Evidence from the ”San Gennaro massacre”

We study how racial hate crimes influence immigrants’ social identity and sense of belonging to the host country. We focus on the 2008 “San Gennaro massacre”, an attack by a Camorra clan against African immigrants in Southern Italy. Using a difference-in-differences (DiD) approach, we show that the event increased the sense of belonging to Italy among Africans living in the affected area, driven by both a ”fear effect” and a ”solidarity effect”. We further document that this shift in social identification spread to other African immigrant communities, particularly those residing in municipalities characterized by a strong presence of organized crime and by a strong local public reaction of solidarity. Finally, we find that this increase in identification with Italy is persistent over time and is not associated with a weakening of ethnic identity.