The Great Depression and the Life of Italian-Immigrant Workers
The Great Depression and the Life of Italian-Immigrant Workers
Commentary: In order to develop ideas for this paper, I first analyzed the time of the Depression and what Italian Immigrants lives were like typically living in America. Using this background knowledge, I was able to analyze the lifestyles of the working class in each of the stories. Even though the background story of each of the family’s lives differed, they all had a common basis in that they were Italian Immigrant families working a hard lifestyle in order to support the family during economic hardship. I revised this paper by looking to see if my ideas were clearly expressed. I ran into an obstacle of trying to figure out which ideas to express, since the novels are characterized with many examples. In order to overcome this, I decided that I wanted to stick with the main points of the novel to my ideas across. This is where I think my strength came in. However, I think my weakness lies in organization of my ideas within each story.
The influx of Southern Europeans to the United States of America prior to the Great Depression provided labor for rapidly expanding industries. When the capitalistic American economy collapsed in 1929, many of these laborers became jobless, living in cities like New York. Italians living in New York City during the Great Depression were a mass of poor people culturally linked, living through one of the toughest periods in American History. Through the eyes of a first generation Italian-American living in Brooklyn during this time, government, holiday celebration, and everyday life helped Italians withstand the hardship of The Great Depression. The large wave of Italian immigrants between 1880 and 1920 was largely due to the hard economic times Italy was experiencing. Industrialization had taken over much of the world, and Italy’s problems directly stemmed from their failure to efficiently industrialize. Most often the Italian-Immigrant families
Commentary: In order to develop ideas for this paper, I first analyzed the time of the Depression and what Italian Immigrants lives were like typically living in America. Using this background knowledge, I was able to analyze the lifestyles of the working class in each of the stories. Even though the background story of each of the family’s lives differed, they all had a common basis in that they were Italian Immigrant families working a hard lifestyle in order to support the family during economic hardship. I revised this paper by looking to see if my ideas were clearly expressed. I ran into an obstacle of trying to figure out which ideas to express, since the novels are characterized with many examples. In order to overcome this, I decided that I wanted to stick with the main points of the novel to my ideas across. This is where I think my strength came in. However, I think my weakness lies in organization of my ideas within each story.
The influx of Southern Europeans to the United States of America prior to the Great Depression provided labor for rapidly expanding industries. When the capitalistic American economy collapsed in 1929, many of these laborers became jobless, living in cities like New York. Italians living in New York City during the Great Depression were a mass of poor people culturally linked, living through one of the toughest periods in American History. Through the eyes of a first generation Italian-American living in Brooklyn during this time, government, holiday celebration, and everyday life helped Italians withstand the hardship of The Great Depression. The large wave of Italian immigrants between 1880 and 1920 was largely due to the hard economic times Italy was experiencing. Industrialization had taken over much of the world, and Italy’s problems directly stemmed from their failure to efficiently industrialize. Most often the Italian-Immigrant families
Cited: Di Donato, Pietro. Christ in Concrete. New York: Penguin Books, 1993. Puzo, Mano. The Fortunate Pilgrim. New York: Balantine Books, 1997. Tamburi, Anthony Julian. From the Margin: Writings in Italian Americana. Indiana: Purdue University Press, 2000.