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EspañolITALIAN AMERICAN
(Redirected from Italian-American)
An 'Italian American' is an American of Italian descent. The phrase may refer to someone born in the United States of Italian heritage or to someone who has immigrated to the United States from Italy.
Italians arrived early in the Americas in small numbers, many of which fleeing after the failure of revolutionary movements in 1848 and 1861, though most immigration from Italy occurred between 1880 and 1960. Many Italian Americans came from Southern Italy and Sicily as rural peasants with very little education. From 1890 to 1900, 655,888 arrived in the United States, of whom two-thirds were men. The main factor in Italian immigration was a poor economy in Italy, particularly in the southern regions. In America, Italians settled in and dominated specific neighborhoods (often called "Little Italy") where they could interact with one another, establish a familiar cultural presence, and find favorite foods.
The Italian immigrants usually arrived with very little cash or cultural capital (that is, they were not educated or intellectually sophisticated) and generally performed manual labor. Their neighborhoods were typically slums with overcrowded tenements and poor sanitation. Tuberculosis was rampant. Italian immigration peaked from 1900 until 1914, when World War I made such intercontinental movement impossible. In many cases, the Italian immigrants were subjected to severe anti-Catholic, anti-immigrant discrimination and even violence such as lynching[2]
By 1978, 5.3 million Italians had immigrated to the United States; two million arrived between 1900 and 1914. About a third of these immigrants intended to stay only briefly, in order to make money and return to Italy, and were commonly referred to as "Birds of Passage." While one in four did return home, the rest either decided to stay or were prevented from returning by the war.
The internment of Italian Americans during World War II has often been overshadowed by the Japanese American experience. Recently, however, books such as Una Storia Segreta (ISBN 1-890771-40-6) by Lawrence DiStasi and Uncivil Liberties (ISBN 1-58112-754-5) by Stephen Fox have been published, and movies, such as Prisoners Among Us have been made. These efforts reveal that during World War II, roughly 600,000 Italians were required to carry identity cards that labelled them "resident aliens." Some 10,000 people in war zones on the West Coast were required to move inland, while hundreds of others were held in military camps for up to two years. Lawrence DiStasi claims that these wartime restrictions and internments contributed more than anything else to the loss of spoken Italian in the United States. After Italy declared war on the U.S., many Italian language papers and schools were forced, almost overnight, to close by the U.S. Government because of their past support for an enemy government.
During World War II, many Italian-Americans joined or were drafted into the armed forces to fight the Axis Powers; many women also enlisted. An estimated 1.2 million Italian-Americans served in the armed forces during World War II; this represented 7.5% of the 16 million total who served.
Italian-American service and assistance were pivotal during the Allied invasion of Sicily, where United States government troops worked with locals (including Mafiosi) in order to secure and fortify the newly-acquired foothold in Europe. Numerous texts document the delicate relations the United States government established with Italian-American organized crime figures in the U.S. and the manner in which these were used to help ensure a successful landing in Sicily. It is rumored that even Lucky Luciano helped smooth relations between the two communities during World War II.
In the 2000 U.S. Census, Italian Americans constituted the sixth largest ancestry group in America with about 15.6 million people (5.6% of the total U.S. population).[3] Sicilian Americans are a subset of numerous Americans of regional Italian ancestries.
In the 1930s, Italian Americans voted heavily Democratic; since the 1960s, they have split about evenly between the Democratic and the Republican parties. The U.S. Congress includes Italian Americans who are regarded as leaders in both the Republican and Democratic parties. The highest ranking Italian American politician is currently Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) who became the first woman and Italian American Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, but former Republican New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani is a candidate for the U.S. presidency in the 2008 election.
Many Italian Americans still retain aspects of their culture. This includes Italian food, drink, art, Roman Catholicism, annual Italian American feasts and a strong commitment to extended family. Italian Americans influenced popular music in the 1940s and as recently in the 1970s, one of their major contributions to American culture. In movies that deal with cultural issues, Italian American words and lingo are sometimes spoken by the characters. Although most will not speak Italian fluently, a dialect of sorts has arisen among Italian Americans, particularly in the urban Northeast, often popularized in film and television.
Among the most characteristic and popular of Italian American cultural contributions has been their feasts. Throughout the United States, wherever one may find an "Italian neighborhood" (often referred to as 'Little Italy') one can find festive celebrations such as the well known San Gennaro Feast in New York City or the unique Our Lady of Mount Carmel "Giglio" Feast in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, New York. The Our Lady of Mount Carmel Festival has been celebrated annually in Hammonton, New Jersey for over 125 years.
Italian feasts involve elaborate displays of devotion to God and patron saints. Perhaps the most widely known is St. Joseph's feast day on March 19th. These feasts are much more than simply isolated events within the year. They express a "typically Italian" approach to life and are taken very seriously by the communities who prepare them. Feast (''Festa'' in Italian) is an umbrella term for the various secular and religious, indoor and outdoor activities surrounding a religious holiday. Typically, Italian feasts consist of festive communal meals, religious services, games of chance and skill and elaborate outdoor processions consisting of statues resplendent in jewels and donations. This merriment usually takes place over the course of several days, and is communally prepared by a church community or a religious organization over the course of several months.
Currently, there are more than 300 Italian feasts celebrated throughout the United States. These feasts are visited each year by millions of Americans from various backgrounds who come together to enjoy Italian delicacies such as Zeppole and sausage sandwiches.
Most if not virtually all immigrants had been Catholics in Italy. Observers have noted that they often became more devoutly Catholic in the United States, since their faith was a distinctive characteristic in the U.S.; devout Italian Americans often identified themselves as "Catholics" when talking to coworkers or neighbors. In Italy, there are religious minorities of Greek Catholics, Greek Orthodox and Italian Jews, whose religious community date back 2,000 years, also took part in the Italian immigration to America.
In some Italian American communities, Saint Joseph's Day (March 19) is marked by celebrations and parades. Columbus Day is also widely celebrated, as are the feasts of some regional Italian patron saints, most notably St. Januarius (San Gennaro) (September 19) (especially by those claiming Neapolitan heritage), and Santa Rosalia (September 4) by immigrants from Sicily. The immigants from Potenza, Italy celebrate the Saint Rocco's day feast at the Potenza Lodge in Denver, Colorado. Rocco is the patron saint of Potenza. Many still celebrate the Christmas season with a Feast of the seven fishes.
In some communities Italian American Catholics felt discriminated against by Irish and German Catholic leaders and left the Catholic Church to join the Episcopal Church. [1]
There are many non-Catholic Italian Americans today. Many are Episcopalians because of that church's similarity to the Roman Catholic Church. For example, Fiorello LaGuardia was an Episcopalian (on his father's side; his mother was from the small but significant community of Italian Jews). It should also be noted that the first group of Italian immigrants to Trenton converted to Baptist. In the early 1900s, a number of Protestant denominations and missionaries worked in urban Italian American neighborhoods of the Northeast.
According to 2000 Census data, Italian Americans have a greater high school graduation rate than the national average, and a greater than or equal rate of advanced degrees compared to the national average. Italian Americans have a median annual income of $61,300.
Italian Americans throughout the United States are well represented in a wide variety of occupations and professions, from skilled trades, to the arts, to engineering, science, mathematics, law, and medicine, and include numerous Nobel prize winners.[3]
Main articles: Italian language in the United States
According to the from 1998 to 2002, the enrollment in college Italian language courses grew by 30%, faster than the enrollment rates for French and German. Italian is the fourth most commonly taught foreign language in U.S. colleges and universities behind Spanish, French, and German. According to the U.S. 2000 Census, Italian is the fifth (seventh overall) most spoken language in the United States (tied with Vietnamese) with over 1 million speakers.[3]
As a result of the large wave of Italian immigration to the United States in the late 19th century and early 20th centuries, the Italian language was once widely spoken in much of the U.S., especially in northeastern and Great Lakes area cities, as well as, San Francisco and New Orleans. Italian-language newspapers exist in many American cities, especially New York City, and Italian-language movie theatres existed in the U.S. as late as the 1950s.
Author Lawrence Distasi argues that the loss of spoken Italian among the Italian American population can be tied to U.S. government pressures during World War II. During World War II, in various parts of the country, the U.S. government displayed signs that read, ''Don't Speak the Enemy's Language.'' Such signs designated the languages of the Axis powers, German, Japanese, and Italian, as "enemy languages". Shortly after the U.S. declared war on the Axis powers, many Italian, Japanese and German citizens were interned. Among the Italian Americans, those who spoke Italian, who had never taken out citizenship papers, and who belonged to groups that praised Benito Mussolini, were most likely to become candidates for internment. Distasi claims that many Italian language schools closed down in the San Francisco Bay Area within a week of the U.S. declaration of war on the Axis powers. Such closures were inevitable since most of the teachers in Italian languages were interned.
Despite the pressures of the US government during World War II, now more than ever, children of Italian heritage, especially paternal heritage, are given Italian names, and raised in traditional Italian ways. The Italian language is still spoken and studied by those of Italian American descent, and it can be heard in various American communities, especially among older Italian Americans. During the late 20th and early 21st centuries, interest in Italian language and culture has surged among Italian Americans. Today's Italian American youth no longer take for granted the impressive contributions Italians and Italian Americans have made to Western civilization, especially in the areas of fine art, music, science, philosophy, law, medicine, education, literature, architecture, and cuisine.
There is, however, a dilemma for Italian Americans who consider re-learning the language of their ancestors. The formal "Italian" that is taught in colleges and universities is generally not the "Italian" with which Italian Americans are acquainted. Eighty percent of Italian Americans are of Southern Italian origin; therefore, the languages spoken by their families who arrived between 1880-1920 were most likely variations of the Neapolitan and Sicilian dialects with perhaps some degree of influence from Standard Italian. Because the Italian of Italian Americans comes from a time just after the unification of the state, their language is in many ways anachronistic and demonstrates what the dialects of Southern Italy used to be at the time. Because of this, Italian Americans studying Italian are often learning a language that does not include all of the words and phrases they know, and which their ancestors would not have recognized well.
The situation is even more pronounced among Italian Americans whose ancestors came to the United States from Northern Italy. Italian Americans variously of Emilia-Romagnan, Lombardian, Genoese, Marchese, Piedmontese, Venetian and other Northern Italian heritage are even further moved away, linguistically, from the languages of their ancestors through the contemporary standard Italian language.
In the 1890-1920 period Italian Americans were often stereotyped as being "violent" and "controlled by the Mafia". [4] In the 1920s, many Americans used the Sacco and Vanzetti trial, in which two Italian anarchists were wrongly sentenced to death, to denounce Italian immigrants as anarchists and criminals. During the 1800s and early 20th century, Italian Americans were one of the most likely groups to be lynched. In 1891, eleven Italian immigrants in New Orleans were lynched due to their ethnicity and suspicion of being involved in the Mafia. This was the largest mass lynching in US history.[5]
To this day, Italian Americans are frequently and unfairly associated with organized crime, and New York in the minds of many Americans, largely due to pervasive media stereotyping, a number of popular gangster movies (such as ''The Godfather'' and ''Goodfellas'') and television series such as ''The Sopranos''. A Zogby International survey revealed that 78 percent of teenagers 13 to 18 associated Italian Americans with either criminal activity or blue-collar work. A survey by the Response Analysis Corp. reported that 74 percent of adult Americans believe most Italian Americans have "some connection" to organized crime. Italian Americans still report some workplace discrimination and harassment. (see Anti-Italianism)
However, the National Italian American Foundation, the National American Italian Association and other Italian American organizations have asserted that the Mafia in the United States have never numbered more than a few thousand individuals, and that it is unfair to associate such a small minority with the general population of Italian Americans. Further, a majority of Italian Americans hold white collar jobs, including many distinguished positions in business, academia, the arts, medicine, and public service, as well as possessing advanced degrees.
Notable Italian Americans include:
★ 'Scientists and academics' (Enrico Fermi, Antonio Meucci (true inventor of the telephone), Riccardo Giacconi, Eugenio Calabi, Gian-Carlo Rota, Salvador Luria, Renato Dulbecco, Giovanni Sartori, and Franco Modigliani);
★ 'Jurists and lawyers' (including current Associate Justices of the United States Supreme Court Samuel Alito and Antonin Scalia), John Sirica of Watergate fame, Melvin Belli (Swiss Italian),;
★ 'Artists' (Frank Stella, Corrado Parducci, Joseph Barbera);
★ 'Politicians' (Rudolph Giuliani, Janet Napolitano, Mario Cuomo, Nancy Pelosi, Geraldine Ferraro, Alphonse D'Amato and others);
★ 'Authors' Gay Talese, Tomie dePaola, Jerre Mangione, Mario Puzo, Lawrence Ferlinghetti (of the Beat Generation);
★ 'Athletes' (Joe DiMaggio, Joe Torre, Mario Andretti, Rocky Marciano, Rocky Graziano. Yogi Berra, Franco Nero (half Black, half Italian), Roy Campanella (half Italian, half Black), Phil Rizutto, Vince Lombardi, Mike Piazza, and many others);
★ 'Actors, directors, radio/TV personalities' Rudolph Valentino (Italian-French), Frank Capra (Sicilian immigrant), Frank Borzage (Swiss Italian), Francis Ford Coppola (of Tunisian-Italian ancestry), Martin Scorsese, Jay Leno (Italian/Scott), Brian DePalma, Quentin Tarantino (half Italian), Guy Williams, George Raft (half Italian), Al Pacino, Anne Bancroft (Anna Italiano),Robert De Niro (one quarter-Italian), Chazz Palminteri, Sylvester Stallone, Joe Pesci, James Darren, Danny DeVito and many others);
★ 'Musicians' (Frank Sinatra, Jon Bon Jovi, Richard Crenna, Judy Canova, Jerry Colonna, Pat Cooper, Russ Colombo, (a.k.a. "The Old Coalminer,") Madonna, Bobby Darin (born Walden Robert Cassotto), Frankie Lane, Steven Tyler (one quarter-Italian), Tony Bennett, Perry Como, Fabian (Fabiano Forte'), Joey Dee, Jim Croce, The Capris (all original members), Dion and the Belmonts (all original members), Johnny Maestro (original lead of The Crests), Bobby Rydell (Robert Ridarelli), Frankie Avalone (Avalonne), Dean Martin, Frank Zappa, Bruce Springsteen (half Italian), Connie Stevens, Connie Francis (born Concetta Franconero), and others);
★ 'Numerous' winners of the Medal of Honor (the earliest being Luigi Palma DiCesnola from the Civil War);
★ 'Composers' (Bill Conti, Angelo Badalamenti, Frank Stallone, Harry Warren (100% Italian), Henry Mancini, Gian-Carlo Menotti, Liberace).
Staten Island, New York City has the highest percentage of Italian Americans in the whole United States, with about 44.5% of the 430,000 residents defining themselves as Italian American.
States known for their high concentrations of Italian Americans include New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland, Illinois, California, Ohio, and Florida. Among major cities across the country, Boston, Chicago, Miami, New York City, New Orleans, and Philadelphia have large Italian communities.
1. New York 3,254,298
2. New Jersey 1,590,225
3. Pennsylvania 1,547,470
4. California 1,149,351
5. Florida 1,147,946
6. Massachusetts 918,838
7. Illinois 739,284
8. Ohio 720,847
9. Connecticut 652,016
10. Michigan 484,486
1. Rhode Island 19.7%
2. Connecticut 18.6%
3. New Jersey 16.8%
4. New York 16.4%
5. Massachusetts 14.5%
6. Pennsylvania 13%
[6]
1. US demographic census
2. Vendetta: A true story of the worst lynching in America, the mass murder of Italian-Americans in New Orleans in 1891, the vicious motivations behind it, and the tragic repercussions that linger to this day., , Richard, Gambino, Doubleday, ,
3.
4.
5. National Great Blacks in Wax Museaum - Italian Lynching
★ Baily, Samuel L. ''Immigrants in the Lands of Promise : Italians in Buenos Aires and New York City, 1870-1914'' (1999) Online in ACLA History E-book Project
★ Bona, Mary Jo. ''Claiming a Tradition: Italian American Women Writers'' (1999)
★ Diggins, John P. ''Mussolini and Fascism: The View from America'' (1972)
★ D'Agostino, Peter R. ''Rome in America: Transnational Catholic Ideology from the Risorgimento to Fascism'' (2004).
★ Gans, Herbert J. ''Urban Villagers'' (1982)
★ Guglielmo, Thomas A. ''White on Arrival: Italians, Race, Color, and Power in Chicago, 1890-1945'' (2003)
★ Gardaphe, Fred L. ''Italian Signs, American Streets: The Evolution of Italian American Narrative'' (1996)
★ Giordano, Paolo A. and Anthony Julian Tamburri, eds. ''Beyond the Margin: Essays on Italian Americana'' (1998).
★ Hobbie, Margaret. ''Italian American Material Culture: A Directory of Collections, Sites, and Festivals in the United States and Canada'' (1992)
★ Juliani, Richard N. ''The Social Organization of Immigration: The Italians in Philadelphia'' (1980)[7]
★ Juliani, Richard N. ''Building Little Italy: Philadelphia's Italians before Mass Migration'' (1998)[8]
★ Juliani, Richard N. ''Priest, Parish, and People: Saving the Faith in Philadelphia's Little Italy'' (2007) [9]
★ Lagumina, Salvatore J. et al eds. ''The Italian American Experience: An Encyclopedia'' (2000)
★ Stefano Luconi. ''The Italian-American Vote in Providence, R.I., 1916-1948'' 2005
★ Nelli, Humbert S. ''The Business of Crime: Italians and Syndicate Crime in the United States'' (1981)
★ Nelli, Humbert S. ''Italians in Chicago, 1880-1930: A Study in Ethnic Mobility'' (2005).
★ Prendergast, William B. ''The Catholic Voter in American Politics: The Passing of the Democratic Monolith'' (1999)
★ Sterba, Christopher M. ''Good Americans: Italian and Jewish Immigrants During the First World'' (2003)
★ Tamburri, Anthony Julian. ''A Semiotic of Ethnicity: In (Re)cognition of the Italian/American Writer'' (1998).
★ Tamburri, Anthony Julian, Paolo A. Giordano, Fred L. Gardaphé, eds. ''From the Margin: Writings in Italian Americana'' (2000, 2nd ed.)
★ Whyte, William Foote. ''Street Corner Society: The Social Structure of an Italian Slum'' (1993).
★
★ Fox, Stephen, ''The unknown internment: an oral history of the relocation of Italian Americans during World War II'', (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1990). ISBN 0-8057-9108-6.
★ List of Italian Americans
★ Italy-USA Foundation
★ National Italian American Foundation
★ Order Sons of Italy in America
★ Sicilian-American
★ Immigration to the United States
★ H-ItAm daily discussion email group moderated by scholars
★ National Italian American Foundation
★ National Organization of Italian American Women
★ Sons of Italy in America
★ Towards a New Italian American Identity
★ ItalianAmericanTalk.com
★ Fondazione Italia USA
★ Italian Heritage & Culture Month Committee of New York
★ Ministry for Foreign Affairs
★
★
★ The Italian American Press
★ America Oggi, an Italian-language daily published in the US
★ L'Idea MagazineA Magazine for the Italians in USA
An 'Italian American' is an American of Italian descent. The phrase may refer to someone born in the United States of Italian heritage or to someone who has immigrated to the United States from Italy.
History
Italians arrived early in the Americas in small numbers, many of which fleeing after the failure of revolutionary movements in 1848 and 1861, though most immigration from Italy occurred between 1880 and 1960. Many Italian Americans came from Southern Italy and Sicily as rural peasants with very little education. From 1890 to 1900, 655,888 arrived in the United States, of whom two-thirds were men. The main factor in Italian immigration was a poor economy in Italy, particularly in the southern regions. In America, Italians settled in and dominated specific neighborhoods (often called "Little Italy") where they could interact with one another, establish a familiar cultural presence, and find favorite foods.
The Italian immigrants usually arrived with very little cash or cultural capital (that is, they were not educated or intellectually sophisticated) and generally performed manual labor. Their neighborhoods were typically slums with overcrowded tenements and poor sanitation. Tuberculosis was rampant. Italian immigration peaked from 1900 until 1914, when World War I made such intercontinental movement impossible. In many cases, the Italian immigrants were subjected to severe anti-Catholic, anti-immigrant discrimination and even violence such as lynching[2]
By 1978, 5.3 million Italians had immigrated to the United States; two million arrived between 1900 and 1914. About a third of these immigrants intended to stay only briefly, in order to make money and return to Italy, and were commonly referred to as "Birds of Passage." While one in four did return home, the rest either decided to stay or were prevented from returning by the war.
Internment during World War II
The internment of Italian Americans during World War II has often been overshadowed by the Japanese American experience. Recently, however, books such as Una Storia Segreta (ISBN 1-890771-40-6) by Lawrence DiStasi and Uncivil Liberties (ISBN 1-58112-754-5) by Stephen Fox have been published, and movies, such as Prisoners Among Us have been made. These efforts reveal that during World War II, roughly 600,000 Italians were required to carry identity cards that labelled them "resident aliens." Some 10,000 people in war zones on the West Coast were required to move inland, while hundreds of others were held in military camps for up to two years. Lawrence DiStasi claims that these wartime restrictions and internments contributed more than anything else to the loss of spoken Italian in the United States. After Italy declared war on the U.S., many Italian language papers and schools were forced, almost overnight, to close by the U.S. Government because of their past support for an enemy government.
Involvement in World War II
During World War II, many Italian-Americans joined or were drafted into the armed forces to fight the Axis Powers; many women also enlisted. An estimated 1.2 million Italian-Americans served in the armed forces during World War II; this represented 7.5% of the 16 million total who served.
Italian-American service and assistance were pivotal during the Allied invasion of Sicily, where United States government troops worked with locals (including Mafiosi) in order to secure and fortify the newly-acquired foothold in Europe. Numerous texts document the delicate relations the United States government established with Italian-American organized crime figures in the U.S. and the manner in which these were used to help ensure a successful landing in Sicily. It is rumored that even Lucky Luciano helped smooth relations between the two communities during World War II.
Demographics
Numbers
In the 2000 U.S. Census, Italian Americans constituted the sixth largest ancestry group in America with about 15.6 million people (5.6% of the total U.S. population).[3] Sicilian Americans are a subset of numerous Americans of regional Italian ancestries.
Politics
Logo of Sons of Italy, which is the largest Italian American fraternal organization in the United States.
In the 1930s, Italian Americans voted heavily Democratic; since the 1960s, they have split about evenly between the Democratic and the Republican parties. The U.S. Congress includes Italian Americans who are regarded as leaders in both the Republican and Democratic parties. The highest ranking Italian American politician is currently Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) who became the first woman and Italian American Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, but former Republican New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani is a candidate for the U.S. presidency in the 2008 election.
Culture
Many Italian Americans still retain aspects of their culture. This includes Italian food, drink, art, Roman Catholicism, annual Italian American feasts and a strong commitment to extended family. Italian Americans influenced popular music in the 1940s and as recently in the 1970s, one of their major contributions to American culture. In movies that deal with cultural issues, Italian American words and lingo are sometimes spoken by the characters. Although most will not speak Italian fluently, a dialect of sorts has arisen among Italian Americans, particularly in the urban Northeast, often popularized in film and television.
Among the most characteristic and popular of Italian American cultural contributions has been their feasts. Throughout the United States, wherever one may find an "Italian neighborhood" (often referred to as 'Little Italy') one can find festive celebrations such as the well known San Gennaro Feast in New York City or the unique Our Lady of Mount Carmel "Giglio" Feast in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, New York. The Our Lady of Mount Carmel Festival has been celebrated annually in Hammonton, New Jersey for over 125 years.
Italian feasts involve elaborate displays of devotion to God and patron saints. Perhaps the most widely known is St. Joseph's feast day on March 19th. These feasts are much more than simply isolated events within the year. They express a "typically Italian" approach to life and are taken very seriously by the communities who prepare them. Feast (''Festa'' in Italian) is an umbrella term for the various secular and religious, indoor and outdoor activities surrounding a religious holiday. Typically, Italian feasts consist of festive communal meals, religious services, games of chance and skill and elaborate outdoor processions consisting of statues resplendent in jewels and donations. This merriment usually takes place over the course of several days, and is communally prepared by a church community or a religious organization over the course of several months.
Currently, there are more than 300 Italian feasts celebrated throughout the United States. These feasts are visited each year by millions of Americans from various backgrounds who come together to enjoy Italian delicacies such as Zeppole and sausage sandwiches.
Religion
Most if not virtually all immigrants had been Catholics in Italy. Observers have noted that they often became more devoutly Catholic in the United States, since their faith was a distinctive characteristic in the U.S.; devout Italian Americans often identified themselves as "Catholics" when talking to coworkers or neighbors. In Italy, there are religious minorities of Greek Catholics, Greek Orthodox and Italian Jews, whose religious community date back 2,000 years, also took part in the Italian immigration to America.
In some Italian American communities, Saint Joseph's Day (March 19) is marked by celebrations and parades. Columbus Day is also widely celebrated, as are the feasts of some regional Italian patron saints, most notably St. Januarius (San Gennaro) (September 19) (especially by those claiming Neapolitan heritage), and Santa Rosalia (September 4) by immigrants from Sicily. The immigants from Potenza, Italy celebrate the Saint Rocco's day feast at the Potenza Lodge in Denver, Colorado. Rocco is the patron saint of Potenza. Many still celebrate the Christmas season with a Feast of the seven fishes.
In some communities Italian American Catholics felt discriminated against by Irish and German Catholic leaders and left the Catholic Church to join the Episcopal Church. [1]
There are many non-Catholic Italian Americans today. Many are Episcopalians because of that church's similarity to the Roman Catholic Church. For example, Fiorello LaGuardia was an Episcopalian (on his father's side; his mother was from the small but significant community of Italian Jews). It should also be noted that the first group of Italian immigrants to Trenton converted to Baptist. In the early 1900s, a number of Protestant denominations and missionaries worked in urban Italian American neighborhoods of the Northeast.
Education
According to 2000 Census data, Italian Americans have a greater high school graduation rate than the national average, and a greater than or equal rate of advanced degrees compared to the national average. Italian Americans have a median annual income of $61,300.
Italian Americans throughout the United States are well represented in a wide variety of occupations and professions, from skilled trades, to the arts, to engineering, science, mathematics, law, and medicine, and include numerous Nobel prize winners.[3]
Italian language in the United States
Main articles: Italian language in the United States
According to the from 1998 to 2002, the enrollment in college Italian language courses grew by 30%, faster than the enrollment rates for French and German. Italian is the fourth most commonly taught foreign language in U.S. colleges and universities behind Spanish, French, and German. According to the U.S. 2000 Census, Italian is the fifth (seventh overall) most spoken language in the United States (tied with Vietnamese) with over 1 million speakers.[3]
As a result of the large wave of Italian immigration to the United States in the late 19th century and early 20th centuries, the Italian language was once widely spoken in much of the U.S., especially in northeastern and Great Lakes area cities, as well as, San Francisco and New Orleans. Italian-language newspapers exist in many American cities, especially New York City, and Italian-language movie theatres existed in the U.S. as late as the 1950s.
This sign appeared in post offices and in government buildings during World War II. The sign designates Japanese, German, and Italian, the languages of the Axis powers, as enemy languages.
Author Lawrence Distasi argues that the loss of spoken Italian among the Italian American population can be tied to U.S. government pressures during World War II. During World War II, in various parts of the country, the U.S. government displayed signs that read, ''Don't Speak the Enemy's Language.'' Such signs designated the languages of the Axis powers, German, Japanese, and Italian, as "enemy languages". Shortly after the U.S. declared war on the Axis powers, many Italian, Japanese and German citizens were interned. Among the Italian Americans, those who spoke Italian, who had never taken out citizenship papers, and who belonged to groups that praised Benito Mussolini, were most likely to become candidates for internment. Distasi claims that many Italian language schools closed down in the San Francisco Bay Area within a week of the U.S. declaration of war on the Axis powers. Such closures were inevitable since most of the teachers in Italian languages were interned.
Despite the pressures of the US government during World War II, now more than ever, children of Italian heritage, especially paternal heritage, are given Italian names, and raised in traditional Italian ways. The Italian language is still spoken and studied by those of Italian American descent, and it can be heard in various American communities, especially among older Italian Americans. During the late 20th and early 21st centuries, interest in Italian language and culture has surged among Italian Americans. Today's Italian American youth no longer take for granted the impressive contributions Italians and Italian Americans have made to Western civilization, especially in the areas of fine art, music, science, philosophy, law, medicine, education, literature, architecture, and cuisine.
There is, however, a dilemma for Italian Americans who consider re-learning the language of their ancestors. The formal "Italian" that is taught in colleges and universities is generally not the "Italian" with which Italian Americans are acquainted. Eighty percent of Italian Americans are of Southern Italian origin; therefore, the languages spoken by their families who arrived between 1880-1920 were most likely variations of the Neapolitan and Sicilian dialects with perhaps some degree of influence from Standard Italian. Because the Italian of Italian Americans comes from a time just after the unification of the state, their language is in many ways anachronistic and demonstrates what the dialects of Southern Italy used to be at the time. Because of this, Italian Americans studying Italian are often learning a language that does not include all of the words and phrases they know, and which their ancestors would not have recognized well.
The situation is even more pronounced among Italian Americans whose ancestors came to the United States from Northern Italy. Italian Americans variously of Emilia-Romagnan, Lombardian, Genoese, Marchese, Piedmontese, Venetian and other Northern Italian heritage are even further moved away, linguistically, from the languages of their ancestors through the contemporary standard Italian language.
Stereotypes
History
In the 1890-1920 period Italian Americans were often stereotyped as being "violent" and "controlled by the Mafia". [4] In the 1920s, many Americans used the Sacco and Vanzetti trial, in which two Italian anarchists were wrongly sentenced to death, to denounce Italian immigrants as anarchists and criminals. During the 1800s and early 20th century, Italian Americans were one of the most likely groups to be lynched. In 1891, eleven Italian immigrants in New Orleans were lynched due to their ethnicity and suspicion of being involved in the Mafia. This was the largest mass lynching in US history.[5]
Present
To this day, Italian Americans are frequently and unfairly associated with organized crime, and New York in the minds of many Americans, largely due to pervasive media stereotyping, a number of popular gangster movies (such as ''The Godfather'' and ''Goodfellas'') and television series such as ''The Sopranos''. A Zogby International survey revealed that 78 percent of teenagers 13 to 18 associated Italian Americans with either criminal activity or blue-collar work. A survey by the Response Analysis Corp. reported that 74 percent of adult Americans believe most Italian Americans have "some connection" to organized crime. Italian Americans still report some workplace discrimination and harassment. (see Anti-Italianism)
However, the National Italian American Foundation, the National American Italian Association and other Italian American organizations have asserted that the Mafia in the United States have never numbered more than a few thousand individuals, and that it is unfair to associate such a small minority with the general population of Italian Americans. Further, a majority of Italian Americans hold white collar jobs, including many distinguished positions in business, academia, the arts, medicine, and public service, as well as possessing advanced degrees.
Notable individuals
Notable Italian Americans include:
★ 'Scientists and academics' (Enrico Fermi, Antonio Meucci (true inventor of the telephone), Riccardo Giacconi, Eugenio Calabi, Gian-Carlo Rota, Salvador Luria, Renato Dulbecco, Giovanni Sartori, and Franco Modigliani);
★ 'Jurists and lawyers' (including current Associate Justices of the United States Supreme Court Samuel Alito and Antonin Scalia), John Sirica of Watergate fame, Melvin Belli (Swiss Italian),;
★ 'Artists' (Frank Stella, Corrado Parducci, Joseph Barbera);
★ 'Politicians' (Rudolph Giuliani, Janet Napolitano, Mario Cuomo, Nancy Pelosi, Geraldine Ferraro, Alphonse D'Amato and others);
★ 'Authors' Gay Talese, Tomie dePaola, Jerre Mangione, Mario Puzo, Lawrence Ferlinghetti (of the Beat Generation);
★ 'Athletes' (Joe DiMaggio, Joe Torre, Mario Andretti, Rocky Marciano, Rocky Graziano. Yogi Berra, Franco Nero (half Black, half Italian), Roy Campanella (half Italian, half Black), Phil Rizutto, Vince Lombardi, Mike Piazza, and many others);
★ 'Actors, directors, radio/TV personalities' Rudolph Valentino (Italian-French), Frank Capra (Sicilian immigrant), Frank Borzage (Swiss Italian), Francis Ford Coppola (of Tunisian-Italian ancestry), Martin Scorsese, Jay Leno (Italian/Scott), Brian DePalma, Quentin Tarantino (half Italian), Guy Williams, George Raft (half Italian), Al Pacino, Anne Bancroft (Anna Italiano),Robert De Niro (one quarter-Italian), Chazz Palminteri, Sylvester Stallone, Joe Pesci, James Darren, Danny DeVito and many others);
★ 'Musicians' (Frank Sinatra, Jon Bon Jovi, Richard Crenna, Judy Canova, Jerry Colonna, Pat Cooper, Russ Colombo, (a.k.a. "The Old Coalminer,") Madonna, Bobby Darin (born Walden Robert Cassotto), Frankie Lane, Steven Tyler (one quarter-Italian), Tony Bennett, Perry Como, Fabian (Fabiano Forte'), Joey Dee, Jim Croce, The Capris (all original members), Dion and the Belmonts (all original members), Johnny Maestro (original lead of The Crests), Bobby Rydell (Robert Ridarelli), Frankie Avalone (Avalonne), Dean Martin, Frank Zappa, Bruce Springsteen (half Italian), Connie Stevens, Connie Francis (born Concetta Franconero), and others);
★ 'Numerous' winners of the Medal of Honor (the earliest being Luigi Palma DiCesnola from the Civil War);
★ 'Composers' (Bill Conti, Angelo Badalamenti, Frank Stallone, Harry Warren (100% Italian), Henry Mancini, Gian-Carlo Menotti, Liberace).
Communities
Staten Island, New York City has the highest percentage of Italian Americans in the whole United States, with about 44.5% of the 430,000 residents defining themselves as Italian American.
States known for their high concentrations of Italian Americans include New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland, Illinois, California, Ohio, and Florida. Among major cities across the country, Boston, Chicago, Miami, New York City, New Orleans, and Philadelphia have large Italian communities.
State totals
Distribution of Italian Americans according to the 2000 census
Numbers
1. New York 3,254,298
2. New Jersey 1,590,225
3. Pennsylvania 1,547,470
4. California 1,149,351
5. Florida 1,147,946
6. Massachusetts 918,838
7. Illinois 739,284
8. Ohio 720,847
9. Connecticut 652,016
10. Michigan 484,486
Percentage
1. Rhode Island 19.7%
2. Connecticut 18.6%
3. New Jersey 16.8%
4. New York 16.4%
5. Massachusetts 14.5%
6. Pennsylvania 13%
[6]
References and notes
1. US demographic census
2. Vendetta: A true story of the worst lynching in America, the mass murder of Italian-Americans in New Orleans in 1891, the vicious motivations behind it, and the tragic repercussions that linger to this day., , Richard, Gambino, Doubleday, ,
3.
4.
5. National Great Blacks in Wax Museaum - Italian Lynching
★ Baily, Samuel L. ''Immigrants in the Lands of Promise : Italians in Buenos Aires and New York City, 1870-1914'' (1999) Online in ACLA History E-book Project
★ Bona, Mary Jo. ''Claiming a Tradition: Italian American Women Writers'' (1999)
★ Diggins, John P. ''Mussolini and Fascism: The View from America'' (1972)
★ D'Agostino, Peter R. ''Rome in America: Transnational Catholic Ideology from the Risorgimento to Fascism'' (2004).
★ Gans, Herbert J. ''Urban Villagers'' (1982)
★ Guglielmo, Thomas A. ''White on Arrival: Italians, Race, Color, and Power in Chicago, 1890-1945'' (2003)
★ Gardaphe, Fred L. ''Italian Signs, American Streets: The Evolution of Italian American Narrative'' (1996)
★ Giordano, Paolo A. and Anthony Julian Tamburri, eds. ''Beyond the Margin: Essays on Italian Americana'' (1998).
★ Hobbie, Margaret. ''Italian American Material Culture: A Directory of Collections, Sites, and Festivals in the United States and Canada'' (1992)
★ Juliani, Richard N. ''The Social Organization of Immigration: The Italians in Philadelphia'' (1980)[7]
★ Juliani, Richard N. ''Building Little Italy: Philadelphia's Italians before Mass Migration'' (1998)[8]
★ Juliani, Richard N. ''Priest, Parish, and People: Saving the Faith in Philadelphia's Little Italy'' (2007) [9]
★ Lagumina, Salvatore J. et al eds. ''The Italian American Experience: An Encyclopedia'' (2000)
★ Stefano Luconi. ''The Italian-American Vote in Providence, R.I., 1916-1948'' 2005
★ Nelli, Humbert S. ''The Business of Crime: Italians and Syndicate Crime in the United States'' (1981)
★ Nelli, Humbert S. ''Italians in Chicago, 1880-1930: A Study in Ethnic Mobility'' (2005).
★ Prendergast, William B. ''The Catholic Voter in American Politics: The Passing of the Democratic Monolith'' (1999)
★ Sterba, Christopher M. ''Good Americans: Italian and Jewish Immigrants During the First World'' (2003)
★ Tamburri, Anthony Julian. ''A Semiotic of Ethnicity: In (Re)cognition of the Italian/American Writer'' (1998).
★ Tamburri, Anthony Julian, Paolo A. Giordano, Fred L. Gardaphé, eds. ''From the Margin: Writings in Italian Americana'' (2000, 2nd ed.)
★ Whyte, William Foote. ''Street Corner Society: The Social Structure of an Italian Slum'' (1993).
★
★ Fox, Stephen, ''The unknown internment: an oral history of the relocation of Italian Americans during World War II'', (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1990). ISBN 0-8057-9108-6.
See also
★ List of Italian Americans
★ Italy-USA Foundation
★ National Italian American Foundation
★ Order Sons of Italy in America
★ Sicilian-American
★ Immigration to the United States
External links
★ H-ItAm daily discussion email group moderated by scholars
★ National Italian American Foundation
★ National Organization of Italian American Women
★ Sons of Italy in America
★ Towards a New Italian American Identity
★ ItalianAmericanTalk.com
★ Fondazione Italia USA
★ Italian Heritage & Culture Month Committee of New York
Useful links for Italians in USA
★ Ministry for Foreign Affairs
★
★
★ The Italian American Press
★ America Oggi, an Italian-language daily published in the US
★ L'Idea MagazineA Magazine for the Italians in USA
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