Little Italy Informative Speech

Life in Italy in the 1930’s caused difficulty to some Italians during that time period. During the 1930’s a large number of Italians who had opposed the fascist rule of Benito Mussolini arrived in the United States. After the news spread in Italy about the bombing of Pearl Harbour almost all Italians supported the war against Benito Mussolini. At this point, Italy was slowly becoming under the Nazi rule, the significance of a woman’s role in Italy was emphasised as they were expected to accept the fascist ideology. Girls were expected to get married and conceive lots of children. Many young women in Italy felt the pressures of politics that were dominated by men and felt that women’s rights were disappearing

After experiencing hardships like poverty, a series of natural disasters, civil war and oppression from Northern Italy the Southern Italians started coming to America in flocks between 1876 and 1976. The most concentrated migrations of Italians happened between 1880 and 1920. Italians came to America not to escape these hardships, but to work and send money home to Italy in order to get their families out of poverty. Seventy percent of Italian immigrants were men and less than ten percent of them worked in agriculture, a sign that their stay in America was a temporary one. While here they worked in factories, construction and opened businesses. Coming to America, Italians were faced with racism, poverty, discrimination, corrupt

Italian immigrants were not welcomed with open arms into the land of opportunity. They had to adapt to the new lifestyle without forgetting theirs. Throughout the years, American citizens would be accustomed to having foreigners living in their neighborhoods. The Italian immigrants established communities where they managed to keep la via vecchia alive.

There was also the Italian Mafia. They were recognized by the "Black Hand." The "Black Hand" was a letter with a black hand print on it. The letter would simply ask for money. Every Italian knew that if you refused to pay, it would cost you your life. The only way to be immune to the terrifying "Black Hand" was to be a part of the Mafia.

“ They rely on a viewer's preconceived idea of how a particular person or ethnic group should act and merely fulfill these expectations. External signs and cues are used to indicate and suggest the veneer of culture. Dress, eating habits, and language accents are exaggerated…” Even though the directors of the movie did not directly refer to Italian Americans, the way they portrayed the characters based on their language, clothes, food and etc. indirectly told the audience that the characters were of Italian background. By seeing this occur in every movie and show, the public got accustomed to seeing Italian Americans as the mafia and failed to recognize that the mafia was only a small percentage of Italian Americans and the rest were just like ordinary people trying to make a better life.

The Italians’ holiday culture helped to make America a more diverse nation. Their family-centered culture and regional affiliations resulted in highly concentrated settlements called, Little Italies. Entire villages in Italy would travel over to America to form these settlements. Many were heavily clustered in cities in the mid-atlantic and midwest states. The immigrants typically viewed themselves as residents of a particular region or village, not as “Italians.” Their daily habits and life reflected this, as they usually only associated with fellow kin or villagers called paesani. The Italians were working on becoming a member of American society while still trying to maintain their old customs. During holidays, Italian immigrants still utilized traditional customs such as folk songs, folklore, and dances for special events. However, like so many of the Italian aspects of life, they were so regionally specific that they defied easy characterization.

The old stock Americans weren't used to the immigrants and for this reason they thought less of them and oppressed them.  The Italians and other immigrants were blamed for many of the nations problems.  For example, the government led raids on immigrants’ houses because they feared the immigrants were communists.  This was evidenced in the Sacco and Vanzetti trial, when two Italian immigrants were convicted for murder and the prosecution had no real substantial evidence.  They were convicted mainly because of their beliefs, not their actions.  Religious beliefs also brought the immigrants problems.  The KKK was openly anti-Catholic and most of the Italians were catholic.  The immigrants and Italians also helped to bring on prohibition.  The Americans didn't approve of their drinking habits; therefore the prohibition amendment was made for this and other reasons.  Job competition was also a major reason for the racist feelings of the Americans.  Native white workers saw the immigrants as competitors for the jobs that they felt they should have.  A good example of this competition was “birds of passage.”  These were Italian workers who came to work in the U.S. but later returned to Italy with the money they earned in the U.S.  From 1899-1924 3.8 million Italians came to the United States, but 2.1 million left to return to Italy during the same

In 1935 my great great grandfather named Giovanni Pancari immigrated from Italy to America by a ship named the Saturnia and arrived in Ellis Island. The streets were always crowded in Manhattan which was where most Italian immigrants lived in 1935. Other locations are the Bronx, Brooklyn, and nearby towns in New Jersey. In Manhattan, Mulberry Street was heavily populated with Italian culture. Many people spoke Italian and owned Italian shops.

First, Hollywood and the media had a negative portrayal of Italian-Americans compared to other ethnic groups. In the article Family, Gang, and Ethnicity in Italian-themed Hollywood Gangster Films, the author Silvia Dibeltulo states that in movies where both Italian-American and Irish-American gangsters were portrayed, Italian-American gangsters were portrayed as more “alien” whereas their Italian-American counterparts were portrayed as more “assimilated” . This led to Italians being negatively associated with the stereotypes from these movies, which led to anxiety across the country. The article goes on to state more differences between the depictions of Italian-American and Irish-American gangs in films. The

The Italian Mafia in the U.S. can trace its origins all the way back to the Sicilian Mafia which was founded in Sicily during the 1800’s (Italian Organized Crime). After thousands of years of different armies with different nationalities conquering Italy and exploiting its people, the Sicilians became to be more clannish and family focused. Originally they were just resistance fighters that were protecting their friends and family. They were relied on for protection, justice, and survival. Nobody cared if they got money from it because it came from the oppressive authorities. Members of these groups were known as “Men of Honor” and they were well respected and even admired because they looked out for their family and kept silent sometimes even unto death. They didn’t become an organized crime group until the 1920’s however (Italian Organized Crime). It was around this same time that the US began to see what later became La Cosa Nostra or “our thing,” better known as the American Mafia which was aided by the “thousands of Italian organized crime figures, mostly Sicilian Mafiosi” who came to the United States illegally (Italian Organized Crime). The modern American Mafia is credited to Charles “Lucky” Luciano who came over in the 1920’s (Italian Organized Crime). Luciano structured La Cosa Nostra just like their Sicilian

When immigrants came from Italy to the United States of America, immigrants brought different dry pastas with them from their own regions. The food, pasta, was immediately classified as ‘Italian food,’ “despite them

We see other clear cut examples of nationalism in Italy as well. The journey that Italy took to statehood in the 1800s involved various figureheads performing different roles. The nationalism of Italy began with Mazzini who laid the ideological base for a united Italy. He wrote many pamphlets, papers, and dissertations on the manifest destiny, if you will, of the Italian people to unify. This rhetoric was stirring to the young middle class individuals of Italy who accepted this ideology and supported ideological efforts for a unified Italy. Cavour, of the province of Piedmont is where the basis of a real Italian resurgence would begin. Cavour wanted Piedmont to be the basis of the Risorgimento, or the Italian resurgence. Piedmont was developing well from an industrial perspective and by siphoning trade agreements away from Austria was able to develop into an industrial base for further operations. The actual, boots on the ground venture was led by Garibaldi who recruited many young men to serve in “The Expedition of The Thousand.” The rising nationalism of the time period, as well as the efforts of Mazzini stirred these young middle and

As a result of how Italy was created but not fully unified, the new Italian state suffered from a variety of weaknesses which the new liberal state was unable to tackle these. This made Italy susceptible to the appeal of fascism, and therefore aided Mussolini’s rise to power.

instability, as the nation tried to re-create the social bonds broken by the war and

look badly at Italy for not joining the war and they also wanted to be