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Italian-Americans
I think since we've had a thread devoted to our Italian-Brazilian cousins we should also have one for Italian-Americans. I wanted to create this thread too in order to dispel certain myths I've seen on this forum about us (like how we're somehow 'less Italian' than others from the diaspora).
Outside of Argentina and Brazil, the US has the third largest number of hyphenated Italians, at roughly 15 million, mostly located on the east coast of the country. Unfortunately I don't have the immigration numbers by region, but the majority came from Campania, Sicily, and Calabria as well as other southern regions, with considerably fewer coming from the north, even though they're not unheard of.
The early period
Italian Americans served in the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, both as soldiers and officers. Francesco Vigo aided colonial forces during the American Revolutionary War by being one of the foremost financiers of the Revolution in the Northwest. Later, he was a co-founder of Vincennes University in Indiana. Six Italian Americans received the Congressional Medal of Honor during the Civil War, among whom was Colonel Luigi di Cesnola, later to become the first director of the Metropolitan Museum of Arts in New York.
The early arrivals were scattered throughout the country, with the largest concentration of Italian Americans being in the northeast. It was there that recognition of their common Italian roots and culture was the greatest. Filippo Traetta established the nation's first conservatory of music in Boston in 1801.[18] The first opera house in the country opened in 1833 in New York through the efforts of Lorenzo Da Ponte, Mozart's former librettist, who had immigrated to America. The first Italian American newspaper, "L'Eco d'Italia" was published in New York in 1849 by Francesco de Casale. The first Columbus Day celebration was organized by Italian Americans in San Francisco in 1869. Italian American involvement in politics was already underway, with John Phinizy (Finizzi) becoming the mayor of Augusta, Georgia in 1837 and Anthony Ghio becoming the mayor of Texarkana, Texas in 1880. Francis Spinola, the first Italian American to serve in Congress, was elected in 1887 from New York. An immigrant, Antonio Meucci, brought with him in 1845 a concept for the telephone. He is credited by many researchers with being the first to demonstrate the principle of the telephone; however, considerable controversy existed relative to the priority of invention, with Alexander Graham Bell also being accorded this distinction. (In 2002, the U.S. Congress passed a resolution (H.R. 269) declaring Antonio Meucci the true inventor of the telephone).The main period of immigration
The Italian unification in 1861 caused economic conditions to considerably worsen for many in southern Italy and Sicily. Heavy taxes and other economic measures imposed on the South made the situation virtually impossible for many tenant farmers, and small business and land owners. Multitudes chose to emigrate rather than try to eke out a meager living. Often, the father and older sons would go first, leaving the mother and the rest of the family behind until the male members could afford their passage.
From 1880 to 1920, an estimated 4 million Italian immigrants arrived in the United States, the majority from 1900 to 1914. Once in America, the immigrants faced great challenges. Often with no knowledge of the English language and with little education, many of the immigrants were compelled to accept the poorest paying and most undesirable jobs, and were frequently exploited by the middlemen who acted as intermediaries between them and the prospective employers.[19] Many sought housing in the older sections of the large northeastern cities in which they settled, which became known as "Little Italies", often in overcrowded substandard tenements. About a third of the immigrants, so-called "birds of passage", intended to stay in the United States for only a limited time, followed by a return to Italy with enough in savings to re-establish themselves there.[20] While many did return to Italy, others chose to stay, or were prevented from returning by the outbreak of World War I.
The Italian male immigrants in the Little Italies were most often employed in manual labor, heavily involved in public works, such as the construction of roads, sewers, subways and bridges being carried out at the time in the northeastern cities.
The women most frequently worked as seamstresses in the garment industry or in their homes. Many established small businesses in the Little Italies to satisfy the day-to-day needs of fellow immigrants. In spite of the economic hardship of the immigrants, civil and social life flourished in the Italian American neighborhoods of the large northeastern cities. Italian theater, band concerts, choral recitals, puppet shows, mutual-aid societies, and social clubs were available to the immigrants.[21] An important event, the "festa", became for many an important connection to the traditions of their ancestral villages in Italy and Sicily. The festa involved an elaborate procession through the streets in honor of a patron saint or the Virgin Mary in which a large statue was carried by a team of men, with musicians marching behind. Followed by food, fireworks and general merriment, the festa became an important occasion that helped give the immigrants a sense of unity and common identity. To assist the immigrants in the Little Italies, who were overwhelmingly Catholic, Pope Leo XIII dispatched a contingent of priests, nuns and brothers of the Missionaries of St. Charles Borromeo. Among these was Sister Francesca Cabrini, who founded schools, hospitals and orphanages and who, after her death, was declared the first American saint. Hundreds of parishes were founded by the St. Charles missionaries to serve the needs of the Italian communities.
The destinations of many of the Italian immigrants were not only the large cities of the East Coast, but also more remote regions of the country, such as Florida and California. They were drawn there by opportunities in agriculture, mining, railroad construction, lumbering and other activities underway at the time. Many of the immigrants had contracted to work in these areas of the country as a condition for payment of their passage. In many cases, especially in the South, the immigrants were subject to economic exploitation, hostility and sometimes even violence.[22] Many of the Italian laborers who went to these areas were later joined by wives and children, which resulted in the establishment of permanent Italian American settlements in diverse parts of the country.
In time, the Italian immigrants and their descendants adjusted to life in their adopted country, and began making contributions to mainstream American life and culture. Many of the immigrants had brought with them specialized skills and knowledge, and an entrepreneurial spirit. A significant number of business innovations were brought about by Italian Americans. Amadeo Giannini originated the concept of branch banking to serve the Italian American community in San Francisco. He founded the Bank of Italy, which later became the Bank of America. His bank was also instrumental in providing financing to the film industry developing on the west coast at that time. Other companies founded by Italian Americans – such as Ghirardelli Chocolate Company, Progresso, Planters Peanuts, Contadina, Chef Boyardee, Italian Swiss Colony wines and Jacuzzi – became nationally known brand names in time. An Italian immigrant, Italo Marciony (Marcioni), is credited with inventing the earliest version of an ice cream cone in 1898. Another Italian immigrant, Giuseppe Bellanca, brought with him in 1912 an advanced aircraft design, which he began producing. It was Charles Lindbergh's first choice for his flight across the Atlantic, but other factors ruled this out; however, one of Bellanca's planes, piloted by Cesare Sabelli and George Pond, made one of the first non-stop trans-Atlantic flights in 1934.[23]
Following in the footsteps of Constantino Brumidi, other Italians and their descendants helped create Washington’s impressive monuments. An Italian immigrant, Attilio Piccirilli, and his five brothers carved the Lincoln Memorial, which they began in 1911 and completed in 1922. Italian construction workers helped build Washington's Union Station, considered one of the most beautiful in the country, which was begun in 1905 and completed in 1908. The six statues that decorate the station's facade were sculpted by Andrew Bernasconi between 1909 and 1911. Two Italian American master stone carvers, Roger Morigi and Vincent Palumbo, spent decades creating the sculptural works that embellish Washington National Cathedral.[24]
Italian Americans became involved in entertainment and sports. Rudolph Valentino was one of the first great film icons. Dixieland jazz music had a number of important Italian American innovators, the most famous being Nick LaRocca of New Orleans, whose quintet made the first jazz recording in 1917. The first Italian American professional baseball player, Ping Bodie (Giuseppe Pezzole), began playing for the Chicago White Sox in 1912. Ralph DePalma won the Indianapolis 500 in 1915.
Italian Americans became increasingly involved in politics, government and the labor movement. Andrew Longino was elected Governor of Mississippi in 1900. Charles Bonaparte was Secretary of the Navy and later Attorney General in the Theodore Roosevelt administration, and founded the Federal Bureau of Investigation.[25] Fiorello LaGuardia was elected from New York in 1916 to serve in the US Congress, and was Mayor of New York City from 1934 to 1945. Italian Americans, such as Arturo Giovannitti, Carlo Tresca and Joseph Ettor were at the forefront in fighting for worker's rights in industries such as the mining, textiles and garment industries.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_AmericanStereotyping
During the period of mass immigration to the United States, Italians suffered widespread discrimination in housing and employment. They were often victims of prejudice, economic exploitation, and sometimes even violence, particularly in the South. Italian stereotypes abounded as a means of justifying this maltreatment of the immigrants. The print media greatly contributed to the stereotyping of Italians with lurid accounts of secret societies and criminality. Between 1890 and 1920, Italian neighborhoods were often depicted as violent and controlled by criminal networks. Two highly publicized cases illustrate the impact of these negative stereotypes:
In 1891, eleven Italian immigrants in New Orleans were lynched due to their alleged role in the murder of the police chief David Hennessy. This was one of the largest mass lynchings in U.S. history. The lynching took place after nine of the immigrants were tried for the murder and acquitted. Subsequently, a mob broke into the jail where they were being held and dragged them out to be lynched, together with two other Italians who were being held in the jail at the time, but had not been accused in the killing.
In 1920, two Italian immigrants, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, were tried for robbery and murder in Braintree, Massachusetts. Many historians agree that they were given a very unfair and biased trial because of their anarchistic political beliefs and their Italian immigrant status. In spite of world-wide protests, Sacco and Vanzetti were eventually executed.
While the vast majority of Italian immigrants brought with them a tradition of honesty and hard work (as documented by police statistics of the early 20th century in Boston and New York City, which show that Italian immigrants had an arrest rate no greater than that of other major immigrant groups[94] ), a very small minority brought a very different custom. This criminal element preyed on the immigrants of the Little Italies, using intimidation and threats to extract protection money from the wealthier immigrants and shop owners, and were also involved in a multitude of other illegal activities. When the Fascists came to power in Italy, they made the destruction of the Mafia in Sicily a high priority. Hundreds fled to America in the 1920s and 1930s to avoid prosecution.
Prohibition, which went into effect in 1920, proved to be an economic windfall for those in the Italian American community already involved in illegal activities, and those who had fled from Sicily. This entailed smuggling liquor into the country, wholesaling it, and then selling it through a network of outlets. While other ethnic groups were also deeply involved in these illegal ventures, and the associated violence, Chicago mobster Al Capone became the most notorious figure of the Prohibition era. Though eventually repealed, Prohibition had a long-term effect as the spawning ground for later criminal activities.
In the 1950s, the scope of Italian American organized crime became well known though a number of highly publicized congressional hearings that followed a police raid on a top-level meeting of racketeers in Apalachin, New York. With advanced surveillance techniques, the Witness Protection Program, the Racketeer Influenced & Corrupt Organizations Act, and vigorous and sustained prosecution the power and influence of organized crime were greatly diminished in the decades that followed. Two Italian American prosecutors, Rudy Giuliani and Louis Freeh, were instrumental in bringing this about. Freeh was later appointed director of the FBI, while Giuliani would serve two terms as Mayor of New York City.
From the earliest days of the movie industry, Italians have been portrayed as violent criminals and sociopaths.[95] This trend has continued to the present day. The stereotype of Italian Americans is the standardized mental image which has been fostered by the entertainment industry, especially through commercially successful movies like The Godfather, Goodfellas and Casino; and TV programs such as The Sopranos.[96] This follows a known pattern in which it is possible for the mass media to effectively create universally recognized, and sometimes accepted, stereotypes.[97] A highly publicized protest from the Italian American community came in 2001 when the Chicago-based organization AIDA (American Italian Defamation Association) unsuccessfully sued Time Warner for distribution of HBO's series The Sopranos because of its negative portrayal of Italian Americans.[98]
More recently, MTV launched a reality show, Jersey Shore,[99] which prompted severe criticism from Italian American organizations such as the National Italian American Foundation, Order Sons of Italy in America, and Unico National for its stereotypical portrayal of Italian Americans.
The effective stereotyping of Italian Americans as being associated with organized crime was shown by a comprehensive study of Italian American culture on film, conducted from 1996 to 2001 by the Italic Institute of America.[50] The findings showed that over two-thirds of the more than 2,000 films studied portray Italian Americans in a negative light. Further, close to 300 movies featuring Italian Americans as criminals have been produced since The Godfather, an average of nine per year.[100] According to the Italic Institute of America: The mass media has consistently ignored five centuries of Italian American history, and has elevated what was never more than a minute subculture to the dominant Italian American culture.[101]
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Originally Posted by cmv88
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