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| Authors at the Italian American Museum's Anti-Italianism: Essays on a Prejudice book presentation. L-R: Professor Fred Gardaphé, Dr. Elizabeth G. Messina, Dr. Joseph V. Scelsa, LindaAnn LoSchiavo and Professor William J. Connell. (Photos by New York Scugnizzo) |
By Niccolò Graffio
The first Europeans to arrive on these shores hundreds of years ago in many cases came as religious refugees fleeing from authoritarian governments that did not look kindly upon them. Others arrived seeking economic opportunities denied them back in Europe due to restrictive, archaic economic systems. A number of these people, unable to pay their fares, had them paid for by employers here; in return they assumed the lot of indentured servants.
When writing about the phenomenon of immigration to America, historians often like to focus on periods in our history of successive waves of peoples. The first period is often termed the “Colonial era” roughly spanning the years 1600-1775. During this time the main body of immigrants to what would become the original 13 states originated largely from the British Isles, the Dutch Republic (later the Kingdom of the Netherlands) and what would eventually evolve into the nation of Germany. During this time another large body of peoples arrived on these shores under circumstances even less auspicious than those of indentured servants – slaves from West Africa.
From the time America declared its independence until about 1830 America experienced something of a respite in immigration. Things ‘picked up’ again after 1830 when another wave of immigrants began to hit these shores; once again from the British Isles, Germany and now from Scandinavia and Ireland as well. Previous arrivals to these shores had by now established themselves, and indeed a number of them achieved a fair degree of opulence.
While many new immigrants did take advantage of America’s expanding borders to seek opportunities out west, others chose the comforts of living in towns and cities. The new arrivals were in some ways different from previous ones. The Irish and many of the German arrivals were Roman Catholics. This did not sit well with the largely Protestant natives. In addition, the new immigrants, fleeing conditions of deprivation, were willing to work for lower wages than their American counterparts. This caused no small degree of resentment among members of the working class here, who looked upon the newcomers as rivals for available jobs.
It should therefore come as no surprise, then, a number of nativist groups arose in reaction to the new wave of immigrants. The most active of these groups was the Order of the Star Spangled Banner, a secret society dedicated to stopping the immigration of Irish, German and Catholic immigrants to these United States by any and all means necessary! It eventually morphed into the infamous Know Nothing movement.
The next great wave of immigration began around 1850 and lasted until about 1930. This period would witness the greatest number and diversity of immigrants in American history to that point. Burgeoning populations in Northern and Northwestern Europe drove millions of immigrants from Germany and the UK to our shores. After 1845 large numbers of Irish Catholics arrived here to flee the horrors of the Irish Potato Famine.
After 1870 came a veritable flood of so-called “new immigrants” from Southern and Eastern Europe. These regions had previously sent few immigrants to these shores. Population explosions in these areas plus cheaper fares due to steamship technology largely drove the exodus. Huge numbers of Poles, Russians, Ashkenazi Jews, Hungarians and Greeks streamed into this country. In addition, for the first time large numbers of immigrants began flocking from the nascent state of Italy, mainly from the southern portion.
It was this portion, the former Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, which gave by far the largest number of immigrants from Italy. Records from Ellis Island indicate about 80% of Italians who came to America originated in Southern Italy. As with other newcomers, they faced many hurdles in their attempts to become part of the fabric of America. Unlike most of the other immigrant groups, however, the hurdles they faced (particularly ethnic prejudice) in some cases persist. Why, is a subject, sadly for which there is a dearth of written material.
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| Dr. Joseph V. Scelsa, president and founder of the Italian American Museum, shows anti-Italian cartoon during the museum's book presentation. |
One notable exception is the book Anti-Italianism: Essays on a Prejudice, edited by William J. Connell and Fred Gardaphé. While it is true several other books have been written on the topic, in my opinion this one makes the best attempt at dealing with the subject matter comprehensively. In a series of essays by various authors, the subject of anti-Italianism is tackled not just from an historical perspective, but from a sociological one, as well. In addition, some real solutions to the problem are proffered, not just the usual whining you see in books of this type.
William J. Connell is a professor of history and holder of the Joseph M. and Geraldine C. La Motta Chair in Italian Studies at Seton Hall University. Fred Gardaphé is the City University of New York Distinguished Professor in Italian American Studies in Queens College, CUNY.
Many of the essays dealt with the issue admirably. Some enlightened me to events in the history of our people here in America to which I was previously unaware. Admittedly, however, in the case of a couple of essays I found myself wondering why they were included in the book at all!
Since 80% of Italian Americans are of Southern Italian descent, I also found myself wishing the book had been written and compiled more from the perspective of Southern Italians, rather than just Italians in general. It is an unpleasant fact that, as in Italy, here in America more often than not Italians of northern extraction (so-called “Padanians”) will readily turn on southerners whenever it is to their advantage. Perhaps someone reading this could one day write a book fubu (for us, by us).
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| Professor Fred Gardaphé |
Leading off the book is an excellent essay by Fred Gardaphé entitled Invisible People: Shadows and Light in Italian American Culture which deals with the burning question, “Are Italians White?” Depending on your own answer to this question, it may surprise you to learn a significant portion of the population of this country (especially in the South) at one time would have unhesitantly answered in the negative.
Modern Italian Americans, according to Gardaphé, walk a tightrope between being accepted by their fellow European Americans as “White” while somehow finding a way to cling to the culture(s) of their forefathers which are largely disdained by other European American groups, especially Irish, Anglo and German Americans. Indeed, many Italian Americans, especially those of the third and fourth generation, have virtually abandoned their Italic roots and have taken to simply referring to themselves as “Americans”.
Modern Italian Americans, according to Gardaphé, walk a tightrope between being accepted by their fellow European Americans as “White” while somehow finding a way to cling to the culture(s) of their forefathers which are largely disdained by other European American groups, especially Irish, Anglo and German Americans. Indeed, many Italian Americans, especially those of the third and fourth generation, have virtually abandoned their Italic roots and have taken to simply referring to themselves as “Americans”.
A good question to ask, of course, is one I hardly ever hear anyone asking. What exactly is meant (in the racial sense) by the word ‘White?’ As Massachusetts College of Arts history professor Noel Ignatiev pointed out in his book How the Irish Became White (New York; Routledge, 1996), many Anglo nativists in 19th century America (especially north of the Mason-Dixon Line) viewed Irish Catholic immigrants as something decidedly less than White. It therefore comes as something of an irony they in turn would one day heap such an invective on us.
To be a “good American” (and therefore be accepted as ‘White’) Gardaphé points out we must suppress our ethnic identity. I can attest to the veracity of this. I have witnessed on innumerable occasions when those of Irish and German descent who loudly and proudly proclaim their roots are met with approval if not acclamation, usually by those of northern and western European descent. On the other hand, I’m usually met with silence (or else chided with ethnic slights) whenever I speak pridefully of mine. Even worse is when I get a ‘patriot’ who then laughably proceeds to lecture me on the evils of calling oneself a “hyphenated American”. It’s always amusing to point out this sermon originated with Teddy Roosevelt, a man who was known to have been notoriously ethnocentric!
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| Professor William J. Connell |
William J. Connell’s essay Darker Aspects of Italian American Prehistory goes right to the heart of the matter and discusses the origins of anti-Italianism here in the United States. It was interesting to learn many of this country’s Founding Fathers (like John Adams) harbored some anti-Italian sentiments. Benjamin Franklin was another one; though it’s worth mentioning ‘Benny’ didn’t like Swedes, Germans, Jews or Spaniards, either. Had he lived a few decades later he might have made a welcome addition to the Know Nothing movement.
Connell’s thesis is Anglo aversion to the peoples south of the Alps, in part, has its roots in the Protestant Reformation and the rise of Calvinism. John Calvin, the founder of the Calvinist faith, attacked the character of the peoples of Italy with vituperation. To him, Italians were lazy, religious hypocrites because the bulk of them refused to renounce Catholicism and embrace Protestantism.
That the Roman Catholic Church was centered in Italy (and secure in its position thanks to the Roman Inquisition) plus the fact peoples like the Irish, Bavarians and Poles likewise remained Catholic mattered little to him. His treatises were littered with anti-Italian libels; many of which, according to Connell, influenced people like William Shakespeare and by extension, later Americans. That John Calvin was a Frenchman at a time when anti-Italianist thought was already rife throughout France (thanks to Italian economic hegemony at a time of rising French nationalism) should have been mentioned.
In that he contrasted strongly with the redoubtable German cleric Martin Luther, who saved his fire and brimstone denunciations for the Catholic Church and the corruptions he felt it spawned, rather than the Italian peoples themselves.
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| Dr. Elizabeth G. Messina |
Another interesting essay was Elizabeth G. Messina’s Perversions of Knowledge: Confronting Racist Ideologies behind Intelligence Testing. It dealt with the unseemly history of the Eugenics movement in early 20th century America; in particular, how intelligence testing was used to “prove” Eastern and Southern European peoples were cognitively inferior and therefore ‘unworthy’ of immigrating to America. Ms. Messina is a psychologist who is a faculty member of the Dept. of Psychiatry at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan. She goes fairly in-depth in her essay in how psychologists like Carl C. Brigham and Robert Yerkes, recognized pioneers in the field of intelligence testing, misused their skills in an effort to advance eugenics thought in the United States.
Yerkes and Brigham collaborated closely during World War I administering and compiling data from Army Alpha and Beta testing on Intelligence. Brigham summarized this data in his book A Study of American Intelligence (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1923) with the forward written by Yerkes. Two outcomes resulted from this book: a) the popularization of eugenics b) the Immigration Act of 1924 which put severe restrictions on immigration to this country from natives of Eastern and Southern Europe.
Both Brigham and Yerkes used the veneer of scientific testing to thinly mask their own devotion to the social philosophy of Nordicism or Nordic theory. That is, peoples of northern European descent are innately superior, cognitively and otherwise, to those of eastern or southern European descent. While Ms. Messina is correct in assessing the damage done to our people by misuse of intelligence testing, her essay would have been helped in no small way by the revelation Carl C. Brigham denounced Nordic theory just seven years after publication of his book (at the height of the Eugenics movement in this country), and thereafter attempted to distance himself from it. Of course, the damage had already been done.
One essay that stands out in my mind as being unnecessary and even nocuous to this book is Joanne Detore-Nakamura’s “Good Enough”: An Italian American Memoir. It basically consists of a string of recollections by the author of instances of anti-Italian bigotry she experienced throughout her life. Since one would be hard-pressed to find someone who hasn’t personally experienced some kind of bigotry from someone, somewhere at some point in their life in this country, the essay to me read more like an exercise in whining than a study in ethnic prejudice on a large scale.
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LindaAnn LoSchiavo
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By far the essay I enjoyed the most was LindaAnn Loschiavo’s If Defamation is Serious, Why don’t Italian American Organizations Take it Seriously? This is because Ms. Loschiavo, a writer and dramatist who pens a column on Italian culture and Italian American issues for L’IDEA magazine, offers what I feel to be the best solution to combating this problem.
Ms. Loschiavo’s argument is that other groups in this country who have traditionally faced ethnic prejudices and stereotypes (Irish, Jews, Latinos, etc) have combated it not by just calling attention to the problem, but offering positive alternatives in the form of ethnic literature and theater. Rather than just let others (and in certain cases, our own) churn out the usual Mafia-type swill associated with our people, Ms. Loschiavo calls on Italians in general and Italian American organizations in particular to seed efforts to create Italian ethnic theater in America, which she points out is appallingly absent!
She is, in effect, throwing down the gauntlet and calling on our people to wage a culture war against those who continually defame us by offering our people and others a positive alternative. Indeed, this is a wonderful idea! As Thomas Jefferson once so eloquently stated, “The pen is mightier than the sword”. To offer a positive alternative is the reason why I became involved with this blog in the first place!
It now remains to be seen if others feel likewise; if they feel it’s worth their time and money to combat age-old prejudices and bigotries. Simply whining about the problem accomplishes nothing! That is why overall I recommend Italians (and non-Italians) read this book. It’s a good start.
