The memory of migration is passed down from one generation to the next, constructing multilingual and multidirectional narratives that are the product of layered processes of translation and rewriting. Like memory, translation is a selective process: it includes and excludes, it enlightens and obscures, it foregrounds trauma and desire. And, like translation, memory can be a form of appropriation as much as renewal, it can tie us to the past as well as prefigure our future. In this talk I will look at examples taken from the literature and visual arts associated with the Italian diaspora to ask what it means to think of translation as trace in migration narratives and how re-thinking translation as co-presence (rather than substitution) may inform our practices and attitudes towards mobility and hospitality.