Italian-Americans! David Gray-Smith, Alex Luzaitis, Aidan Murray, and Cati Januzzi

Background Large scale Italian immigration to the US started in the 1840’s due to famine. Later natural disasters and wars caused many Italian-Americans to look to the US for a home Many Italians came to the US intending to only stay temporarily, and return to Italy after making some money. Over 50% of Italians who migrated to America went back to Italy. This (^) is likely one of the reasons why other Americans started to resent Italian migration. Italians were also discriminated against because of their Catholicism Because many only intended to stay a little while, Italians-Americans usually only interacted with other Italian Americans There were very few political forces marginalizing Italian Americans

Pivotal Event: 1912 Lawrence Textile Strike Immigrant worker strike led by the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) from over 40 nationalities. Italian-Americans were seen taking key leadership roles throughout the strike. The strike was led by Italian-American Joseph Ettor and his right hand man Arturo Giovannitti The Italians were some of the first immigrants to start going on strike and fostered children from Lawrence during the Strikes. This gave the Italian-Americans respect for their influence they had over one of the influential labor union strikes in America.

Pivotal Person: Gaetano Tripicano As Italian immigrants entered the United States, they worked their way up in social status. As it says in Patron Saints and Paesani, “the solution for some Italians was to start their own business.” (138) Gaetano Tripicano opened his own businesses for Italian immigrants He was able to “help other immigrants find homes and jobs.” (139) By 1910, the streets were filled with Italian businesses. The rise in Italian business elevated the hard-workers to a higher social status. As it says in The Values of Worthless Lives, “temptations of crime struck Italians, but most refused.” (132) While some Italian immigrants turned to crime for fast financial support, many started from the bottom and worked their way up.

Issues Italians Faced While Immigrating to America Families commonly became permanently separated at the border because one member of the family did not meet the criteria necessary to immigrate. Diseases common in the impoverished parts of Italy were among those that people Throughout the years, a whole bunch of acts were implemented to make Italian immigration to the US harder, the most important being the Emergency Quota Act, which created immigration quotas Numerous acts were passed to admit bulks of Italians left out by the quota system, but none were as important as…

The 1965 Immigration Act This act, created to do away with the racial discrimination in the quota system, making quotas transferrable from country to country, and giving preference based on people’s skills rather than their country of origin It also gave preference to family of people already in the US This act marked the end of the only discrimination towards Italian- Americans in the law books: a huge victory. This acts also made many more Italians politically involved by forcing them to fight for the act

GI Bill

Italian-American Power Pies Where Italians stood in terms of hierarchy and equality Where Italians stand in terms of hierarchy and equality Claim When they first immigrated, Italian-Americans were discriminated against because of their Catholicism and tendency to interact only with other Italian-Americans, As a result, they were labeled as unskilled, stupid, and many other negative terms most new immigrant groups deal with Over time, Italians-Americans got more involved with politics and the community, which ate away at the bad stigmas that were in place. After the change in public opinion, Italian- American’s stance in society improved so much that today Italian- American discrimination is basically unheard of The bulk of the issues that Italian Americans faced had to do with stigma and public opinion rather than legislation and the government, so when Italian- Americans started taking leadership positions and expanding their small town businesses, the rest of the US saw that Italians were just as hard working as everybody else, and the stigma disappeared

An Act to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act, H.R , 89th Cong. (1965). Alchin, Linda. "Italian Immigration to America Timeline." datesandevents.org. Last modified September Accessed February 27, All Things Considered. "1965 Immigration Law Changed Face of America." National Public Radio. May 9, 2006 (originally aired May 9, 2006). Hosted by Robert Siegel and Michele Norris. Accessed March 1, Cavaioli, Frank J. "Italian-Americans Slay the Immigration Dragon: The National Origins Quota System." Italian Americana 5, no. 1 (Fall/Winter 1979): Falco, Ed. "When Italian immigrants were 'the other.'" Cable News Network. Last modified July 10, Accessed March 1, Laurino, Maria. The Italian Americans: A History. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, Kindle edition. Lowry, Sam. “The Lawrence Textile Strike, 1912.” libcom.org. Last modified September 10, Accessed February 22, Topp, Michael Miller. Those without a Country: The Political Culture of Italian American Syndicalists. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, ———“The Transnationalism of the Italian-American Left: The Lawrence Strike of 1912 and the Italian Chamber of Labor of New York City.” The Transnationalism of the Italian-American Left: The Lawrence Strike of 1912 and the Italian Chamber of Labor of New York City.” The Transnationalism of the Italian-American Left: The Lawrence Strike of 1912 and the Italian Chamber of Labor of New York City 17, no. 1 (1997): Bibliography