Anti-Italianism in the United States resulted among some Americans in reaction to the period in the late nineteenth century and twentieth century of large-scale immigration of Italians, mostly from southern Italy and Sicily.
The majority of Italian immigrants arrived in waves in the early 20th century, many from agrarian backgrounds, and with religions different than the Protestant majority. In United States, and other English-speaking countries to which they immigrated, such as Canada and Australia, Italian immigrants were often viewed as perpetual foreigners, restricted to manual labor. As they often lacked formal education, and competed with earlier immigrants for lower-paying jobs and housing, there was inter-ethnic hostility.[1] Ethnocentric chauvinism exhibited by early northern European settlers towards Italian immigrants was also an important factor, especially in the American South, which was overwhelmingly Protestant.
Much of the anti-Italian hostility in the United States was directed at Southern Italians and Sicilians, who began immigrating to the United States in large numbers after 1880. Before that, there were relatively few Italians in North America. In reaction to the large-scale immigration from southern and eastern Europe, Congress passed legislation (Emergency Quota Act of 1921 and Immigration Act of 1924) restricting immigration from those regions, but not from Northern European countries.
Anti-Italian prejudice was sometimes associated with the anti-Catholic tradition that existed in the United States, inherited from Protestant/Catholic European competition and wars over centuries. When the United States was founded, it inherited the anti-Catholic, anti-papal animosity of its original Protestant settlers. Anti-Catholic sentiments in the U.S. reached a peak in the 19th century when the Protestant population became alarmed by the number of Catholics immigrating to the United States. This was due in part to the standard tensions that arise between native-born citizens and immigrants. The resulting anti-Catholic nativist movement, which achieved prominence in the 1840s, led to hostility that resulted in mob violence, including the burning of Catholic property.[2] The Italian immigrants inherited this anti-Catholic hostility upon arrival; however, unlike some of the other Catholic immigrant groups, they generally did not bring with them priests and other religious who could help ease their transition into American life. To remedy this situation, Pope Leo XIII dispatched a contingent of priests, nuns and brothers of the Missionaries of St. Charles Borromeo to the U.S. (among which was Sister Francesca Cabrini), who helped establish hundreds of parishes to serve the needs of the Italian communities, such as Our Lady of Pompeii in New York City.[3]
Some of the early 20th-century immigrants from Italy brought with them a political disposition toward socialism and anarchism. This was a reaction to the economic and political conditions they had dealt with in Italy. Such men as Arturo Giovannitti, Carlo Tresca, and Joe Ettor were in the forefront of organizing Italian and other immigrant laborers in demanding better working conditions and shorter working hours in the mining, textile, garment, construction and other industries. These efforts often resulted in strikes, which sometimes erupted into violence between the strikers and strike-breakers. The anarchy movement in the United States at that time was responsible for bombings in major cities, and attacks on officials and law enforcement.[4] As a result of the association of some with the labor and anarchy movements, Italian Americans were branded as labor agitators and radicals by many of the business owners and the wealthier class of the time, which resulted in anti-Italian sentiments.
The vast majority of Italian immigrants worked hard and lived honest lives, as documented by police statistics of the early 20th century in Boston and New York City. Italian immigrants had an arrest rate no greater than that of other major immigrant groups.[5] As late as 1963, James W. Vander Zander noted that the rate of criminal convictions among Italian immigrants was less than that among American-born whites.[6] A criminal element active in some of the Italian immigrant communities of the large eastern cities used extortion, intimidation and threats to extract protection money from the wealthier immigrants and shop owners (known as the Black Handracket), and was involved in other illegal activities as well. When the Fascists came to power in Italy, they made the destruction of the Mafia in Sicily a high priority (Sicilian Mafia during the Mussolini regime). Hundreds fled to the U.S. in the 1920s and 1930s to avoid prosecution.
When the United States enacted Prohibition in 1920, the restrictions 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. They smuggled liquor into the country, wholesaled and sold it through a network of outlets and speakeasies. While other ethnic groups were also deeply involved in these illegal bootlegging activities, and the associated violence between groups, Italian Americans were among the most notorious.[7] Because of this, Italians became associated with the prototypical gangster in the minds of many, which had a long-lasting effect on the Italian-American image.
The experiences of Italian immigrants in North American countries were notably different from that in the South American countries to which they also immigrated in large numbers. Italians were key to developing countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Uruguay. They quickly rose into the middle and upper classes there.[8] In the U.S., Italian Americans initially encountered an established Protestant-majority Northern European culture. For a time, they were viewed mainly as construction and industrial workers, chefs, plumbers, or other blue collar workers. Like the Irish before them, many entered police and fire departments of major cities.[9] Increasingly, their children went to college and, by 1990, more than 65% of Italian Americans were managerial, professional, or white collar workers.[10]
Violence against Italians
Rioters breaking into Parish Prison. Anti-Italian lynching in New Orleans, 1891
After the American Civil War, during the labor shortage as the South converted to free labor, planters in southern states recruited Italians to come to the United States to work mainly in agriculture and as laborers. Many soon found themselves the victims of prejudice, economic exploitation, and sometimes violence. Italian stereotypes abounded during this period as a means of justifying this maltreatment of the immigrants. The plight of the Italian immigrant agricultural workers in Mississippi was so serious that the Italian embassy became involved in investigating their mistreatment in cases studied for peonage. Later waves of Italian immigrants inherited these same virulent forms of discrimination and stereotyping which, by then, had become ingrained in the American consciousness.[11]
One of the largest mass lynchings in American history was of eleven Italians in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1891. The city had been the destination for numerous Italian immigrants.[12] Nineteen Italians who were thought to have assassinated police chief David Hennessy were arrested and held in the Parish Prison. Nine were tried, resulting in six acquittals and three mistrials. The next day, a mob stormed the prison and killed eleven men, none of whom had been convicted, and some of whom had not been tried.[13] Afterward, the police arrested hundreds of Italian immigrants, on the false pretext that they were all criminals.[14][15] Teddy Roosevelt, not yet president, famously said the lynching was indeed "a rather good thing". John M. Parker helped organize the lynch mob, and in 1911 was elected as governor of Louisiana. He described Italians as "just a little worse than the Negro, being if anything filthier in their habits, lawless, and treacherous".[16]
In 1899, in Tallulah, Louisiana, three Italian-American shopkeepers were lynched because they had treated blacks in their shops the same as whites. A vigilante mob hanged five Italian Americans: the three shopkeepers and two bystanders.[17]
In 1920 two Italian immigrants, Sacco and Vanzetti, were tried for robbery and murder in Boston, Massachusetts. Many historians agree that Sacco and Vanzetti were subjected to a mishandled trial, and the judge, jury, and prosecution were biased against them because of their anarchist political views and Italian immigrant status. Despite worldwide protests, Sacco and Vanzetti were eventually executed.[18] Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis declared August 23, 1977, the 50th anniversary of their execution, as Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti Memorial Day. His proclamation, issued in English and Italian, stated that Sacco and Vanzetti had been unfairly tried and convicted and that "any disgrace should be forever removed from their names." He did not pardon them, because that would imply they were guilty.[19]
Anti-Italianism was part of the anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic ideology of the revived Ku Klux Klan (KKK) after 1915; the white supremacist and nativist group targeted Italians and other foreign Roman Catholics, seeking to preserve the supposed dominance of Anglo-Saxon Protestants. During the early 20th century, the KKK became active in northern and midwestern cities, where social change had been rapid due to immigration and industrialization. It was not limited to the South. It reached a peak of membership and influence in 1925. A hotbed of anti-Italian KKK activity developed in Southern New Jersey in the mid-1920s. In 1933, there was a mass protest against Italian immigrants in Vineland, New Jersey, where Italians made up 20% of the city population. The KKK eventually lost all of its power in Vineland, and left the city.
