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Italian immigrants influence on america
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Discrimination of Italian Immigrants in American History
Fear is a great motivator in man. In the 1920s, immigrants were coming over to the United States in mass quantities. Most of these immigrants were from Southern or Eastern Europe, parts of Asia and Mexico. Because these groups differed in culture, race, and religion from the majority of White Americans, as the immigrant population increased, so did hostility and displeasure towards them. Italians made up 11.8%, or 550,460 immigrants between the years of 1920 and 1930 (Historical Statistics, 456). These people received an extraordinary amount of dislike as they differed from white America in so many ways. When people began immigrating to America at the rate of five thousand people a day after World War I, people started taking their opinions into the political arena as well as the social one. 1921 saw the first legislation passed in Congress that enacted immigration quotas. The first quota reduced the number of immigrants to 3% of their total population in the country based in the 1910 census. Xenophobia and hatred towards immigrants continued to increase in the following years, cumulating in the National Origins Act of 1924, or as it is commonly know, the Johnson Act. This act further restricted immigration to 2% of their United States population bases on the census of 1890. These acts both passed with an overwhelming majority voting for them. During this time, many social movements were taking place in America, such as the labor movement, the temperance movement, and the reactionary movements of many white protestant groups, and all were looking for public support. Often, these groups would try to unify people around a central idea in order to gain this backing...
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...a, and we can start to break the cycle of hate from continuing further into the future.
Work Cited:
1. “Immigration.” Collier Encyclopedia. 1997 ed.
2. United States Department of Commerce. Bureau of the Census. Historical Statistics of the United States.. pt. 1. Washington: 1975.
3. “Italians.” American Immigrant Cultures. 1997
4. Caporole, Rocco. The Italian Americans Through the Generations. New York: The American Italian Historical Association, 1986
5. The Urban Experience of Italian-Americans Ed. Pat Gallo. New York: The American Italian Historical Association, 1975
6. “Our Immigration Dilemma.” New York Times 2 May 1920.
7. Vecoli, Rudolph J., Italian Immigrants in Rural and Small Town America. New York: The American Italian Historical Association, 1987
8. “Want Immigrants on Farms.” New York Times 6 June 1920.
Nicola Sacco and Barolmeo Vanzetti arrived in America as Italian immigrants in 1908. Sacco was seventeen working at a shoe...
Teacher Unions are one source of controversy in Education because of how it seems that Teacher Unions have allowed poor performing teachers to remain. In “The Teacher Wars”, it articulates, “Teacher Union movement was (and remains today) a pragmatic, even sometimes
During the 1900’s, it was common for people to immigrate to America. They saw it as a land of freedom and opportunity. Some thought that this was a great way for the US’ economy to boom, but some thought otherwise. With the shortage of jobs, many believed that the immigrants were stealing their precious jobs. Because of the competition over jobs, immigrants became the new public enemy to many.
Pietro DiDonato’s Christ in Concrete is a powerful narrative of the struggles and culture of New York’s Italian immigrant laborers in the early twentieth century. Jerre Mangione and Ben Morreale, in their historical work La Storia, state that "Never before or since has the aggravation of the Italian immigrant been more bluntly expressed by a novelist" (368). A central component of this "aggravation", both for DiDonato as an author and for his protagonist Paul, is the struggle to reconcile traditional religious beliefs and customs with the failure of that very same faith to provide any tangible improvement in the immigrants’ lives. Through Paul’s experience, we observe the Catholic institutions lose influence and effectiveness as Capitalist ones, manifest in Job, take their place. While doing this, DiDonato also illustrates essential aspects of Italian (specifically southern) Catholicism and the pressures placed upon it by the American environment.
Ginsborg P (1990). ‘A History of Contemporary Italy: Society and Politics: 1943-1980’ Published by Penguin; Reprint edition (27 Sep 1990).
In the eyes of the early American colonists and the founders of the Constitution, the United States was to represent the ideals of acceptance and tolerance to those of all walks of life. When the immigration rush began in the mid-1800's, America proved to be everything but that. The millions of immigrants would soon realize the meaning of hardship and rejection as newcomers, as they attempted to assimilate into American culture. For countless immigrants, the struggle to arrive in America was rivaled only by the struggle to gain acceptance among the existing American population.
John Higham explains in "Racism Immigration Restriction" that in Americans at the turn of the century already had a dislike for the new immigrants and now with more entering America after World War I, the personal dislike intensified. He writes: "...the transformation of relative cultural differences into an absolute line of cleavage, which would redeem the northwestern Europeans from the charges once leveled at them and explain the present danger of immigration in terms of the change in its sources." (Doc 1) People believed these immigrants could not adapt to the "standardized" way of American living, as the Northwestern or Nordic immigrants did. These new immigrants' presence in America stirred up religious racist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan.
Putnam, Robert. 1993a. Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
... He had really no impact on the world then because nobody knew he had discovered a new continent (“Christopher Columbus Biography” par 4). People have tried to search for the shipwrecks of Capitana and San Juan but have had no luck (Columbus’s lost ships, “The Capitana and San Juan 1503-1504”). Christopher did make a sacrifice of leaving 40 men behind to start a colony, but all those ended up being killed by Indians (“Christopher Columbus Second Voyage”) par 3). The discovery led to an age of exploration and conquering. It always showed that the world was a lot bigger than everyone thought (Levinson 99-100). After a decade passed after the death of Christopher Columbus the whole coast from Honduras to Prenambuco had been mapped (“Christopher Columbus and The Spanish Empire” par 15). So Columbus really made a important discovery but never lived to know it.
Anorexia is a serious disorder that involves compulsive dieting and excessive weight loss. According to The National Institute of Mental Health, anorexia is characterized by emaciation, a relentless pursuit of thinness, and extremely disturbed eating behaviors (Parks, 2009). The “disturbed eating behaviors” associated with anorexia include unhealthy weight loss and weight control methods, behaviors such as abusing or self-induced vomiting, and a distorted view of one’s personal appearance (Shepphird, 2010). Anorexics in general survive on 500 calories or less per day, and they count every calorie they consume (Parks, 2009). Symptoms often also include the inability or refusal to maintain a healthy weight and a great fear of gaining weight (Shepphird, 2010).
Anorexia is a very major disorder in the United States, 95% of people with eating disorders are between the ages of 12 and 25. [“ANAD”] Anorexia is much more common in women than in men. When you starve yourself you are denying your body the necessary protein and nutrients that it needs to function properly. Your blood pressure levels and heart rate decrease more and more and this puts you...
The cities of late-nineteenth century America swelled in numbers with immigrants coming for labor, African Americans escaping the discrimination they faced before the Civil War, and farming families with labor being moved to companies instead of individual families. From different sources, like eastern Europe, to the same sources, like Ireland, China, and Mexico, immigrants poured into American cities in search for jobs, which were mainly concentrated in the cities, especially since most immigrants didn’t have substantial funds to move rural communities and the ethnic communities within cities created an environment of acceptance that may be unavailable in rural communities. Also looking for acceptance or at least an end to violence and oppression,
"Life in Italy During the Renaissance." Italy. Life in Italy, 2014. Web. 29 Apr. 2014. .
Between 1820 and 1920, two third of the 34 million immigrants entered from the gateway of New York, and out of the two-third, half of them had chose New York to settle. Being the gateway of United States is one reason it attracts new comers, but also its diversity. After New York’s migration policy changed in 1965, ethnicity diversity even widened and cultural integration marked the main attractiveness of New York, and for which it formed its culture today. Since 1980s, New York had more immigrants than any other city in the US. During year 1970-1980, New York had a net increase in foreign 24,000 a year. End of World War I, New York has three times as many foreign-born residents as the average city, immigrant labour from largely Italy, Hungary, and Russia, industrialized New York (Reimers, 2008). In New York City’s recent immigration population divided in two major age groups: the working-age people, and the elderly. The main reason for this divide is because people tend to immigrate in their prime working years, and large number of remnant of the early immigrants of the mercantile period, and especially the industrial period immigrants remains in New York. With New York’s long immigration history, geographical location, and has a long, varied mix with a large European base; European immigrants continue to be appeal to cities where has well-established European
Donadoni, Eugenio. A History of Italian Literature, Volume 1. New York: New York University Press, 1969.