Italian immigration to the US
Introduction
America is a country of many immigrants who have diverse languages, customs, beliefs, religion as well as experiences of living in the new country. These immigrants form the American history since they are part and parcel of America because they are a major group that make up a large percentage of the population consequently, speaking about American history is speaking about the history of the immigrants- the two cannot be divorced from one another.
The Italian question is a single case of the immigrants. According to Iorizzo & Cardasco “ close to five million Italians have come to this land of opportunity from 1820-1960.”Millions of Italians migrate into the United States forming the largest immigrant group in a relatively short time during the period 1880-1920. This group has a historical account of how they left their homeland, their journey across to America, their experiences at Ellis Island, their settlement in America and the discrimination they faced since they were non-native back then (Iorizzo & Cardasco 90).The male Italians were the major group that entered the United States with the aim of making some money and then return to Italy. This objective was not achieved on any occasions since many of them remained in America for one reason or another.
Why the Italians migrated to America
The situation of the Italian immigrants in America has been dire since they have undergone a lot of troubles in terms of discrimination and suffering. Despite this fact, the poverty back at home in Italy was or more or less wanting. Poverty necessitated the migration to America in order to search for greener pastures and a better life since America was seen as a land of numerous opportunities. Iorizzo & Cardasco assert that “The migration from the Italian peninsula in the nineteenth and the twentieth century was hardly a new way for people to try and solve their problems” (46).
The unemployment level in Italy had reached to an overwhelming high point. Many Italian youths were either unemployed or underemployed in their own country and this led to a lot of frustrations and a lot of social problems.
A number of social problems mostly associated to poverty and unemployment were rampant in Italy forcing many people to immigrate into America in order to save themselves from their daily plight. Some of the most sited problems in this context were: “Poor housing, high mortality rate, poor medical care, poor education system and rampant exploitation of human resources” (Stella 10). These and many other problems made the migration to be like liberation towards a more human society in America where exploitation was an unheard of story and opportunities were in plenty
Italy at the time was a unified democratic country with a constitution to uphold the welfare of its people. However, this development was apparently felt in the other parts of the country except the South whose situation was wanting. The taxes in this region increased with positive action aimed at improving the poor stagnant economy. The land was ignored with rampant erosion since there were no trees planted to hold the soil firmly together, there was no irrigation or any other effort aimed at improving the soil quality.
The peasants became poorer owing to the degradation of the soil quality in Southern Italy. Disease like cohere and malaria attacked the people forcing many out in search of a more hospitable environment especially in the United States since they felt that their own country had failed them a great deal.
The grapevine farms were destroyed by mysterious parasites rendering the peasant farmers hopeless in Southern Italy since their daily lifeline was cut short. This shows how unfortunate the conditions of Southern Italy had been compared to the central or the northern regions. This eventually led to a point whereby the conditions of living became unbearable leading to migration from the region since most of the land was owned by the nobility who were wealthy and from the north employing supervisors to look after their farms to check on any encroachment by the poor squatters.
Many townships in the South faced acute water shortage and in fact access to water became a big privilege. During the rainy seasons, the roads and the streets were rendered impassable owing to the poorly planned infrastructure. The winter period as well as the summer was extremely harsh with the former making the homes to freeze while the later season brought with it long periods of drought which was made worse after the civil war in Italy when peasants were asked to be sharecroppers- sharing their crops in order to pay their debts, which made the to be penniless (Stella).
Where they came from
The Italians came from many provinces in Italy. There were the Sicilians and the Neapolitans from Apulia, Abruzzi, Calabria and Basilicta who came from the Northern region and those from the peasants from the south.
Settlement at Ellis Island
The immigrants entering the United States passed through Ellis Island where they settled for a while since it served as a station for the immigrants at the Harbor of New York. The Immigrants were screened by the quarantine inspector in order to be allowed entry into the United States. All passengers were inspected and immigrants were transported to Ellis Island while the natives moved freely into New York. Iorizzo & Cardasco “ The immigrant would land at Ellis island with the name of some banker to whom he had been sent without revealing any information” (92).
Italians were forced to mingle with each other from different parts of Italy in the crowds that were steerage sections. There were many tribes such as the Neapolitans and the Sicilians who came from the province of Abuzzi, Basilicta, Calabria among others and even others from the northern province of the country. Speaking different dialects made them not understand each other especially when they were put together and this was also a challenge to their stay together because this created a major language barrier to them.
Most of the Italians who came from the northern part of the country considered themselves better than those who came from the southern since the northerners were more educated than the southerners and so they looked down on them. The social status of the Italians from the southern part of the country was also low compared to those from the northern part and this also gave them more reasons to look down on the southerners . As the Italians were crossing the Atlantic Ocean, they realized that they were both going to land their foot on America and so they decided to neglect their differences since here being in a foreign land they needed to appreciate each other and they had some things in common and that was their tribe as Italians and their culture from Italy.
Seventy five percent of the Italians that migrated to the United States amid 1892 and 1924 passed through the Ellis Island station of immigration that was built on a very small island in harbor of New York although there had been suggestions that the facilities of immigration be built on the Liberty Island where the statue of Liberty is situated and this effort was ended by the activists since they did not want the statue to be tainted by these immigrants (Iorizzo & Cardasco 126).
Companies that dealt with shipping at that time made enough profits through carrying the human cargo to America by bringing cotton and crop loads among others to Europe and as they returned they brought immigrants to America. The government that was a federal one at that time decided that there should be some inspection of the origins of people who were being involved in the migration of people into America (Iorizzo & Cardasco 18).
A list was provided where everyone would write down their countries of origin and give complete information about themselves before offloading the ships and if any of the immigrants was found to be illegally there and was supposed to be returned back to his native country then the company that was responsible for the shipping was to take responsibility of paying the cost for that and this always remained to be the manifest of the ship by the captain which served as his record of the invents that took place in the cargo. This was now an official document for the records of everyone who came to Ellis Island including the Italians who had also migrated to America and had been at Ellis Island for a while and these evidences can be seen Ellis Island Museum for anyone who wants to learn more about the immigration of Italians to America (Iorizzo & Cardasco 15).
When the Italians landed in America, one of their biggest challenge was their financial problems since they had come with very minimal amount of money and now they were all looking for work and for those who had at least some money, they were in a better position to look for their relatives or friends to live with in New York City. Most of these immigrants went to cities where they could find some work in the factories. By this time the Italians had spread almost all over America and there were little cities that were called little Italy and these are the places where they settled and here they could find food that was familiar to theirs back in Italy, the language was similar and their customs could also be found here and in these little cities is where they found themselves more comfortable (Lord, Trenor & Barrows 23).
These cities could be found in Hartford, New Britain and Waterbury among others and in these cities they were forced to stay away from the American community. This kind of isolation helped them to maintain their culture, their language and religious practices among other things related to their way of life.
Most of these Italians that migrated into America had been farmers but they did not find a convincing reason to farm in America. This hostile treatment towards the Italians contributed a lot towards the attitude of Italians since the controversial aspect of the Italians in America is mostly involved with crime or organizes crime (Lord, Trenor & Barrows 21). “This hostile treatment towards Italians by the Americans brought a lot of problems between the Italian government and the American government” the last insult of Italians in their process of migrating to America came when there was an act in the year 1924 that limited the number of immigrants to the United States of America.
Work cited
Eliot Lord, John J. D. Trenor, Samuel June Barrows.The Italian in America. Ayer Publishing, 1970
Luciano J. Iorizzo, Fancesco Cardasco .Italian immigration and the impact of the padrone system Ayer Publishing, 1980
Antonio Stella .Some aspects of Italian immigration to the United States. Arno Press, 1975
