AND NOW ITALIAN EMIGRATION AND IMMIGRATION (extracted from ALIAN AMERICANS by George Pozetta

We started this tour to understand where we, Italians, came from and how we, Italians, got here.

Moored by Alpine mountains in the north, the boot-shaped Italian peninsula juts into the central Mediterranean Sea.  Along its European frontier, Italy shares borders with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia.  The nation’s land mass, which includes two major islands of Sicily and Sardinia and numerous smaller ones measures 116,000 square miles – twice the size of Florida.  The obstacles created by the highlands, valleys, and gorges found in the mountain regions fostered strong cultural and linguistic differences.

What we now accept as Italy is a relatively new and young nation, achieving full re-unification during 1860-1870.Since the 1500’s, the peninsula consisted of often mutually antagonistic kingdoms, duchies, city-states and principalities.  Over the centuries, therefore, powerful regional loyalties emerged and persisted well after unification.  Although local cultural variations remained distinct, the most significant internal characteristics have been those arising from the contrasts between a relatively prosperous, urban North and a politically and economically depressed, agricultural South.

Southern Italy, the source of more than 75 percent of the immigration to the United States, was a deprived region possessing a highly stratified, virtually authoritarian society.  The population predominantly consisted of artisans, landowners, sharecroppers and farm laborers who able to earn marginal existences.  Families worked as collective units to ensure survival.

The impact of unification on the South was tragic.  The new constitution heavily favored the North, especially in its tax policies, industrial subsidies and land programs.  The hard-pressed peasantry shouldered an increased share of national expenses while attempting to compete in markets dominated by outside capitalist intrusion. Ironically, as their existence became more precarious, the population totals continued to grow.

An exodus of southerners from the peninsula began in the 1880s.  Commencing in the regions Calabria, Campania, Apulia and Basilicata and spreading after 1900 to Sicily.  Italian emigration became a torrent of humanity.  From 1876 to 1924, more than 4.5 million Italians arrived in the United States.  Over two million came in the years 1901-1910 alone.  Two-thirds of Italian emigration went to Europe South America and elsewhere.  The era of mass migration remains central to the Italian immigrant experience.

By the second half of the century, American cities typically included Italian street entertainers, tradesmen, statuette makers and stone workers who had established the beachheads of settlement for the migrations to come. The initial Italian arrivals dispersed widely throughout America.  Everything changed with mass migration.  The young men were primarily sojourners frequently returning to Italy.   But, when women and families began to arrive in the years following 1910, residence began to be more permanent and in urban areas.  There was strong identification with one’s villagers and less awareness of being Italians.
Eventually, with the creation of immigration networks, “Little Italies” began to develop located in the urban areas.  Ninety percent of the immigrants settled in the bigger cities of 11 States.

Italians suffered widespread discrimination, intimidation and violence. People from southern and eastern Europe were identified as undesirable elements.  Unfortunately, powerful stereo-types centering on poverty, clannishness, illiteracy and an alleged proclivity toward criminal activities underscored the view of southern Italians.

Within the “Little Italies””, immigrants created New World societies.  A network of Italian language institutions – newspapers, theaters, churches, mutual aid societies, recreational clubs and debating societies – helped encourage an emerging Italian-American ethnic culture.

The cultural patterns of Little Italies” were constantly evolving providing for a dynamic interplay between older forms brought from Italy and the newer inventions forged in the United States.

The commercial and political elites – usually aided by the Italian Catholic clergy – sought to promote Italian nationalism as a means of self-advancement.  These forces invested great energy in celebrations and in the erection of statues of Italian heroes as Columbus, poet Dante and military leader Giuseppe Garibaldi.  Columbus Day became the preeminent Italian-=American ethnic celebration.
World War I proved an ambiguous interlude for Italian immigrants.  Italy’s alliance with the United States and the service of many immigrants in the U.S. military precipitated some level of American acceptance.  Immigration restrictions after 1924 halted Italian immigration.  The 1930 census recorded 1.623,000 Italian-born residents – the group’s historic high.

Several critical developments shaped the character of Italian America during the interwar years.  National prohibition provided lucrative illegal markets which some Italian Americans successfully exploited through bootlegging operations.  During the 1920’s, the “gangster” image of Italians (exemplified by Al Capone) was perpetuated through films and literature.  The celebrated case of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti further molded the group’s national image as dangerous radicals.

The Great Depression overshadowed earlier economic gains often forcing Italian Americans back into their family-centered communities.  The second generation of Italians had to delicately straddle the sensitivities of the old and new world.  Partly because of these dynamics, the community structures of Little Italies began to change.  The second generation began to turn away from the older institutions founded by immigrants. For example Italian theaters and music halls gave way to vaudeville, nickelodeons, organized sports, and radio programming.

Any questions concerning loyalties to the United States were firmly answered when Italy declared war on the United States in 1941.  More than 500,000 Italian-Americans joined the U.S. military, serving in all theaters, including the Italian campaign. The second generation especially benefited from its war service and the postwar economic expansion as it yielded new levels of acceptance. 

Since the end of World War II, more than 600,000 Italian immigrants have arrived in the United States.  A large percentage came shortly after passage of the Immigration Act of 1965.  Beginning in 1974, the numbers steadily declined as a result of improved economic conditions in Italy and changing policies in other immigrant-receiving nations.  In 1990, 832,000 Italian-born residents remained in the country, guaranteeing that Italian language and culture are still part of the American cultural mosaic.

In the 1920’s and 1930’s, the second generation continued to diminish the “social distance” from other Americans.  For the first time, national popular culture began to include Italian Americans among its heroes.  In music, sports and politics, the careers of Frank Sinatra, Joe DiMaggio, Fiorello LaGuardia, Frank Capra and Don Ameche suggested that national attitudes toward Italians were changing.  The G.I.Bill providing aid for education further reduced the social distance.

However, in the 1960’s and 1970’s, American core values came under attack in the midst of the Vietnam, Watergate and growing secularism and counterculture.  The nation’s urban centers became torn by riots and civil protest.  Many Italian-Americans still heavily located in the urban areas saw themselves as an embattled minority defending traditional values.  New Italian-American organizations and publications fostering ethnic identity came into being. Many old rituals experienced resurgence, most notably the celebration of the feste.

In-marriage rates have dropped from 33 percent in 1950 to 26 percent in 1991.  By 1940 the rate was only 20 percent and these marriages crossed both ethnic and religious lines.  Italian Americans are now among the most highly accepted groups according to national surveys.  All data points to a high level of assimilation in American society, although Italian-American ethnicity has not disappeared.  The percentages of Italian Americans that claim Italian ancestry rose from 5.4 percent in 1980 to 5.9 percent in 1990, indicating that ethnicity remains an important and acceptable component of self-identification for substantial numbers of Italian Americans.
Notwithstanding all the integration and broad acceptance, one characteristic and unfortunately still attached to the Italian-American is the stereotypes associating it with criminal behavior, especially in the form of organized crime and mafia. Many Italian Americans believe that bias has kept them underrepresented in the top echelons of the business and political worlds.
Since the 1970’s, such organizations as the Americans of Italian Descent, the Sons of Italy in America, and the National Italian American Foundation have mounted broad-based anti-defamation campaigns protesting such negative imagery.  This aspect of the Roman-Italian-American Journey continues.