Anti-Italianism
Anti-Italianism & Portrayals of Italian-Americans
December 9, 2009 | An Essay By Sam MetsFan
In 1907, Italian Immigration into the United States peaked at just under 286,000 men, women and children. By 1940, there were millions of native-born Italian-Americans living in the US. But well before the numbers grew to be this large, when far less Italians were settled in North America, strong anti-Italian prejudice existed. In 1891, a fiction book targeting the growing Mafia of Louisiana appeared on the bookshelves of the New York Detective Library in Manhattan just weeks after the lynching of eleven Italians. The book, titled The New Orleans Mafia embodied three key elements of brutal anti-Italian discrimination. First, much like Kristallnacht-era illustrations of Jews in central Europe, or ‘scientific’ explanations of the African man’s inferiority to the white man during the civil rights movement, the book both exaggerated and entirely invented generalizations about the appearance of Italians. “It was evident to the boy that both were Italians for the color of their skin and the unattractive contour of their features amply proclaimed their nationality. ‘Dagoes!’ he muttered.” By depicting Italians to be easily distinguishable by simple facial features, The New Orleans Mafia helped create and fuel a stereotypical notion of the Italian people. Second, the text goes on to depict Italians to be extremely violent. “The Sicilians have always been the most bloody- minded and revengeful of the Mediterranean races”. Claims that Italians were a bloodthirsty people became a constant theme of anti-Italianism. Third, the book bluntly groups Italians with African-Americans. “Like the Negro, the favorite weapon of the Sicilian is the razor”. Stereotypes geared toward Sicilians were often the same as stereotypes geared towards blacks, as Italians were typically and frequently conveyed as ‘White Negroes’. In this paper, I will present and analyze these three stereotypes
December 9, 2009 | An Essay By Sam MetsFan
In 1907, Italian Immigration into the United States peaked at just under 286,000 men, women and children. By 1940, there were millions of native-born Italian-Americans living in the US. But well before the numbers grew to be this large, when far less Italians were settled in North America, strong anti-Italian prejudice existed. In 1891, a fiction book targeting the growing Mafia of Louisiana appeared on the bookshelves of the New York Detective Library in Manhattan just weeks after the lynching of eleven Italians. The book, titled The New Orleans Mafia embodied three key elements of brutal anti-Italian discrimination. First, much like Kristallnacht-era illustrations of Jews in central Europe, or ‘scientific’ explanations of the African man’s inferiority to the white man during the civil rights movement, the book both exaggerated and entirely invented generalizations about the appearance of Italians. “It was evident to the boy that both were Italians for the color of their skin and the unattractive contour of their features amply proclaimed their nationality. ‘Dagoes!’ he muttered.” By depicting Italians to be easily distinguishable by simple facial features, The New Orleans Mafia helped create and fuel a stereotypical notion of the Italian people. Second, the text goes on to depict Italians to be extremely violent. “The Sicilians have always been the most bloody- minded and revengeful of the Mediterranean races”. Claims that Italians were a bloodthirsty people became a constant theme of anti-Italianism. Third, the book bluntly groups Italians with African-Americans. “Like the Negro, the favorite weapon of the Sicilian is the razor”. Stereotypes geared toward Sicilians were often the same as stereotypes geared towards blacks, as Italians were typically and frequently conveyed as ‘White Negroes’. In this paper, I will present and analyze these three stereotypes
Bibliography: (not previously cited): - Jacobson, Matthew Frye, Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race, Harvard, 1999 ----------------------- [1] Gambino, Richard. Vendetta: The True Story of the Largest Lynching in U. S. History