In this episode, we’ll be talking about the Swiss abroad, or die fünfte Schweiz.
We'll look at where some of the Swiss who moved abroad went and why.
Political rights of the Swiss abroad
The ‘emigration’ savings model
Daniel
Hello and welcome to another episode of the The Expert Guide to Your Life in Switzerland. My name is Daniel and I'm part of the team at Rigby. We're a staffing an IT services company based in Zurich.
Diccon
And my name is Diccon. I write books about Switzerland, but I live in Bern.
Daniel
We are two Brits who both moved to Switzerland at around the same time in 2005. In this series, we'll be talking about what we've learned since then, and about some of our experiences of living here. In today's episode, we'll be talking about the Swiss abroad. So a little bit about Swiss people who left the country and where they went, and why.
Diccon
Did you know that they are commonly known as die fünfte Schweiz, or the fifth Switzerland? Bit of a weird terminology. Do you know where that comes from?
Daniel
Yeah, I think it has something to do with the fact that they're speaking another language besides the usual four.
Diccon
Yes, that's exactly right. So, Switzerland has four national languages. The ones who live abroad are known as the fifth Switzerland. But it's kind of weird for me, because they might well speak a national language because they emigrated from here, or they're descended from Swiss immigrants. And even if they don't, they probably speak 100 different languages rather than just one. But yes, they are known as the fifth Switzerland.
So that's what we're going to talk about today. And I thought we would start with a couple of basic facts. The one that's most widely touted is that 11% of the population of Switzerland's population live abroad. So that's around 790,000 Swiss citizens. And all these facts always relate to Swiss passport holders with citizens abroad.
And so obviously, not everyone is automatically Swiss. If they are, say, descended from Swiss grandparents, they might have to apply. And some people might gain citizenship through marriage. But it's.. it's basically the Swiss diaspora. And I'm sure you know, Daniel, where most of them live?
Daniel
Yes. So most of them live nearby in Germany and Italy and France, right?
Diccon
Yes, exactly right. They account - the European Swiss abroad - account for about two thirds of the total, so they don't move very far. And the next biggest contingent is the US, and then the Americas in general, and quite low down the list are Asia, Africa and Australasia.
When I was looking into this, what I found interesting is around a quarter of the Swiss abroad are retired. Now it may be that they live their whole lives abroad and are retired or it may be that they retired abroad, say to somewhere sunny on the south of France or Spain. And three quarters of these expats, Swiss expats, have another nationality. So a bit like you and me, dual nationals, but in reverse, so they're Swiss and something else, so and American or and Italian..
Daniel
or Brazilian..
Diccon
Yes, or Brazilian or Uruguayan, or whatever. So I think for me, it's really interesting that if you're Swiss abroad, you have a lot of the same rights as a Swiss citizen.
Daniel
Yep. They can vote in elections and referendums.
Diccon
Yes, that was brought in in 1992, but only at a national level. So some cantons don't allow the Swiss abroad to vote. But many, many do. I think it's 10 do not allow it, but the majority do. And so yes, they can vote, and their vote counts wherever they were registered. So it's either where they grew up, or where they last lived, or where their Heimatort is.
Daniel
Yes. And Heimatort is the place that they come from originally where they and their families lived before they moved abroad.
Diccon
Yes, and so, and the crucial point there is the family. So for instance, if you are born in America and your grandparents came from Switzerland, it will be your paternal grandfather's Heimatort generally. So maybe somewhere you've never seen, you've never been and but that's where your vote will go.
Daniel
And how's the turnout?
Diccon
Well, it's interesting. Actually, I did look back at this, the turnout is generally much lower than for Swiss people living in Switzerland. And that's partly down to the way voting takes place. There was an experiment with e-voting, so electronic voting, and there were big security concerns, and it's been dropped, much to the dismay of many Swiss abroad, because they now have to do it all by post, which is fairly normal in Switzerland of course.
Voting by post is the norm here, but we get the ballot papers and we return them and they're there next day. Obviously, if you're living in Sydney or Buenos Aires, or even Paris, you have to get your ballot papers by post and then return them by post. So it does take time. So there is a big issue about some people not being able to vote in time.
But it's also I think, a question of how involved are people if they're not actually living here. So turnout is quite low, sadly. But what's interesting is that it can make a difference. We, in the time we've lived here, there have been some very, very close votes, like the one to accept the new fighter jets came down to a few thousand. So even if you've only got 20% turnout of 700,000 citizens, that's enough votes nationally, to make a difference in a referendum. So it can be important.
Daniel
And because Switzerland has a relatively high quality of life today, it's hard to imagine that people were moving abroad en masse. But of course, it wasn't always like that. As recently as 150 years ago, the Swiss economy was quite different. Life in Switzerland was quite different.
Diccon
Yes, obviously, luckily, we haven't experienced that you and I were not that old. But I had to research this for my second book, slow train in Switzerland, which all takes place in 1863, when tourism began. And Switzerland was very, very different. It was very poor. It was a rural, largely rural economy, and people living off the land or working in factories, not earning very much. And so a lot of people did emigrate voluntarily, in search of that fabled better life overseas, typically, America, Canada or Australia, but also South America.
But some people were forced to emigrate. And I found this really interesting. This was a side of Swiss history I knew nothing about. Because in Switzerland, up until the 1980s, each community had to look after its citizens. So if they were poor, unemployed, or sick, or whatever. And so it was often cheaper for a rural community, in the 1900s, to pay for someone's passage to the US, and tell them never to come back, rather than to pay for them their whole lives and support them their whole lives in a small village or a small town in Switzerland. So some people were forced to emigrate or not given much choice, let's put it that way.
Daniel
That's very pragmatic. I wonder if they had to sign something to say that they wouldn't come back.
Diccon
Well, probably knowing Switzerland, there was paperwork involved, I'm sure. Nothing happens here without paperwork, even back then. And of course, then there's also the religious reason. And I was fascinated when I was in the States a few years ago, we came across a Swiss Mormon town in southern Utah, called Santa Clara and not a particularly Swiss name, but they're very proud Swiss. And they have a Swiss flag flying outside the town hall. A lot of them have Swiss surnames. And inside the town hall, they have a small museum of stuff that was brought from Switzerland. They even have a mural painted around the inside of the lobby of the town hall showing their long journey from Switzerland to Utah. And this wasn't easy.
They were really pioneers, in horses and carts going across the Great Plains of America without much help. Some of them pushing hand carts even. And then they founded this town in southern Utah, just over the border from Nevada. And they welcomed us with open arms because we were these weird Swiss people who were travelling around the American West and had stumbled across them. So we had lunch with some Swiss Mormons, which is something I thought I would never say.
Daniel
And so yes, a lot of them did leave in search of a better life and in search of land and so on, but quite often as well, it was fleeing religious persecution.
Diccon
Yes. And I think the best example of that is the Amish. So the Amish are quite well known, thanks to a certain film with Harrison Ford. But they are scattered across a large part of Eastern America and Canada. So it's not only the famous towns in Pennsylvania, like Intercourse and Bird in Hand. There are Swiss Amish.
So I went to Bern, Indiana, which was founded by Amish from Bern. And they even have a replica of the Zytglogge, the Bernese clocktower. It's a half size replica in the middle of their town. And it is what you expect from an Amish town. Its people in buggies and very simple costumes, dresses, and speaking German and speaking a form of Swiss German, and a lot of the Amish left to escape persecution, as you said. The most fascinating fact I found out about this was that the word Amish comes from a man's name, Ammann. And this guy was called Jakob Ammann from Simmental in Bern, and he was kind of the founder of the Amish movement.
He left Switzerland to go to Alsace. He never got to America, but he was an Anabaptist. So that means he was someone who believed in baptism of adults, not of children. And the Anabaptists were seen as almost the devil incarnate in sixteenth, seventeenth century Switzerland, and there's the plaque if you go along the river Limmat in Zurich, there is a plaque to commemorate this poor guy called Felix, who was drowned Felix Manz his name was. He was drowned in 1527, in the Limmat, for being an Anabaptist that was seen as a suitable punishment, because he believed in baptising adults, so they drowned him alive. So the Swiss mentor is nice.
Daniel
And would that have been in the Zwingli era?
Diccon
Well, it was around about that time. Zwingli, I think I'm right in saying that Zwingli became pastor of the Grossmunster in 1529. And then the Reformation followed once he started eating sausages in Lent and marrying his wife, and doing all the sort of things that were completely forbidden by the Catholics. And just being generally nice to people really. And of course, Zwingli died in 1531, fighting for his reforms. So it's all around about the same time.
No, 1519 he became Grossmunster pastor. So three, three years before, about the eight years before Felix month. Sorry, yes, eight and the my maths is terrible. You can tell me, I'm not here for my maths. So yes, all about the same time. So there was a lot happening that it was the Reformation. There were the Anabaptists, there was the Counter-Reformation with the Catholics getting annoyed. So it all was quite tumultuous in Switzerland.
Daniel
Yeah. Well, this is not long after the new world had just been discovered, right? So..
Diccon
Well, 'discovered' in inverted commas. It was always there. But so yes.
Daniel
One thing that I find fascinating, which you mentioned Diccon is that they still speak a form of Swiss German, even now.
Diccon
Referred to as Pennsylvania Dutch. I mean, it could actually be Pennsylvania German, because: Dutch/Deutsch. It's weird to be in the middle of Indiana and to hear people speak a former Swiss German in the pharmacy. And for me to understand a little bit of it, not a lot because the accent was very heavy, and the vocabulary was very different.
One story I do want to tell you is a little bit closer to home. And this is something I never knew, even though I lived half my life in London, is that a young man from Ticino called Carlo Gatti. He was the one who made ice cream a mass market thing in Victorian London. So, ice cream gelato had been around for a while, but it was a luxury product. And he went over to London from Ticino and he set up these handcarts selling ice cream. They were called Penny Licks. So basically, you paid a penny, you got a glass shell with some ice cream, and you licked it. It was very unhygenic, obviously, because they weren't particularly well washed, if at all in between customers. So it was a great way of spreading disease. But it was very, very popular. And he actually, by the 1860s, he became the largest importer of ice in London, because he was so popular with his ice cream. So it doesn't mean that they have to go thousands of miles away to make their mark. I think the Swiss have made their mark in various ways around the world.
That's interesting. Do you know what became of Carlo Gatti? Did he ever return to Switzerland?
I don't know actually. I must look into that. And obviously he's not that well known. It's not like his name became a household name for ice cream in Britain. It's not like Mr. Wall of Wall's Ice Cream, or even Birdseye or any, any other frozen products. So I will look into that.
But of course some Swiss people abroad did become household names, like César Ritz. So he was a child from Wallis and he went off to London and Paris and built great hotels or Ursula Andress was from Ostermundigen in Bern, and she became the first Bond girl. And apparently her accent was so heavy, the voice you hear in Doctor No is not hers. They had to dub her over. So you see her but you don't hear her because her Swiss accent was too incomprehensible for Hollywood.
Daniel
And then there's Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
Diccon
Yes, the famous philosopher or Le Corbusier, the famous architect or even modern day stars like Rene Zellweger. Bridget Jones herself, the most English person you could imagine, but her father came from Kanton Sankt Gallen. And that's why she has a wonderfully Swiss surname. Sal Vega. Yeah. I've told you all about North America. So now it's time for you to tell me something about South America? Because I've never I've never actually never been there. So you can tell me about the Swiss settlements there?
Daniel
Sure. Yes. Well, I lived in South America for a while and you soon realise that there are towns and cities all over that were founded by Swiss and German immigrants and the people they're always very happy to tell you about that. One example maybe would be Nova Friburgo in the state of Rio in Brazil, which was founded about 150 years ago. And back then, of course, Switzerland was quite different from how it is today. As we said it was mostly an agricultural economy.
And the town was conceived in a deal between the Fribourg cantonal government in Switzerland and the Portuguese kingdom, Brazil in May 1818. And at the time, Brazil was interested in labour as the abolition of slavery was underway, and the Swiss were considered good craftsmen and soldiers. And to some extent, there was also the idea that the King might have been interested in whitewashing the country and making the population whiter through immigrants and so on.
Diccon
And by whitewashing you mean importing white immigrants to outnumber the locals?
Daniel
Yes.
Diccon
Okay.
Daniel
And the Swiss settlers were assigned land about 150 kilometres into the hinterland of Rio, which is quite a hilly terrain and the climatic conditions there were supposed to be reminiscent of the foothills of the Alps..
Diccon
Apart from the tropical climate that is.
Daniel
Yeah, apart from the the tropical climate! So the immigrants received some land a temporary dwelling and 10 years of tax exemption.
Diccon
Oh, so the Swiss go abroad and still don't pay taxes.
Daniel
No, they still don't pay any taxes. It wasn't all easy though. Apparently, a lot of them perished on the way over and when they got there, they realised that in fact, the land wasn't particularly suitable for agriculture after all. And the settlers were given the choice of staying or working slightly more fertile land a little further away, which many did cultivating tobacco and sugarcane and coffee. And later, Nova Friburgo became known as part of the textile industry. Today it's considered the underwear capital of Brazil in particular.
Diccon
Okay. I can't think of anything to say to that. But there we are.
Daniel
But this is one of many. Yeah, there's a similar story in Uruguay, the town called Nueva Helvecia.
Diccon
Yes, and of course Helvetia gets around because the capital of California Sacramento was originally called New Helvetia, and was founded by a Swiss man. As was New Bern, the original capital of North Carolina, was founded by Christoph von Graffenried..
Daniel
That's easy for you to say, Diccon.
Diccon
So a very noble family in Bern. Although of course, the only claim to fame New Bern really has is being the place where Pepsi Cola was invented in the 19th century. Nothing to do with the Swiss sadly, otherwise, we could claim the world drink and instead we have Rivella which isn't exactly a world drink, but..
Daniel
Well, it's underrated.
Diccon
Overrated.
Daniel
So speaking of NorthAmerica Diccon, you're actually there now?
Diccon
Yes, when you listen to this, I will be in America. I'm going on a little book tour. Mainly the East Coast, but the Midwest as well. And there are a few public events, some being organised by the Swiss Embassy or by the Swiss Consulates. But there are some public events. So if you want to come and ask me questions, or come and listen to me talk about Switzerland, I'll be in Washington DC on May the 14th, in Miami on May the 26th and in Monroe in New Glarus in Wisconsin - so a very, very Swiss part of America - on June 1. All the details and the registrations are on my website. So please come along.
And actually, when I'm there in New Glarus, which is home to the Swiss Center of North America, it's an it's a Swiss cultural centre, I'm going to be talking to the president Beth Zurbuchen, with a great Swiss surname, even though she was born in America. And she's going to be the guest on our podcast next month, when she's going to tell us all about what it means to be American and Swiss, and what the Swiss centre does and why it's so important to keep it going.
Daniel
I'm looking forward to it. Thank you very much.
Diccon
I'll see you next month.
Daniel
All right. Well, thank you, listeners for joining us. If you're in Switzerland, or if you're thinking of moving to Switzerland and you work in IT and you're looking for a new role or you're looking to hire, let us know, we'd be happy to help. The best way to do that would be to send us an email to contact@rigby.ch
Diccon
And it's goodbye from me. My name is Diccon Bewes. I write books about Switzerland as you might have gathered by now.