This paper discusses the waves of Italian immigrants that came to the United States in 1820-1880 and 1880-1920, and asks if being from a different region in Italy resulted in different treatment from American citizens. (10+ pages; 8 sources; MLA citation style)
Introduction
Italians are one of the largest groups of immigrants to come to the U.S.; they came to America at different times, with one of the largest “waves” in the period 1880-1920. They brought their vibrant culture, but like other groups, faced prejudice, racism and hatred.
This paper looks at the experiences of these immigrants in their new country; specifically it considers Italians from two regions of Italy: Naples, and the Abruzzi, and asks if their experiences were different, and if so, can their place of origin account for those differences.
The Old Country
A more fundamental question is: What, if anything, is the difference between Italians who come from the Abruzzi and Naples? To answer that, we need to define our terms.
The area known as ‘the Abruzzo’ is on the opposite side of the country from Naples. If we use the well-known practice of looking at Italy as a “boot,” then Naples is on the front of the leg and the Abruzzo on the back. More precisely, Naples would be on the lower part of the shin with the Abruzzo about mid-way up the calf. (“In Italy Online,” PG). (As I understand it, not speaking Italian, the region is ‘the Abruzzo’ and the people who come from it, ‘the Abruzzi’.)
Italy in general is a rugged country (nearly 75% of the country is mountainous), with another 20% forested. (“Italy,” PG). There are low-lying “strips” along the Adriatic coast and the Tyrrhenian coast; in addition, there is a vast plain that makes up Northern Italy; it is in the north that industry is concentrated. (“Italy,” PG).
Most of the country is agricultural, as well; the agrarian economy means that generations of Italians have been very poor, peasants in fact: “Italy’s plight was clear. The country had a burgeoning population, the majority of whom had been born in dire poverty, and yet it had few resources. Preeminently an agricultural region, nearly the entire mezzogiorno was owned by absentee landlord who still held onto the peasantry and the land…” (Moreno, p. 22). The word “mezzogiorno” is translated literally as “midday” and according to Moreno, is used to describe people from Southern Italy. (P. 21). This would include both Neapolitans and the Abruzzi; the contrast here is not between these two southern regions, but between the south (Naples, Sorrento, Amalfi) and the north (Turin and Milan); that is, between the cities on the peninsula and those in the northern part of Italy, in the area that shares its borders with Switzerland, Austria, France, etc.
As I mentioned, northern Italy, which includes the provinces “of Liguria, Piedmont, Valle d’Aosta, Lombardy, Trentino-Alto Adige, Venetia, Friuli-Venezia Giulia and part of Emilia-Romagna (which extends into central Italy)” (“Italy,” PG), is the part of the country with the best farmland, the largest port (Genoa) and the biggest industrial centers. (“Italy,” PG).
The greatest contrast is between this picture of prosperity and the poverty of the peninsula itself, which increases the farther south one goes. The great cities and regions of central Italy include Rome, Florence, Pisa, Assisi, Bologna and Parma; the area is less prosperous than the north. In the far south, which includes Naples, Bari, Brindisi and Taranto, the poverty is the greatest in the nation. (“Italy,” PG). The contrast then is not so much between levels of income and status, since both the Abruzzo and Naples are in the South; the contrast is between country and city.
Naples is the third largest city in Italy (after Rome and Milan); it has traditionally been the “jumping off place” for emigration to other countries. It is a city of over one million people today; even in the 1800’s it was a major population center. Furthermore, it experienced what appears to have been explosive growth:
“Naples, the most densely peopled city in Europe, has increased in modern times at an enormous rate. On the large areas reclaimed from the sea, vasi [sic] hotels and mansions let in flats have been erected. The gardens at the west end of the town are all built over. The Vomero, once merely a scattered village, is now an Important suburb, and a large workmen’s quarter has sprung up beyond the railway station to house the populace which was turned out from the centre of the town when the works of the risanamento were undertaken. The increase in population between the census of 1881, when it was 461,962, and the census in 1901 was 85,521. The commune, which includes not only the urban districts (sezioni) … but also the suburban districts …has been built over in every direction, one great incentive being the creation of an industrial zone to the eastward of the city.” (“Naples, Kingdom of,” PG).
This gives us a picture of a teeming metropolis, with all the conditions we see in such places: overcrowding, crime, pollution, violence; but also excitement, culture, and a vibrant lifestyle that is specific to cities.
The Abruzzo, on the other hand, was nothing like this. “The Abruzzi Region (I’m still not certain of the terminology here) is made up of 4,167 square miles, and is in central Italy bordering the Adriatic Sea in the East. L’Aquila is the capital of the region, which is divided into four provinces, Chieti, L’Aquila, Pescara, Teramo.” (Rubeis, PG). The area is “mostly mountainous” and is crossed by three of the Apennines’ ranges, though there is a narrow coastal strip along the Adriatic. The region is historically poor, but has been experiencing economic growth, and “boasts a steadily growing per capita income.” (Rubeis, PG). Without a date, it’s hard to pinpoint this observation, but I suspect that Rubeis is describing recent advances, and that at the time of the great emigrations, Abruzzi was poor.
We have then a marked contrast between the Abruzzo (where the city of Sulmona is located) and Naples. The former is mountainous, rugged, agricultural and poor; the latter is a thriving urban metropolis. Although both are located in the poorest part of Italy, the South, they would seem to have more differences than commonalities.
Italians in America
The greatest immigration took place during 1880-1920, as revealed here:
“1880-1920 AD: Years when the most Italians emigrate. Beginning with the agricultural depression of the 1880s, most of the emigrants are southern Italians. In 1898 more immigrants to the United States come from Italy than from any other country. A total of two-and-one-half million Italians will pass through Ellis Island. In 1921 and 1924 the U.S. Congress sets quotas effectively ending immigration from Italy.” (Valente, PG).
Note that the author of this passage specifically talks about “southern Italians,” which includes both the Abruzzi and Neapolitans. Interestingly, there had been a wave of immigrants from Northern Italy, but that took place earlier, from 1820-1880, spurred in large part by the discovery of gold in California. And many of these northern Italians settled in California as well. (Monroe, p. 14). It seems from what I’ve read that the northern Italians had fewer problems settling in San Francisco and finding acceptance than their southern countrymen did when they arrived several years later, in the East.
Another book refers to the Italian immigrants in passing, and always discusses the southern Italians, never those from the north: “8% of Russian-Jewish wives were wage earners compared with 17% for southern Italians” (Takaki, p. 302); “… about half the Jews were women, compared to only about 20% for southern Italians” (Takaki, p. 283); and “… more than half the Irish women were immigrants compared to only 21% for southern Italians.” (Takaki, p. 154). It’s clear then that it was the wave of immigrants who came between 1880 and 1920 that has drawn most of the attention. They left Italy to escape the poverty that dogged them at every step; recall that it is southern Italy that is the poorest.
The immigrants who came in from the Mezzogiorno began to arrive just as the wave of immigrants from the north subsided, and they stayed mostly on the East coast, in New York City, Boston, Philadelphia and New Jersey. (Monroe, pp. 52-59). And it is here I think that we can see the differences between the two groups.
To be fair, I must point out that I haven’t been able to find any source that says specifically that one group of Italians was treated better (or worse) than another group of Italians, and that the difference in the treatment depended upon their place of origin. Treatment of immigrants generally was (and is) shameful. But I believe we can apply some of what we know about the immigrants’ backgrounds to arrive at a logical assessment of how they reacted to the situations they faced once they arrived in the United States.
The Neapolitans came from a teeming city, so the sheer size and bustle of New York and other urban areas would not, in and of itself, presented a problem. But the Abruzzi, who came from a sparsely populated rural region, must have been overwhelmed. Not only were they in a strange country facing the problem of finding a job and trying to learn a strange language, but they also had to cope with the problem of learning to live in an urban area.
The reaction of Americans to the wave of Italian immigrants shows us at our worst:
“The American reaction to southern Italian immigrants was often openly negative and hostile. An Italian was commonly referred to derisively as a ‘macaroni,’ ‘spaghetti,’ ‘dago,’ or ‘wop.’ … In addition, southern Italians were constantly reviled as volatile, lawless, dishonest, dangerous, and criminally inclined.” (Moreno, p. 72).
The result of this bigotry was to make it impossible for Italians to find good jobs, with the further result that living conditions for the immigrants were terrible. They were forced to live in squalor, because they couldn’t earn enough for decent housing. And as often happens, others judged the immigrants by the conditions in which they lived, conditions caused by the prejudices that these others espoused:
“Italian Americans faced many problems in the United States. They had a difficult time fitting in when they first arrived in America. They did not speak or read English, and their children were not used to going to school beyond age 12. The jobs open to Italian immigrants were almost all unskilled and paid the lowest wages. Most newcomers could not afford to move out of the crowded tenements in the Little Italy sections of town. Clustered together, Italian Americans were seen as a poor, undesirable group rather than as individual people.” (Todd, p. 20).
The jobs most commonly held by Italian men were as laborers. They were garbage collectors, street peddlers, miners, construction workers, and ditch-diggers. The second largest employer of Italian men was the railroads. Railroading is one of the most dangerous professions of all, but it was one of the few open to the newcomers, precisely because it was so difficult. They also built skyscrapers, dug tunnels and built roads. (Todd, p. 20).
Italian women rarely worked outside the home, and in this we can see a great cultural difference between the immigrants and Americans. American women, while not yet in the workforce in great numbers, were beginning to work outside the home, a trend that continued to grow until today over half the workforce in America is female. But at the time of the southern Italian immigration, it was uncommon for Americans and almost unknown among the Italian women. Some few Italian women did in fact take jobs in clothing factories, but it was more common for them to do the work in their homes. They also “rolled cigars” on the kitchen table, or assembled artificial flowers. (Todd, p. 20). The entire family could and often did help with this “piece work” and saved the money they earned to either send home to Italy, or use to bring the rest of the family to the U.S.
I did find one thing of interest, and that is the fact that many of the immigrants did not intend to stay in American permanently. These “birds of passage” as they were known intended to work, save their money, and then move back to Italy once they had made their fortunes. More often than not, however, they changed their plans and remained here permanently.
Conclusion
The lives of the Italian immigrants were extremely tough, and I haven’t found anything to indicate whether (or if) the Abruzzi or the Neapolitans were more disliked, as a group, by the Americans who witnessed their influx. Nor have I found anything to indicate what the reactions were of the members of these groups to the bigotry they faced. It’s certain they were disappointed in what they found: “…Italians felt they had been completely misinformed about the conditions they would have to endure to earn a wage in the United States.” (Moreno, p. 66). It does seem logical to suggest that the Neapolitans, coming from a huge urban area, would have been able to assimilate into the major Eastern cities more easily than their Abruzzi cousins, who came from a sparsely-populated rural area.
What is certain is that the large wave of Italian immigrants that came to American in the years 1880- 1920 was largely unwelcome and looked down upon as ignorant, violent savages. What their response was to this is not recorded (probably because all the books and websites are on the immigrants’ “side”) they would certainly not have enjoyed the life here. But, even though they were forced to take the lowest paying, most dangerous jobs; even though they were despised, even hated, they still were able to retain their culture and infuse their vibrant zest for life into the American mainstream.
