Italian Americans

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Italian Americans

Italo-americani (Italian)
Italian American ancestry by state according to the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey in 2019
Total population
Alone (one ancestry) 6,629,993 (2020 census)[1] 2.00% of the total US population Alone or in combination 16,813,235 (2020 census)[1] 5.07% of the total US population
Languages
English Italian Various languages of Italy Italian American pidgin (including Itanglese and Siculish)[2][3]
Religion
Predominantly Catholicism with small minorities practicing Greek Orthodoxy, Protestantism and Judaism
Related ethnic groups
Corsican Puerto Ricans, Maltese Americans, Sammarinese Americans and other Italians

Italian Americans (

Between 1820 and 2004, approximately 5.5 million Italians migrated to the United States during the Italian diaspora, in several distinct waves, with the greatest number arriving in the 20th century from Southern Italy. Initially, most single men, so-called birds of passage, sent remittance back to their families in Italy and then returned to Italy.

Immigration began to increase during the 1880s, when more than twice as many Italians immigrated than had in the five previous decades combined.^[5][6] Continuing from 1880 to 1914, the greatest surge of immigration brought more than 4 million Italians to the United States.^[5][6] The largest number of this wave came from Southern Italy, which at that time was largely agricultural and where much of the populace had been impoverished by centuries of foreign rule and heavy tax burdens.^[7][8] This period of large-scale immigration ended abruptly with the onset of World War I in August 1914. In the 1920s, 455,315 immigrants arrived.^[9] They came under the terms of the new quota-based immigration restrictions created by the Immigration Act of 1924.^[10] Italian-Americans had a significant influence to American visual arts, literature, cuisine, politics, sports, and music.^[11]

Italians in the United States before 1880 included a number of explorers, starting with Christopher Columbus, and a few small settlements.^[12]

Italian

Another Italian, John Cabot (Italian: Giovanni Caboto [dʒoˈvanni kaˈbɔːto]), together with his son Sebastian, explored the eastern seaboard of North America for Henry VII in the early 16th century. In 1524, the Florentine explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano (Italian: [dʒoˈvanni da (v)verratˈtsaːno]) was the first European to explore the Atlantic coast of North America between Florida and New Brunswick in 1524.^[14] The Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci (Italian: [ameˈriːɡo veˈsputtʃi]) first demonstrated in about 1501 that the New World was not Asia as initially conjectured but a different continent (America is named after him).^[15]

A number of Italian navigators and explorers in the employ of Spain and France were involved in exploring and mapping their territories and in establishing settlements, but their work did not lead to the permanent presence of Italians in America. In 1539, Marco da Nizza explored the territory that later became the states of Arizona and New Mexico.

The first Italian to be registered as residing in the area corresponding to the current United States was Pietro Cesare Alberti,^[19] commonly regarded as the first Italian American. Alberti was a Venetian seaman who, in 1635, settled in the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, which would eventually become New York City.

A small wave of Protestants, known as Waldensians, immigrated during the 17th century. They were of French and northern Italian heritage (specifically Piedmontese), The first Waldensians began arriving around 1640, with the majority coming between 1654 and 1663.^[20] They spread out across what was then called New Netherland and what would become New York, New Jersey, and the Lower Delaware River regions. The total American Waldensian population that immigrated to New Netherland is currently unknown; however, a 1671 Dutch record indicates that in 1656 alone the Duchy of Savoy near Turin, Italy, had exiled 300 Waldensians because of their Protestant faith.

Spain and France were Catholic countries and sent many missionaries to convert the native American population. Included among these missionaries were numerous Italians. In 1519–25, Alessandro Geraldini was the first Catholic bishop in the Americas, at Santo Domingo. Father François-Joseph Bressani (Francesco Giuseppe Bressani) labored among the Algonquin and Huron peoples in the early 17th century. The southwest and California were explored and mapped by Italian Jesuit priest Eusebio Kino (Chino) in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. His statue, commissioned by the state of Arizona, is displayed in the United States Capitol Visitor Center.

The Taliaferro family (originally Tagliaferro), believed to have roots in Venice, was one of the First Families to settle Virginia. The Wythe House, a historic Georgian home built in Williamsburg, Virginia, in 1754, was designed by architect Richard Taliaferro for his son-in-law, American Founding Father George Wythe, who married Richard's daughter Elizabeth Taliaferro. The elder Taliaferro designed much of Colonial Williamsburg, including the Governor's Palace, the Capitol of the Colony of Virginia, and the President's House at the College of William & Mary.^[21]

Francesco Maria de Reggio, an Italian

A colonial merchant, Francis Ferrari of Genoa, was naturalized as a citizen of Rhode Island in 1752.^[24] He died in 1753, and in his will speaks of Genoa, his ownership of three ships, a cargo of wine, and his wife Mary,^[25] who went on to own one of the oldest coffee houses in America, the Merchant Coffee House of New York on Wall Street at Water Street. Her Merchant Coffee House moved across Wall Street in 1772, retaining the same name and patronage.^[26]

This period saw a small stream of new arrivals from Italy. Some brought skills in agriculture and the making of glass, silk and wine, while others brought skills as musicians.^[27]

In 1773–1785, Filippo Mazzei, a physician, philosopher, diplomat, promoter of liberty, and author, was a close friend and confidant of Thomas Jefferson. He published a pamphlet containing the phrase, "All men are by nature equally free and independent,"^[28] which Jefferson incorporated essentially intact into the Declaration of Independence.

Italian Americans served in the

After American independence, numerous political refugees arrived, most notably Giuseppe Avezzana, Alessandro Gavazzi, Silvio Pellico, Federico Confalonieri, and Eleuterio Felice Foresti. Giuseppe Garibaldi resided in the United States in 1850–51. At the invitation of Thomas Jefferson, Carlo Bellini became the first professor of modern languages at the College of William & Mary, in the years 1779–1803.^[29][30]

In 1801,

Beginning in 1863, Italian immigrants were one of the principal groups of unskilled laborers, along with the Irish, that built the Transcontinental Railroad west from Omaha, Nebraska.^[37] In 1866, Constantino Brumidi completed the frescoed interior of the United States Capitol dome in Washington, D.C., and spent the rest of his life executing still other artworks to beautify the Capitol. The first Columbus Day celebration was organized by Italian Americans in New York City on October 12, 1866.^[38]

Giovanni Martino or Giovanni Martini, also known as John Martin, was a soldier and trumpeter who served both in Italy with Giuseppe Garibaldi and in the United States Army, famously in the 7th Cavalry Regiment under George Armstrong Custer. He was the only survivor from Custer's company at the Battle of the Little Bighorn.

An immigrant,

During this period, Italian Americans established a number of institutions of higher learning. Las Vegas College (now Regis University) was established by a group of exiled Italian Jesuits in 1877 in Las Vegas, New Mexico. The Jesuit Giuseppe Cataldo, founded Gonzaga College (now Gonzaga University) in Spokane, Washington in 1887. In 1886, Rabbi Sabato Morais, a Jewish Italian immigrant, was one of the founders and first president of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York. Also during this period, there was a growing presence of Italian Americans in higher education. Vincenzo Botta was a distinguished professor of Italian at New York University from 1856 to 1894,^[40] and Gaetano Lanza was a professor of mechanical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for over 40 years, beginning in 1871.^[41]

Anthony Ghio became the mayor of

Between 5,000 and 10,000 Italian Americans fought in the

The

From 1880 to 1914, 13 million Italians migrated out of Italy,^[46] making Italy the scene of one of the largest voluntary emigrations in recorded world history.^[47] During this period of mass migration, 4 million Italians arrived in the United States, 3 million of them between 1900 and 1914.^[48] They came for the most part from southern Italy (the regions of Abruzzo, Campania, Apulia, Basilicata, and Calabria) and from the island of Sicily.^[49] Most planned to stay a few years, then take their earnings and return home. According to historian Thomas J. Archdeacon, 46 percent of the Italians who entered the United States between 1899 and 1924 permanently returned home.^[50]

Immigrants without industrial skills found employment in low-wage manual labor jobs. Instead of finding jobs on their own, most used the padrone system whereby Italian middlemen (padroni) found jobs for groups of men and controlled their wages, transportation, and living conditions for a fee.^[51][52]

According to historian Alfred T. Banfield:

Criticized by many as slave traders who preyed upon poor, bewildered peasants, the "padroni" often served as travel agents, with fees reimbursed from paychecks, as landlords who rented out shacks and boxcars, and as storekeepers who extended exorbitant credit to their Italian laborer clientele. Despite such abuse, not all "padroni" were dastardly and most Italian immigrants reached out to their "padroni" for economic salvation, considering them either as godsends or necessary evils. The Italians whom the "padroni" brought to Maine generally had no intention of settling there, and most were sojourners who either returned to Italy or moved on to another job somewhere else. Nevertheless, thousands of Italians did settle in Maine, creating "Little Italies" in Portland, Millinocket, Rumford, and other towns where the "padroni" remained as strong shaping forces in the new communities.^[53]

In terms of the push-pull model of immigration,^[54] America provided the pull factor by the prospect of jobs that unskilled and uneducated Italian peasant farmers could do. Peasant farmers accustomed to hard work in the Mezzogiorno, for example, took jobs building railroads and constructing buildings, while others took factory jobs that required little or no skill.^[55]

The push factor came primarily from the harsh economic conditions in southern Italy. Major factors that contributed to the large exodus included political and social unrest, the weak agricultural economy of the South modeled on the outdated

By far the strongest "pull" factor was money.[56] Migrants expected to make large sums in a few years of work, enabling them to live much better when they returned home, especially by buying a farm. Real life was never so golden: the Italians earned well below average rates. Their weekly earnings in manufacturing and mining in 1909 came to $9.61, compared to $13.63 for German immigrants and $11.06 for Poles.^[57] The result was a sense of alienation from most of American culture and a lack of interest in learning English or otherwise assimilating.^[58] Not many women came, but those who did became devoted to traditional Italian religious customs.^[59] When the World War I broke out, European migrants could not go home. Wages shot up, and the Italians benefited greatly. Most decided to stay permanently, and they flourished in the 1920s.^[60]

Many sought housing in the older sections of the large Northeastern cities—districts that became known as "Little Italys." Such housing was frequently in overcrowded, substandard tenements, which were often dimly lit and had poor heating and ventilation. Tuberculosis and other communicable diseases were a constant health threat for the immigrant families that were compelled by economic circumstances to live in these dwellings. Other immigrant families lived in single-family abodes, which was more typical in areas outside of the enclaves of the large northeastern cities and other parts of the country as well.

An estimated 49 percent of Italians who migrated to the Americas between 1905 (when return migration statistics began) and 1920 did not remain in the United States.^[61] These so-called birds of passage intended to stay in the United States for only a limited time, followed by a return to Italy with enough in savings to reestablish themselves there. While many did return to Italy, others chose to stay or were prevented from returning by the outbreak of World War I in 1914.^[62]

The Italian male immigrants in the Little Italys were most often employed in manual labor and were heavily involved in

Of the half million Italians that are in the United States, about 100,000 live in the city, and including those who live in Brooklyn, Jersey City, and the other suburbs the total number in the vicinity is estimated at about 160,000. After learning our ways they become good, industrious citizens.[64]

The New York Times in May 1896 sent its reporters to characterize the Little Italy/Mulberry neighborhood:

They are laborers; toilers in all grades of manual work; they are artisans, they are junkmen, and here, too, dwell the rag pickers. . . . There is a monster colony of Italians who might be termed the commercial or shop keeping community of the Latins. Here are all sorts of stores, pensions, groceries, fruit emporiums, tailors, shoemakers, wine merchants, importers, musical instrument makers. . . . There are notaries, lawyers, doctors, apothecaries, undertakers. . . . There are more bankers among the Italians than among any other foreigners except the Germans in the city.^[65]

The masses of Italian immigrants that entered the United States (1890–1900) posed a change in the labor market, prompting Fr. Michael J. Henry to write a letter in October 1900 to the Bishop John J. Clancy of Sligo, Ireland, warning^[66]

[that unskilled young Irishmen] would have to enter into competition with their pick-axe and shovel against other nationalities—Italians, Poles etc. to eke out bare existence. The Italians are more economic, can live on poor fare and consequently can afford to work for less wages than the ordinary Irishman.

The Brooklyn Eagle, in a 1900 article, addressed the same reality:^[66]

The day of the Irish hod-carrier has long been past. . . . But it is the Italian now that does the work. Then came the Italian carpenter and finally the mason and the bricklayer.

In spite of the economic hardship of the immigrants, civil and social life flourished in the Italian American neighborhoods of the large northeastern cities. Italian theater, band concerts, choral recitals, puppet shows, mutual aid societies, and social clubs were available to the immigrants.^[67] An important event, the festa, became for many an important connection to the traditions of their ancestral villages in Italy. The festa involved an elaborate procession through the streets in honor of a patron saint or the Virgin Mary in which a large statue was carried by a team of men, with musicians marching behind. Followed by food, fireworks, and general merriment, the festa became an important occasion that helped give the immigrants a sense of unity and common identity.

The destinations of many of the Italian immigrants were not only the large cities of the East Coast, but also more remote regions of the country, such as Florida and California. They were drawn there by opportunities in agriculture, fishing, mining, railroad construction, lumbering, and other activities under way at the time. Often the immigrants contracted to work in these areas of the country as a condition for payment of their passage. It was not uncommon, especially in the South, for the immigrants to be subjected to economic exploitation, hostility, and sometimes even violence.^[68] The Italian laborers who went to these areas were in many cases later joined by wives and children, which resulted in the establishment of permanent Italian American settlements in diverse parts of the country. A number of towns, such as Roseto, Pennsylvania,^[69] Tontitown, Arkansas,^[70] and Valdese, North Carolina,^[71] were founded by Italian immigrants during this era.

A number of major business ventures were founded by Italian Americans.

Following in the footsteps of Constantino Brumidi, others were commissioned to help create Washington's impressive monuments. An Italian immigrant, Attilio Piccirilli, and his five brothers carved the Lincoln Memorial, which they began in 1911 and completed in 1922. Italian construction workers helped build Washington's Union Station, considered one of the most beautiful stations in the country. Work on Union Station began in 1905 and was completed in 1908. The six statues that decorate the station's facade were carved by Andrew Bernasconi between 1909 and 1911. Two Italian American master stone carvers, Roger Morigi and Vincent Palumbo, spent decades creating the sculptural works that embellish Washington National Cathedral.^[73]

Italian conductors contributed to the early success of the

An American teacher who had studied in Italy,

The United States entered World War I in 1917. The Italian American community wholeheartedly supported the war effort and its young men, both American born and Italian born, enlisted in large numbers in the American Army.^[84] It was estimated that during the two years of the war (1917–18) Italian American servicemen made up approximately 12 percent of the total American forces, a disproportionately high percentage of the total.^[85] An Italian-born American infantryman, Michael Valente, was awarded the Medal of Honor for his service. Another 103 Italian Americans (83 Italian born) were awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the second highest decoration.^[86] Italian Americans also accounted for more than 10 percent of war casualties World War I, despite making up less than 4 percent of the U.S. population.^[87]

The war, together with the restrictive Emergency Quota Act of 1921 and Immigration Act of 1924, heavily curtailed Italian immigration. Total annual immigration was capped at 357,000 in 1921 and lowered to 150,000 in 1924. Quotas were allotted on a national basis in proportion to a nationality's existing share of the population. The National Origins Formula, which sought to preserve the existing demographic makeup of the United States and generally favored northwestern European immigration, computed Italians to be the fifth-largest national origin of the U.S. population in 1920, to be assigned 3.87 percent of annual quota immigrant spots.^[88][89] Despite implementation of the quota, the inflow of Italian immigrants remained between 6 or 7 percent of all immigrants.^[90][91][92] And when the restrictive quota system was abolished by the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, Italians had already grown to be the second largest immigrant group in America, with 5,067,717 immigrants from Italy admitted between 1820 and 1966—constituting 12 percent of all immigrants to the United States—more than from Great Britain (4,711,711) and from Ireland (4,706,854).^[5]

In the interwar period, jobs as policemen, firemen, and civil servants became increasingly available to Italian Americans. Others found employment as plumbers, electricians, mechanics, and carpenters. Women found jobs as civil servants, secretaries, dressmakers, and clerks. With better-paying jobs, Italian Americans moved to more affluent neighborhoods outside of the Italian enclaves. The

By 1920, numerous Little Italys had stabilized and grown considerably more prosperous as workers were able to obtain higher-paying jobs, often in skilled trades. In the 1920s and 1930s, Italian Americans contributed significantly to American life and culture, politics, music, film, the arts, sports, the labor movement, and business.

In politics,

In sports,

Italian Americans continued their significant involvement in the labor movement during this period. Well-known labor organizers included Carlo Tresca, Luigi Antonini, James Petrillo, and Angela Bambace.^[101]

Italian

Al Capone was the nation's most infamous organized crime boss in the 1920s. He attained notoriety during the Prohibition era as the co-founder and boss of the Chicago Outfit. Their most famous single crime was the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre of 1929, when Capone's men, dressed as policemen, massacred seven members of a rival gang. Capone's seven-year reign as a crime boss ended when he went to federal prison at the age of 33. Some ethnic Americans viewed him a hero, seeing him as the epitome of self-made success, a defender of American ideals, a family man, and a philanthropist. His stature helped them justify their own violations of the prohibition laws against liquor.^[104]

Benito Mussolini's Fascist regime in Italy sought to build a base of popular support in the United States, focusing on the Italian community. His supporters far outnumbered his opponents, both inside the Italian American community and among all Catholics, as well as among the wider American leadership.^[105][106])

According to Stefano Luconi, in the 1920s and 1930s "numerous Italian Americans became US citizens, registered for the vote, and cast their ballots in order to lobby Congress and the Presidency on behalf of fascism and to support Mussolini's goals in foreign policy."^[107]

According to Fraser Ottanelli, Rome also worked to enhance Italy's reputation through a series of highly visible moves. They included participating in the Century of Progress (1933–1934) world fair in Chicago; supporting Italo Balbo's dramatic transatlantic flights; and donating a statue to Chicago. A small minority of Italian Americans who fervently opposed fascism did not support Rome's moves. They promoted an unsuccessful measure in Congress that condemned Italy's meddling in U.S. internal affairs and called for the revocation of U.S. citizenship from people who swore allegiance to Mussolini. Alberto Tarchiani, Italy's first ambassador to the United States after World War II, requested the removal of any displays that honored the fascist regime, but with little success. Many memorials remain in the 21st century.^[108]

Although the great majority of Italian Americans admired Mussolini in the 1930s, very few if any demonstrated any desire to transfer fascist ideology to America.[87] When Italy entered the war on the side of Nazi Germany in 1940, "most Italian Americans distanced themselves from Fascism."^[117]

Anti-fascist Italian expatriates in the United States founded the

Biagio (Max) Corvo, an agent of the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS), drew up plans for the invasion of Sicily and organized operations behind enemy lines in the Mediterranean region during World War II. He led the Italian Secret Intelligence branch of the OSS, which was able to smuggle hundreds of agents behind enemy lines, supply Italian partisan fighters, and maintain a liaison between Allied field commands and Italy's first post-fascist Government. Corvo was awarded the Legion of Merit for his efforts during the war.^[122] Other Italian Americans such as Edward E. Boccia ≤https://ghostarmy.org/roster/Edward-Eugene-Boccia/≥ served in the Ghost Army ≤https://ghostarmy.org/≥. The Headquarters Special Troops and the 3133rd Signal Company Special, composed of visual arts students, architects, designers, and other creatives, carried out 25 battlefield deceptions in France, Luxembourg, Belgium, Germany, and Italy and were all awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.

The work of

Three United States World War II destroyers were named after Italian Americans: USS Basilone (DD-824) was named for Sgt. John Basilone; USS Damato (DD-871) was named for Corporal Anthony P. Damato, who was awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously for his valor during World War II; and USS Gherardi (DD-637) was named for Rear Admiral Bancroft Gherardi, who served during the Mexican–American War and the American Civil War.

From the onset of the Second World War, and particularly following

On November 7, 2000, Bill Clinton signed the Wartime Violation of Italian American Civil Liberties Act.^[124][127] This act ordered a comprehensive review by the attorney general of the United States of the treatment of Italian Americans during the Second World War. The findings concluded that

1. The freedom of more than 600,000 Italian-born immigrants in the United States and their families was restricted during World War II by government measures that branded them "enemy aliens" and included requirements to carry identification cards, travel restrictions, and seizure of personal property.
2. During World War II, more than 10,000 Italian Americans living on the West Coast were forced to leave their homes and prohibited from entering coastal zones. More than 50,000 were subjected to curfews.
3. During World War II, thousands of Italian American immigrants were arrested, and hundreds were interned in military camps.
4. Hundreds of thousands of Italian Americans performed exemplary service and thousands sacrificed their lives in defense of the United States.
5. At the time, Italians were the largest foreign-born group in the United States, and today they are the fifth-largest immigrant group in the United States, numbering approximately 15 million.
6. The impact of the wartime experience was devastating to Italian American communities in the United States, and its effects are still being felt.
7. A deliberate policy kept these measures from the public during the war. Even today much information is still classified, the full story remains unknown to the public, and it has never been acknowledged in any official capacity by the United States government.

In 2010, California officially issued an apology to the Italian Americans whose civil liberties had been violated.^[128]

Italians continued to immigrate to the United States, and an estimated 600,000 arrived in the decades following the war. Many of the new arrivals had professional training or were skilled in various trades. After the end of World War II, a small number of

Anthony Celebrezze served for five two-year terms as mayor of Cleveland, from 1953 to 1962 and, in 1962, President John F. Kennedy appointed him as United States Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare (now the Department of Health and Human Services). Benjamin Civiletti served as the United States Attorney General during the last year and a half of the Carter administration, from 1979 to 1981. Frank Carlucci served as the United States Secretary of Defense from 1987 to 1989 in the administration of President Ronald Reagan.

Italian Americans continued to serve with distinction in the military, with 4 Medal of Honor recipients in the Korean War and 11 in the Vietnam War,^[138] including Vincent R. Capodanno, a Catholic chaplain.

At the close of the 20th century, 31 men and women of Italian descent were serving in the U.S. House and Senate, 82 of the 1,000 largest U.S. cities had mayors of Italian descent, and 166 college and university presidents were of Italian descent.^[139] An Italian American, Antonin Scalia, was serving as a U.S. Supreme Court justice, who was later joined by Samuel Alito in 2006. More than two dozen Italian Americans were serving in the Catholic Church as bishops. Four—Joseph Bernardin, Justin Rigali, Anthony Bevilacqua, and Daniel DiNardo—had been elevated to Cardinals.

Italian Americans have served with distinction in all of America's wars, and over 30 have been awarded the Medal of Honor. A number of Italian Americans have served as top-ranking generals in the military, including

The historical figure of Christopher Columbus is commemorated on Columbus Day and is reflected in numerous monuments, city names, names of institutions, and the poetic name, "Columbia," for the United States itself. Italian American identification with the Genoese explorer, whose fame lay in his grand voyages departing Europe and crossing the Atlantic Ocean to make discoveries in the New World, playing an important role in American history and identity, but was of negligible significance to the history of Italy—typifying Italian Americans' limited sense of nationalism and generally loose attachment to Italy itself as a foreign country. This identification contrasts, for example, to the preoccupations of Irish Americans with the political situation in Ireland throughout the 20th century and American Jews' deep personal investment in the fate of Israel.^[87]

Al Smith, governor of New York in the 1920s. His father, Alfred Emanuele Ferraro, was of Italian and German descent.

Mario Cuomo, first New York governor to identify with the Italian community

In the 1930s, Italian Americans voted heavily

Geraldine Ferraro was the first woman on a major party ticket, running for vice president as a Democrat in 1984. Two justices of the Supreme Court have been Italian Americans, Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito. Both were appointed by Republican presidents, Scalia by Ronald Reagan and Alito by George W. Bush.

The Italian American Congressional Delegation currently includes 30 members of Congress who are of Italian descent. They are joined by more than 150 associate members, who are not Italian American but have large Italian American constituencies. Since its founding in 1975, the National Italian American Foundation (NIAF) has worked closely with the bicameral and bipartisan Italian American Congressional Delegation, which is led by co-chairs Rep. Bill Pascrell of New Jersey and Rep. Pat Tiberi of Ohio.

The NIAF hosts a variety of public policy programs, contributing to public discourse on timely policy issues facing the nation and the world. These events are held on Capitol Hill and other locations under the auspices of NIAF's Frank J. Guarini Public Policy Forum and its sister program, the NIAF Public Policy Lecture Series. NIAF's 2009 public policy programs on Capitol Hill featured prominent Italians and Italian Americans as keynote speakers, including Leon Panetta, director of the CIA, and Franco Frattini, minister of foreign affairs for the Republic of Italy.

By the 1890s,

However, in contrast to other ethnic groups, Italian Americans demonstrate a marked lack of ethnocentrism and long history of political individualism, eschewing ethnic bloc voting, preferring to vote on the basis of individual candidates and issues, embracing maverick political candidates over ethnic loyalties. Popular New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia in fact underperformed among his own demographic; in 1941, La Guardia even lost the Italian vote to his Irish opponent William O'Dwyer. In 1965, when New York Democrats backed Mario Procaccino, an Italian-born candidate for city comptroller, Procaccino lost the Italian vote and won his election only because of support in Jewish voter precincts. In the 1973 New York City mayoral election, the son of Italian immigrants Mario Biaggi failed to unite Italian voters as an ethnic bloc the way his Jewish opponent Abraham Beame could do to win the Democratic primary.^[87]

In the

Italian Americans have played a prominent role in the economy of the United States, and have founded companies of great national importance, such as

By the second generation, approximately 70 percent of the men had blue-collar jobs, and the proportion was down to approximately 50 percent in the third generation, according to surveys in 1963.^[147] By 1987, the level of Italian American income exceeded the national average, and since the 1950s, it grew faster than any other ethnic group except the Jews.^[148] By 1990, according to the U.S. census, more than 65 percent of Italian Americans were employed as managerial, professional, or white-collar workers. In 1999, the median annual income of Italian-American families was $61,300, while the median annual income of all American families was $50,000.^[149]

A University of Chicago study^[150] of 15 ethnic groups showed that Italian Americans were among those groups having the lowest percentages of divorced people, unemployed people, people on welfare, and people incarcerated. On the other hand, they were among those groups with the highest percentages of two-parent families, elderly family members still living at home, and families who eat together on a regular basis.

Italian Americans have been responsible for major breakthroughs in virtually all fields of science, including engineering, medicine, and physics. Physicist and Nobel Prize laureate

Married women typically avoided factory work and chose home-based economic activities such as dressmaking, taking in boarders, and operating small shops in their homes or neighborhoods. Italian neighborhoods also proved attractive to midwives, women who trained in Italy before coming to America.^[152] Many single women were employed in the garment industry as seamstresses, often in unsafe working environments. Many of the 146 who died in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in 1911 were Italian American women. Angela Bambace was an 18-year-old Italian American organizer for the International Ladies Garment Workers Union in New York who worked to secure better working conditions and shorter hours for women workers in the garment industry.

The American scene in the 1920s featured a widespread expansion of women's roles, starting with the vote in 1920 and including new standards of education and employment for women and control of their own sexuality. "

In the second and third generations, opportunities expanded as women were gradually accepted in the workplace and as entrepreneurs. Women also had much better job opportunities because they had a high school or sometimes college education and because they were willing to leave the Little Italys and commute to work.[155] During World War II, large numbers of Italian American women entered the workforce in factories providing war materiel, while others served as auxiliaries or nurses in the military services.

After World War II, Italian American women acquired an increasing degree of freedom in choosing a career and seeking higher levels of education. Consequently, the second half of the 20th century was a period in which Italian American women excelled in virtually all fields of endeavor. In politics,

The majority of Italian Americans are Catholics, although Catholic affiliation among Italian American adults has fallen from 89 percent in 1972 to 56 percent in 2010 (-33 percentage points).^[156] By 1910, Italian Americans had founded 219 Catholic churches and 41 parochial schools, served by 315 priests and 254 nuns, 2 Catholic seminaries, and 3 orphanages.^[157] Four hundred Italian Jesuit priests left Italy for the American West between 1848 and 1919. Most of these Jesuits left their homeland involuntarily, expelled by Italian nationalists in the successive waves of Italian unification that dominated Italy. When they came to the West, they ministered to Native Americans in the Northwest, Irish-Americans in San Francisco, and Mexican Americans in the Southwest. They also ran the nation's most influential Catholic seminary, in Woodstock, Maryland. In addition to their pastoral work, they founded numerous high schools and colleges, including Regis University, Santa Clara University, the University of San Francisco, and Gonzaga University.^[158]

In some Sicilian American communities, primarily

The Jewish emigration from Italy was never of a magnitude that resulted in the formation of Italian Jewish communities in the United States. Religious Italian Jews integrated into existing Jewish communities without difficulty, especially in

From a religious point of view, the figure of greatest influence is Rabbi Sabato Morais, who, at the end of the 19th century, was the leader of the large Sephardic community of Philadelphia. In 1886, he became one of the founders of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York, where he became its first dean. Two other Italian Jews achieved prominence in the United States in the first half of the 20th century: Giorgio Polacco was the principal conductor of the Metropolitan Opera House (1915–1917) and the Chicago Civic Opera (1921–1930), and Fiorello La Guardia was a member of the U.S. Congress (1917–1919 and 1923–1933) and a popular mayor of New York (1934–1945). A descendant on his mother's side of the great Italian rabbi Samuel David Luzzatto, La Guardia could address his constituency in both Italian and Yiddish.

Under

During the era of mass immigration, rural families in Italy did not place a high value on formal education since they needed their children to help with chores as soon as they were old enough. For many, this attitude did not change upon arriving in America, where children were expected to help support the family as soon as possible.

There are two Italian international schools in the United States, La Scuola International^[168] in San Francisco, and La Scuola d'Italia Guglielmo Marconi in New York City.^[169]

Numerous American television personalities are of Italian descent. Talk-show hosts include

Voters did not always vote the way editorials dictated, but they depended on the news coverage. At many smaller papers, support for Mussolini, short-sighted opportunism, deference to political patrons who were not members of the Italian-American communities, and the necessity of making a living through periodicals with a small circulation, generally weakened the owners of Italian-language newspapers when they tried to become political brokers of the Italian American vote.[172]

James V. Donnaruma purchased Boston's La Gazzetta del Massachusetts in 1905. La Gazzetta enjoyed a wide readership in Boston's Italian community because it emphasized detailed coverage of local ethnic events and explained how events in Europe affected the community. Donnaruma's editorial positions, however, were frequently at odds with the sentiments of his readership. Donnaruma's conservative views and desire for greater advertising revenue prompted him to court the favor of Boston's Republican elite, to whom he pledged editorial support in return for the purchase of advertising space for political campaigns. La Gazzetta consistently supported Republican candidates and policy positions, even when the party was proposing and passing laws to restrict Italian immigration. Nevertheless, voting records from the 1920s–1930s show that Boston's Italian Americans voted heavily for Democratic candidates.^[173][174]

Carmelo Zito took over the San Francisco newspaper Il Corriere del Popolo in 1935. Under Zito, it became one of the fiercest foes of Mussolini's fascism on the West Coast. It vigorously attacked Italy's 1935 invasion of Ethiopia and its intervention in the Spanish Civil War. Zito helped form the Italian-American Anti-Fascist League and often attacked certain Italian prominenti like Ettore Patrizi, publisher of L'Italia and La Voce del Popolo. Zito's paper campaigned against alleged Italian pro-Fascist language schools of San Francisco.^[175]

In 1909, Vincenzo Giuliano, an immigrant from Calabria, Italy and his wife Maria Oliva founded La Tribune Italiana d'America, known today as The Italian Tribune, which circulates throughout southeastern Michigan. A second newspaper founded by a Catholic order of priests, La Voce del Popolo also served the Metro Detroit community until the 1920s, when that newspaper merged with La Tribuna Italiana d'America. Upon Giuliano's death in the 1960s, his family continued the paper.

Columbus Citizens Foundation

One of the 2,800 lodges of the Order Sons of Italy in America (this in Yonkers, New York)^[176]

Italian-American organizations include:

• Alpha Phi Delta
• American Italian Anti-Defamation League
• Columbus Citizens Foundation
• Italian American Congressional Delegation
• Italian American One Voice Coalition
• Italian-American Civil Rights League
• Italian-American National Union
• Italy–USA Foundation
• National Organization of Italian American Women
• Order Sons of Italy in America
• Unico National
• The Columbian Foundation
• American Relief for Italy, Inc (ARI)

In 1944, the creation of the American Relief for Italy, Inc (ARI) functioned as an umbrella organization until 1946. The ARI collected, shipped, and distributed over $10 million of relief materials donated by other Italian organizations and individuals from all over Italy. Catholic charities, labor unions, cultural clubs, and fraternal organizations all responded in helping to raise money for the ARI. These relief materials were donated to Italians in need and helped to provide humanitarian assistance. All remaining donations were distributed to Italian soldiers at war. This organization was one of the first steps in the lengthy process of political and economic stabilizations in postwar Italy.^[177]

• American Committee on Italian Migration (ACIM)

Throughout the 1950s and the 1960s, the American Committee on Italian Migration (ACIM) was one of the largest, most active Italian American organizations in the United States. They gave assistance to Italian immigrants living in the United States threatened by political instability and provided recovery for those in need. Frequently, money and supplies were sent back home to those who were unable to migrate or were in the process of migrating to the United States. Most of these people were the women and children Italian men left behind in hopes of starting a new life in America. The ACIM grew rapidly with hundreds of thousands of members being both donors and beneficiaries.^[177]

• National Catholic Welfare Conference (NCWC)

The National Catholic Welfare Conference (NCWC) worked with ACIM on legislative campaigns and immigration projects. In 1951, members from NCWC, ACIM, as well as other Italian Americans joined in efforts to create an organization that specifically benefited and focused on assisting Italian immigrants. After a vast effort in 1953, the Refugee Relief Act (RRA) was passed allowing the entrance of over two hundred thousand Italian immigrants into the United States. The RRA provided these Italian immigrants with many opportunities to start their new life in America. Job opportunities, a place to live, and proper education for immigrants children were provided.^[177]

The National Italian American Foundation (NIAF) ^[178] – a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization headquartered in Washington, D.C. – works to represent Italian Americans, spread knowledge of the Italian language, foster U.S./Italy relations and connect the greater Italian American community. Additionally, two major Italian American fraternal and service organizations, Order Sons of Italy in America and Unico National, actively promote knowledge of Italian American history and culture.

The Italian Heritage and Culture Committee – NY, Inc. was founded in 1976, and has organized special events, concerts, exhibits and lectures celebrating Italian culture in New York City. Each year it focuses on a theme representative of the history and culture of Italy and Italian Americans.

The Italic Institute of America^[179] is dedicated to fostering and preserving knowledge of the classical Italian heritage of American society, through the Latin language and Greco-Roman-Etruscan civilization, as well as five centuries of contributions to American society by Italians and their descendants.

Italian Americans have influenced the

After World War II, numerous Italian Americans became well known in movies, both as actors and directors, and many were Academy Award recipients. Movie directors included Frank Capra, Francis Ford Coppola, Michael Cimino, Vincente Minnelli, Martin Scorsese, and Brian De Palma.

The works of a number of Italian American authors and poets, born of immigrant parents, were published in the first half of the 20th century.

Later in the century, a growing number of books by recognized Italian American authors, such as Don DeLillo,^[187] Paul Gallico (Poseidon Adventure), Gilbert Sorrentino, Gay Talese, Camille Paglia, and Mario Puzo (The Fortunate Pilgrim) found a place in mainstream American literature. Other notable 20th-century authors included Dana Gioia, executive director of the National Endowment for the Arts; John Fusco, author of Paradise Salvage; Tina DeRosa; and Daniela Gioseffi, winner of the John Ciardi Award for Lifetime Achievement in Poetry, and The American Book Award; and Josephine Gattuso Hendin (The Right Thing to Do). Poets Sandra (Mortola) Gilbert and Kim Addonizio were also winners of the John Ciardi Award for Lifetime Achievement in Poetry from Italian Americana, as was writer Helen Barolini and poet Maria Mazziotti Gillan.^[188] These women have authored many books depicting Italian American women in a new light. Helen Barolini's The Dream Book: An Anthology of Writings by Italian American Women (1985) was the first anthology that pulled together the historic range of writing from the late 19th century to the 1980s. It exhibited the wealth of fiction, poetry, essays, and letters and paid special attention to the interaction of Italian American women with American social activism.^[189] Italian American poets Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Gregory Corso played a prominent role in the Beat Generation. Ferlinghetti was also the co-founder of City Lights Bookstore, a San Francisco bookstore and publishing company that published much of the work of other Beat Generation writers.^[190] Many of these authors' books and writings are easily found on the internet, as, for example, on an archive of contemporary Italian American authors, as well as in bibliographies online at Stonybrook University's Italian American Studies Department in New York^[191] or at the Italian American Writers Association website.^[192]

A scholarly literature has also emerged that critiques the literary output. Common themes include conflicts between marginal Italian American and mainstream culture, and tradition-bound immigrant parents opposed by their more assimilated children.^[193] Mary Jo Bona provided the first full-length scholarly analysis of the literary tradition. She is especially interested in showing how authors portrayed the many configurations of family relationships, from the early immigrant narratives of journeying to a new world, through novels that stress intergenerational conflicts, to contemporary works about the struggle of modern women to form nontraditional gender roles.^[194]

Among the scholars who have led the renaissance in Italian American literature are professors Richard Gambino, Anthony Julian Tamburri, Paolo Giordano, and Fred Gardaphé. The latter three founded Bordighera Press and edited From the Margin: An Anthology of Italian American Writing (Purdue University Press). At Brooklyn College, Dr. Robert Viscusi founded the Italian American Writers Association and is an author and American Book Award winner himself. As a result of the efforts of magazines like Voices in Italian Americana; Ambassador, a publication of the National Italian American Foundation; and Italian Americana, edited by Carla Simonini, Italian Americans have been reading more works of their own writers. A supplemental website at www.italianamericana.com to the journal Italian Americana, edited by novelist Christine Palamidessi Moore, also offers historical articles, stories, memoirs, poetry, and book reviews. Dana Gioia, was poetry editor of Italian Americana from 1993 to 2003, followed by poet Michael Palma, who also selects poems for Italian Americana's webpage supplement.^[195] Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Daniela Gioseffi, and Paul Mariani, are among the internationally known authors who have been awarded the John Ciardi Award for Lifetime Achievement in Poetry during Michael Palma's tenure as poetry editor. Daniela Gioseffi, with Alfredo de Palchi, founded the Annual $2,000 Bordighera Poetry Prize^[196] to further the names of Italian American poets in American literature. As of 1997, 12 books have been published in the bilingual series from Bordighera Press.^[197]

In the field of academic cinema studies, Peter Bondanella, Peter Brunette, and Frank P. Tomasulo have made significant contributions to film scholarship as authors, editors, and educators.

Italian Americans have written not only about the Italian American experience but, indeed, the human experience. Some of the most popular inspirational books have been authored by Italian Americans—notably, those of Og Mandino, Leo Buscaglia, and Antoinette Bosco.^[198] A series of inspirational books for children has been written by Tomie dePaola. Contemporary best-selling fiction writers include David Baldacci, Kate DiCamillo, Richard Russo, Adriana Trigiani, and Lisa Scottoline.

According to the Sons of Italy News Bureau, from 1998 to 2002 the enrollment in college Italian language courses grew by 30%, faster than the enrollment rates for French and German.^[204] Italian is the fourth most commonly taught foreign language in U.S. colleges and universities behind Spanish, French, and German. According to the U.S. 2000 Census, Italian (including Sicilian) is the sixth most spoken language in the United States (tied with Vietnamese) after English with over 1 million speakers.^[205]

As a result of the large wave of Italian immigration to the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Italian and Sicilian were once widely spoken in much of the U.S., especially in northeastern and Great Lakes area cities like Buffalo, Rochester, Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland and Milwaukee, as well as San Francisco, St. Louis and New Orleans. Italian-language newspapers exist in many American cities, especially New York City, and Italian-language movie theatres existed in the U.S. as late as the 1950s. L'Idea is a bilingual quarterly published in Brooklyn since 1974. Arba Sicula (Sicilian Dawn) is a semiannual publication of the society of the same name, dedicated to preserving the Sicilian language. The magazine and a periodic newsletter offer prose, poetry and comment in Sicilian, with adjacent English translations.

Today, prizes like the Bordighera Annual Poetry Prize,^[206] founded by Daniela Gioseffi, Pietro Mastrandrea and Alfredo di Palchi, with support from the Sonia Rraiziss-Giop Foundation and Bordighera Press, which publishes the winners in bilingual editions, have helped to encourage writers of the diaspora to write in Italian. Chelsea Books in New York City and Gradiva Press on Long Island have published many bilingual books due to the efforts of bilingual writers of the diaspora like Paolo Valesio,^[207] Alfredo de Palchi,^[208] and Luigi Fontanella. Dr. Luigi Bonaffini^[209] of the City University of New York, publisher of The Journal of Italian Translation at Brooklyn College, has fostered Italian dialectic poetry throughout Italy and the U.S. Joseph Tusiani of New York and New York University,^[210] a distinguished linguist and prize-winning poet born in Italy, paved the way for Italian works of literature in English and has published many bilingual books and Italian classics for the American audience, among them the first complete works of Michelangelo's poems in English to be published in the United States. All of this literary endeavor has helped to foster the Italian language, along with Italian opera, of course, in the United States. Many of these authors and their bilingual books are located throughout the internet.

Author Lawrence Distasi argues that the loss of spoken Italian among the Italian American population can be tied to U.S. government pressures during World War II. During World War II, in various parts of the country, the U.S. government displayed signs that read, "Don't Speak the Enemy's Language". Such signs designated the languages of the Axis powers, German, Japanese and Italian, as "enemy languages". Shortly after the Axis powers declared war on the U.S., many Italian, Japanese and German citizens were interned. Among the Italian Americans, those who spoke Italian, who had never become citizens and who belonged to groups that praised Benito Mussolini, were most likely to become candidates for internment. Distasi claims that many Italian language schools closed down in the San Francisco Bay Area within a week of the U.S. declaration of war on the Axis powers. Such closures were inevitable since most of the teachers in Italian languages were interned.

Despite previous decline, Italian and Sicilian are still spoken and studied by those of Italian American descent and it can be heard in various American communities, especially among older Italian Americans. The official Italian taught in schools is Standard Italian, which is based on 14th century literary Florentine.^[211] However, the "Italian" with which Italian Americans are generally acquainted is often rooted in the Regional Italian and Italo-Dalmatian languages their immigrant ancestors brought from Italy to American, primarily southern Italian and Sicilian dialects of pre-unification Italy.^[212]

Despite it being the fifth most studied language in higher education (college and graduate) settings throughout America,^[213] the Italian language has struggled to maintain being an AP course of study in high schools nationwide. It was only in 2006 that AP Italian classes were first introduced, and they were soon dropped from the national curricula after the spring of 2009.^[214] The organization which manages such curricula, the College Board, ended the AP Italian program because it was "losing money" and had failed to add 5,000 new students each year. Since the program's termination in the spring of 2009, various Italian organizations and activists have attempted to revive the course of study. Most notable in the effort is Margaret Cuomo, sister of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. She provided the impetus for the program's birth in 2006 and is currently attempting to secure funding and teachers to reinstate the program. It is also worth noting that Italian organizations have begun fundraisers to revive AP Italian. Organizations such as the NIAF and Order Sons of Italy in America have made strides in collecting money, and are prepared to aid in the monetary responsibility any new AP Italian program would bring with it.

Web-based Italian organizations, such as ItalianAware,^[215] have begun book donation campaigns to improve the status and representation of Italian and Italian American literature in the New York public libraries. According to ItalianAware, the Brooklyn Public Library is the worst offender in New York City.^[216] It has 11 books pertaining to the Italian immigrant experience available for checkout, spread across 60 branches. That amounts to one book for every six branches in Brooklyn, which (according to ItalianAware) cannot supply the large Italian/Italian American community in the borough. ItalianAware aimed to donate 100 books to the Brooklyn Public Library by the end of 2010.

Italian American pidgin or Italian American slang is a

Italian Americans have profoundly influenced the eating habits of America. Italian American TV personalities, such as

Scores of Italian Americans became well known singers in the post-war period, including Frank Sinatra, Mario Lanza, Perry Como, Dean Martin, Tony Bennett, Frankie Laine, Bobby Darin, Julius La Rosa, Connie Francis, and Madonna. Italian Americans who hosted popular musical/variety TV shows in the post-war decades included Perry Como (1949–1967), piano virtuoso Liberace (1952–1956), Jimmy Durante (1954–1956), Frank Sinatra (1957–1958), and Dean Martin (1965–1974). Broadway, musical stars included Rose Marie, Carol Lawrence, Anna Maria Alberghetti, Sergio Franchi, Patti LuPone, Ezio Pinza, and Liza Minnelli.

In music composition,

After World War II, Italian Americans were active in professional sports as players, coaches, and commissioners. Well-known professional baseball coaches in the post-war decades included Yogi Berra, Billy Martin, Tony La Russa, Tommy Lasorda, and Joe Torre. In professional football, Vince Lombardi set the standard of excellence for all coaches to follow. A. Bartlett Giamatti became president of the National Baseball League in 1986 and commissioner of Baseball in 1989. Paul Tagliabue was commissioner of the National Football League from 1989 to 2006.

In college football,

In college basketball, a number of Italian Americans became well-known coaches in the post-war decades, including John Calipari, Lou Carnesecca, Rollie Massimino, Rick Pitino, Jim Valvano, Dick Vitale, Tom Izzo, Mike Fratello, Ben Carnevale, and Geno Auriemma.

Italian Americans became nationally known in other diverse sports.

Currently, there are more than 300 Italian feasts celebrated throughout the United States. Notable is Festa Italiana, held in Milwaukee every summer. These feasts are visited each year by millions of Americans from various backgrounds who come together to enjoy Italian music and food delicacies. In the past, as to this day, an important part of Italian American culture centers around music and cuisine.

There are several museums in the United States, dedicated to Italian American culture:

• San Francisco, California: Museo ItaloAmericano
• Los Angeles, California: Italian American Museum of Los Angeles
• Chicago, Illinois: Casa Italia Chicago^[219]
• New Orleans, Louisiana: American Italian Cultural Center^[220]
• Albany, New York: American Italian Heritage Association and Museum^[221]
• New York, New York: Italian American Museum^[222]
• Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: History of Italian Immigration Museum (Filitalia Foundation)^[223]

During the period of mass immigration to the United States, they were often victims of prejudice, economic exploitation, and sometimes even violence, particularly in the South. In the 1890s, more than 20 Italians were lynched.^[224] The hostility was often directed toward the Southern Italians and Sicilians who began immigrating to the United States in large numbers after 1880.^[225]

A journalist asked a West Coast construction boss if the Italian was a white man, to which the boss replied: "No sir, an Italian is a Dago".^[226] This response reflected the xenophobic attitude of the time defining the idea of Whiteness in the United States. There was a social hierarchy within the various white American communities in which a different degrees of "whiteness" was associated with each group. Some European immigrants, such as Italians, were considered less white than the early European settlers and, therefore, were less accepted in American society.

Italian stereotypes abounded as a means of justifying the maltreatment of the immigrants. The print media greatly contributed to the stereotyping of Italians with lurid accounts of secret societies and criminality. Between 1890 and 1920, Italian neighborhoods were often depicted as violent and controlled by criminal networks. Two highly publicized cases illustrate the impact of these negative stereotypes:

In 1891,

In 1920, two Italian immigrants,

While the vast majority of Italian immigrants brought with them a tradition of hard work and were law-abiding citizens, as documented by police statistics of the early 20th century in Boston and New York City which show that Italian immigrants had an arrest rate no greater than that of other major immigrant groups,[227] a very small minority brought a very different custom. This criminal element preyed on the immigrants of the Little Italies, using intimidation and threats to extract protection money from the wealthier immigrants and shop owners, and were also involved in a multitude of other illegal activities. When the Fascists came to power in Italy, they made the destruction of the Mafia in Sicily a high priority. Hundreds fled to America in the 1920s and 1930s to avoid prosecution.

Prohibition, which went into effect in 1920, proved to be an economic windfall for those in the Italian American community already involved in illegal activities, and those who had fled from Sicily. This entailed smuggling liquor into the country, wholesaling it, and then selling it through a network of outlets. While other ethnic groups were also deeply involved in these illegal ventures, and the associated violence, Chicago mobster Al Capone became the most notorious figure of the Prohibition era. Though eventually repealed, Prohibition had a long-term effect as the spawning ground for later criminal activities.

Media portrayal of mobsters, such as the fictional Don Corleone, has been a major factor in shaping Italian American ethnic stereotypes.^[228]

In the 1950s, the scope of

From the earliest days of the movie industry, Italians have been portrayed as violent criminals and sociopaths.[229] This trend has continued to the present day. The stereotype of Italian Americans is the standardized mental image which has been fostered by the entertainment industry, especially through commercially successful movies like The Godfather, Goodfellas, and Casino; and TV programs such as The Sopranos.^[230] This follows a known pattern in which it is possible for the mass media to effectively create universally recognized, and sometimes accepted, stereotypes.^[231]

A highly publicized protest from the Italian-American community came in 2001 when the Chicago-based organization AIDA (American Italian Defamation Association) unsuccessfully sued

The DreamWorks animated film, Shark Tale, was widely protested by virtually all major Italian-American organizations as introducing the mob genre and negative stereotyping into a children's movie.^[233] In spite of the protests, which started during its early production, the movie was produced and released in 2004.

In 2009, MTV launched a reality show, Jersey Shore,^[234] which prompted severe criticism from Italian American organizations such as the National Italian American Foundation,^[235] Order Sons of Italy in America, and Unico National for its stereotypical portrayal of Italian Americans.

In 2019, Made in Staten Island lasted just three episodes, also on MTV, before a public outcry from residents of the borough in general, and Italian-American residents therein in particular, forced the show's cancellation.

The effective stereotyping of Italian Americans as being associated with organized crime was shown by a comprehensive study of Italian American culture on film, conducted from 1996 to 2001 by the Italic Institute of America.^[179] The findings showed that over two-thirds of the more than 2,000 films studied portray Italian Americans in a negative light. Further, close to 300 movies featuring Italian Americans as criminals have been produced since The Godfather, an average of nine per year.^[236] According to the Italic Institute of America:

The mass media has consistently ignored five centuries of Italian American history, and has elevated what was never more than a minute subculture to the dominant Italian American culture.^[237]

In actuality, according to recent FBI statistics,^[238] Italian American organized crime members and associates number approximately 3,000; and, given an Italian American population estimated to be approximately 18 million, the study concludes that only one in 6,000 is active in organized crime (0.007% of Italian-Americans).^[228]

Little Italies were, to a considerable extent, the result of Italophobia. The ethnocentrism and anti-Catholicism exhibited by the earlier Anglo-Saxon and northern European settlers helped to create an ideological foundation for fixing foreignness on urban spaces occupied by immigrants.^[239] Communities of Italian Americans were established in most major industrial cities of the early 20th century. New Orleans, Louisiana was the first site of immigration of Italians into America in the 19th century, before Italy was a unified nation-state. This was before New York Harbor and Baltimore became the preferred destinations for Italian immigrants. In sharp contrast to the Northeast, most of the Southern states (with the exception of Central and South Florida and the New Orleans area) have relatively few Italian-American residents. During the labor shortage in the 19th and early 20th centuries, planters in the Deep South did attract some Italian immigrants to work as sharecroppers, but they soon left the extreme anti-Italian discrimination and strict regimen of the rural areas for the cities or other states. The state of California has had Italian-American residents since the 1850s. By the 1970s, gentrification of inner city neighborhoods and the arrival of new immigrant groups caused a sharp decline in the old Italian-American and other ethnic enclaves.^[240] Many Italian Americans moved to the rapidly growing Western states. Today, New York and New Jersey have the largest numbers of Italian Americans in the U.S. while smaller Northeastern cities such as Pittsburgh, Providence and Hartford have the highest percentage of Italian Americans in their metropolitan areas.

The New York-based daily newspaper Il Progresso Italo-Americano had a national audience and reflected the views of the leadership of the community. It was published 1880–1988.^[241]

New York City is home to the largest Italian-American population in the country and the second-largest Italian population outside of Italy. Several Little Italy enclaves exist in

During the beginning of the Cold War, immigration into the United States from Italy was almost impossible. The American government did not want foreigners entering during an intense period of history, especially those immigrating to New York City. Americas were frightened that these immigrants could be terrorists, thus preventing Italians from gaining citizenship. As the Cold War continued, organization groups such as the Italian American Organization and the American Committee on Italian Migration (ACIM) started to form. They created vast efforts to provide assistance and aid to Italian immigrants coming into the United States. Throughout the Cold War, these organizations increased rapidly with many American Italian members as well as many new coming Italians. ACIM also took a leading role in directing the efforts of other Italian American and Catholic organizations that helped contribute to Italian immigration. These organizations provided new migrants with housing, clothing, access to job interviews, and education for children. Immediately after the Cold War period, Italian Americans further consolidated and solidified their status as members of the American mainstream.[247]

Philadelphia's Italian American community is the second-largest in the United States. Italian Americans compose 21% of South Philadelphia's 163,000 people, and the area has numerous Italian stores and restaurants. Philadelphia is well known for its Italian Market in South Philadelphia. The Italian Market is the popular name for the South 9th Street Curb Market, an area of Philadelphia featuring many grocery shops, cafes, restaurants, bakeries, cheese shops, and butcher shops, many with an Italian influence.

The

In its heyday,

The neighborhood around Chicago's Taylor Street has been called the

Italian Americans dominated the inner core of the Hull House neighborhood, 1890s–1930s.^[251] One of the first newspaper articles about Hull House (Chicago Tribune, May 19, 1890) is an invitation, written in Italian, to the residents of the Hull House neighborhood signed, "Le Signorine, Jane Addams and Ellen Starr".

As suburbs grew in the post-World War II era, Chicago's Italian American population spread from the central city, such as to

Italian immigrants from the northern Italian region of Lombardy came to St. Louis in the late 19th century and settled in the region called The Hill. As the city grew, immigrants from Southern Italy settled in a different neighborhood north of Downtown St Louis. As of 2021 there are approximately 2,000 native born Italians living in St. Louis, few of whom live in The Hill neighborhood. Italians today live mostly throughout the St. Louis metropolitan region. The Italian Community of St. Louis (Comunita' Italiana di St. Louis), an organization that promotes the Italian language and culture, has several popular events which include Carnevale^[253] which occurs every February and Ferragosto which occurs each August. The St. Louis Italian Language Program also exists on the Hill at Gateway Science Academy on Fyler Avenue.^[254]

Los Angeles is home to the largest Italian American community in California (and on the West Coast), with 95,300 people identifying as Italian American.

According to the 1940 census, 18.5% of all European immigrants were Italian, the largest in the city. North Beach is San Francisco's Little Italy, and has historically been home to a large Italian American population. The American Planning Association (APA) has named North Beach as one of ten 'Great Neighborhoods in America'.^[258]

The first ethnic Italian in Detroit was Alphonse Tonty (Italian name: Alfonso Tonti), a Frenchman with an Italian immigrant father. He was the second-in-command of Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, who established Detroit in 1701. Tonti's child, born in 1703, was the first ethnic European child born in Detroit. In order to preserve the fur trade, the French administrators and the British administrators discouraged immigration, so the Italian population had slow growth. Growth in immigration increased after Detroit became a part of the United States and the Erie Canal had been constructed. Armando Delicato, author of Italians in Detroit, wrote that Italian immigration to Detroit "lagged behind other cities in the East".

In 1904 the City of Detroit had 900 Italians. In Metro Detroit there were several thousand ethnic Italians by 1900. The concentrations of the population lived in Eastern Market and east of the area presently known as Greektown. Of those Italians in 1900 most originated from Genoa, Lombardy, and Sicily. Some Italians stayed in Detroit temporarily before traveling onwards to mines in northern Michigan.

The increase in the automobile industry resulted in the increase of the Italian population in the 20th century. By 1925, the number of Italians in the City of Detroit increased to 42,000. The historical center of Detroit's Italian-American community was in an area along Gratiot Avenue, east of Downtown Detroit. During that period, Italian immigrants and their children lived throughout the City of Detroit, and several neighborhoods had concentrations of Italian immigrants. There were larger numbers of southern Italians than those from the north. Armando Delicato, author of Italians in Detroit, wrote that "Unlike many other American cities, no region of Italy was totally dominant in this area". Steve Babson, author of Working Detroit: The Making of a Union Town, wrote that "Many northern Italians, coming from an urban and industrialized society, had little in common with local Sicilians, who came from the rural and clannish south." In Detroit's history, within the crafts Italians concentrated on tileworking.

During World War II, Fort Wayne (Detroit) served as home to Italian prisoners of war (POWs) captured during the North African campaign. After Italy's surrender in September 1943, the POWs were given the opportunity to work as servants, cooks, and janitors. At the end of the war many chose to remain and settle in Detroit.

As of 1951, Detroit had about 150,000 Italians.

The National Italian American Foundation estimated that in 1990,

Cleveland's Little Italy, also known as Murray Hill, is the epicenter of Italian culture in Northeast Ohio, a combined statistical area reporting 285,000 (9.9%)^[259] Italian Americans.^[260] Little Italy took root when Joseph Carabelli, immigrating in 1880, saw the opportunity for monument work in Cleveland's Lake View Cemetery and established what soon became the city's leading marble and granite works. Most fresco and mosaic work in Cleveland was accomplished by Italian artist immigrants.^[261] Local Cleveland industrial billionaire John D. Rockefeller took a special liking to the Italian immigrants of the neighborhood and commissioned the building of the community center, Alta House, in 1900.

Ohio's largest outdoor Italian American street festival, the Feast of the Assumption (Festa dell'assunzione), takes place the weekend of August 15 every year and draws over 100,000 people to the Little Italy neighborhood.^[262] The festival is sponsored by the congregation of Holy Rosary Church, which was founded in 1892 with the current church built in 1905.

Attracted by employment in its growing railroad and meat packing industries, Italians primarily from Calabria and Sicily immigrated to Kansas City in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Kansas City's Calabrese mainly passed through the port of New York, sometimes stopping in industrial cities like Pittsburgh along the way, en route to their final destination in the Midwest. Meanwhile, Kansas City's Sicilian community generally came through the port of New Orleans, staying there for a decade or more before bringing their families north. In Kansas City, these communities settled close to one another, often overlapping: the Sicilians taking root in what is now known as the River Market and Columbus Park neighborhoods, and the Calabrese mainly settling in the adjacent "Old Northeast" area.

Economics in Louisiana and Sicily combined to bring about what became known as the Great Migration of thousands of Sicilians. The end of the Civil War allowed the freed men the choice to stay or to go, many chose to leave for higher paying jobs, which in turn led to a perceived scarcity of labor resources for the planters. Northern Italy enjoyed the fruits of modern industrialization, while southern Italy and Sicily suffered destitute conditions under the system of absentee landowners. The peasant was still essentially the serf in the system. Emigration not only offered peasants a chance to move beyond subsistence living, it also offered them a chance to pursue their own dreams of proprietorship as farmers or other business owners. On March 17, 1866, the Louisiana Bureau of Immigration was formed and planters began to look to Sicily as a possible solution to their labor needs. Steamship companies advertisements were very effective in recruiting potential workers. Three steamships per month were running between New Orleans and Sicily by September 1881 at a cost of only forty dollars per person.

In 1890 the ethnic Irish chief of police,

Italian immigrants first came to the area around

Federal Hill in Providence, Rhode Island, is best known for its Italian American community and abundance of restaurants. The first two decades of the 20th century witnessed heavy Italian American immigration into Federal Hill. Though the area today is more diverse, Federal Hill still retains its status as the traditional center for the city's Italian American community. The neighborhood features a huge square dedicated to Giuseppe Garibaldi, a monumental gateway arch decorated with La Pigna sculpture (a traditional Italian symbol of welcome, abundance, and quality) and a DePasquale Plaza used for outdoor dining. Providence's annual Columbus Day parade marches down Atwells Avenue.

The community of

Birmingham, Alabama, was representative of smaller industrial centers. Most Italians in the early 20th century came to work in the burgeoning iron and coal industries. Dorothy L. Crim founded the Ensley Community House in the Italian district in 1912 at the behest of the Birmingham City Mission Board. From 1912 to 1969, Ensley House eased the often difficult transition to American life by providing direct assistance.^[271]

Historically,

Tens of thousands of Italians came to West Virginia during the late 1800s and early 1900s to work in the coal camps. As pick-and-shovel miners, Italians hold most of the state's coal production records. One Carmine Pellegrino mined 66 tons of coal by hand in a 24-hour period.^[274] Many of these immigrants left for larger cities once they earned enough money, but some of their descendants remain, particularly in the north central counties. The communities of Clarksburg, Wheeling, and Bluefield each hold their own annual Italian Heritage Festival. Fairmont puts on a street festival every December that pays homage to the Feast of the Seven Fishes, an Italian tradition of eating seafood dishes on Christmas Eve instead of meat.

There was a historical trend of immigration of Italians into the U.S. state of Arkansas in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Italians later moved from the Arkansas Delta to the Ozarks, establishing Tontitown.^[275]

Italians began to settle in Baltimore during the late 1800s. Some Italian immigrants came to the Port of Baltimore by boat. The earliest Italian settlers in Baltimore were sailors from Genoa, the capital city of the Italian region of Liguria, who arrived during the 1840s and 1850s. Later immigrants came from Naples, Abruzzo, Cefalù, and Palermo. These immigrants created the monument to Christopher Columbus in Druid Hill Park.^[276] Many other Italians came by train after entering the country through New York City's Ellis Island. Italian immigrants who arrived by train would enter the city through the President Street Station. Because of this, Italians largely settled in a nearby neighborhood that is now known as Little Italy.

Little Italy comprises six blocks bounded by Pratt Street to the North, the Inner Harbor to the South, Eden Street to the East, and President Street to the West. Other neighborhoods where large numbers of Italians settled include Lexington, Belair-Edison, and Cross Street. Many settled along Lombard Street, which was named after the Italian town of Guardia Lombardi. The Italian community, overwhelmingly Roman Catholic, established a number of Italian American parishes such as St. Leo's Church and Our Lady of Pompeii Church. The Our Lady of Pompeii Church holds the annual Highlandtown Wine Festival, which celebrates Italian-American culture and benefits the Highlandtown community association.^[277]

Italians have settled in the state of Mississippi since colonial times, although numbers have increased over the years. Since the 18th and mainly the 19th century, Italian settlers have been located in cities and towns across Mississippi. In 1554, Mississippi began to have a real Italian presence, because of the Hernando de Soto expedition. The first Italians who visited Mississippi came in explorations conducted by the French and Spanish governments.

In the 19th century, many Italians entered the United States in

Large numbers of Italians first came to Colorado in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Some settled in industrial Pueblo or in Welby, which was then a farming community, but the largest Italian community in twentieth century Colorado was in Northwest Denver, or as it was known at the time, "the North Side" or "North Denver."^[280]

Italians first put down roots there because St. Patrick's Catholic Church, a largely Irish-descended congregation, already existed in the neighborhood. In 1894, the Italian community on the North Side formed its own Catholic church called Our Lady of Mt. Carmel.^[280] The community remained strong through the early twentieth century, but in the decades after World War II, many Italian-Americans left Denver proper. Today, descendants of the old North Side Italian-American community are spread across metro Denver, particularly in its inner northwestern suburbs like Wheat Ridge, Westminster and Arvada.^[281] The Many Italian Americans without deep roots in Colorado have also settled in the Denver area and other parts of the state throughout the last decades of the twentieth century and in the new millennium.

Reminders of the old Italian community in Northwest Denver are few and far between today. Many of the remaining landmarks are on 38th Avenue. One is Gaetano's, a storied Italian American eatery on 38th Avenue and Tejon Street once owned by the

There is a significant Italian American community in Las Vegas.^[284]

In the

In 2010, the American Community Survey enumerated Americans reporting Italian ancestry at nearly 17.6 million, 5.8% of the U.S. population; in 2015, 17.3 million, 5.5% of the population. A decade thereafter, in 2020, the U.S. Census Bureau recorded slightly more than 16.5 million Americans reporting full or partial Italian ancestry, about 5.1% of the U.S. population.^{[287][288][289]} As ancestry is self-reported, the decline in Italian identification in the 21st century may merely reflect growing Americanization and cultural assimilation of Italian Americans into the broader identity of White Americans, with younger generations increasingly intermixed with other European Americans: the number of Americans who reported being solely of Italian ancestry alone fell by 928,044—from 7,183,882 in 2010 to 6,652,806 in 2015 to 5,724,762 in 2020.^{[290][291][292]} However, by contrast, the number of Americans who reported being of Italian ancestry mixed with another ancestry grew by 436,334—from 10,387,926 in 2010 to 10,632,691 in 2015 to 10,824,260 in 2020.^{[293][294][295]}

U.S. states number and percentage Italian American in 2020^{[296][287][297][298]}

Estimated Italian American population by state

State	Number	Percentage
Alabama	78,547	1.61%
Alaska	20,629	2.80%
Arizona	297,383	4.15%
Arkansas	44,534	1.48%
California	1,414,190	3.59%
Colorado	275,803	4.85%
Connecticut	590,721	16.54%
Delaware	81,036	8.37%
District of Columbia	27,731	3.95%
Florida	1,222,217	5.76%
Georgia	234,113	2.23%
Hawaii	30,019	2.11%
Idaho	54,112	3.08%
Illinois	726,216	5.71%
Indiana	180,628	2.70%
Iowa	63,176	2.01%
Kansas	62,266	2.14%
Kentucky	90,775	2.03%
Louisiana	200,407	4.30%
Maine	76,133	5.68%
Maryland	291,816	4.83%
Massachusetts	825,642	12.01%
Michigan	452,303	4.53%
Minnesota	124,817	2.23%
Mississippi	53,122	1.78%
Missouri	204,254	3.34%
Montana	38,075	3.59%
Nebraska	49,349	2.57%
Nevada	158,170	5.22%
New Hampshire	137,322	10.13%
New Jersey	1,353,075	15.23%
New Mexico	46,352	2.21%
New York	2,320,549	11.89%
North Carolina	334,430	3.20%
North Dakota	8,767	1.15%
Ohio	715,494	6.13%
Oklahoma	69,023	1.75%
Oregon	154,010	3.69%
Pennsylvania	1,430,006	11.18%
Rhode Island	172,852	16.34%
South Carolina	153,895	3.02%
South Dakota	10,732	1.22%
Tennessee	152,739	2.26%
Texas	523,680	1.83%
Utah	86,754	2.75%
Vermont	45,447	7.28%
Virginia	332,213	3.90%
Washington	255,671	3.40%
West Virginia	77,548	4.29%
Wisconsin	200,205	3.45%
Wyoming	18,338	3.15%
United States	16,549,022	5.07%

The top 20 U.S. communities with the highest percentage of people claiming Italian ancestry are:^[299]

1. Fairfield, New Jersey 50.3%
2. Johnston, Rhode Island 49.5%
3. North Branford, Connecticut 43.9%
4. East Haven, Connecticut 43.6%
5. Hammonton, New Jersey 43.2%
6. Ocean Gate, New Jersey 42.6%
7. East Hanover, New Jersey 41.3%
8. North Haven, Connecticut 41.2%
9. Cedar Grove, New Jersey 40.8%
10. Wood-Ridge, New Jersey 40.6%
11. North Providence, Rhode Island 38.9%
12. Dunmore, Pennsylvania 38.9%
13. Newfield, New Jersey 38.8%
14. Saugus, Massachusetts 38.5%
15. Jenkins, Pennsylvania
    38.4%
16. West Pittston, Pennsylvania 37.9%
17. Old Forge, Pennsylvania 37.8%
18. Lowellville, Ohio 37.5%
19. Hughestown, Pennsylvania 37.5%
20. Prospect, Connecticut 37.5%

• Busti, New York (Town and village name)

In 2023 Italian Americans had a Per Capita Income of $55,349, higher than $43,313 which is the Per Capita Income for the Total Population and higher than $50,675 for all White Americans.^[300]

In terms of education Italian Americans are significantly more educated than the Total Population. 96.2% have attained High School Graduate and 46.1% have attained a Bachelor's degree or higher.^[301]

67% of the population are in the labor force, with 52.1% working in management, business, science, and arts occupations, but the community also has a large population working in sales and office occupations.^[302] In terms of industry, a large number of Italian Americans work in Educational services, and health care and social assistance as well as Professional, scientific, and management, and administrative and waste management services and Retail trade.^[303]

• Sicilian Americans
• List of Italian-American neighborhoods
  • Little Italys in the United States
  • History of Italians in Baltimore
  • History of Italian Americans in Boston
  • History of Italian Americans in Metro Detroit
  • History of Italians in Mississippi
  • Italians in New Orleans
  • Italians in New York City
  • History of Italian Americans in Philadelphia
  • Utah Italians
  • Tontitown, Arkansas
  • Valdese, North Carolina
• List of Italian-American actors
• List of Italian Americans in sports
• Order Sons of Italy in America
• Italian-American cuisine
• American Mafia
  • Italian-American Civil Rights League
• Italy–USA Foundation, based in Rome
• Italy–United States relations,
• Italian diaspora, worldwide
  • Anti-Italianism, worldwide
  • Italophilia

Bibliography

• Alba, Richard D. Italian Americans: Into the twilight of ethnicity (Prentice Hall, 1985) online
• Bona, Mary Jo. Claiming a Tradition: Italian American Women Writers (1999)

• Bonomo Albright, Carol and Christine Palamidessi Moore, ed. American Woman, Italian Style (Fordham Press, 2011).

• Chiaricati, Federico. "Sons of our race! Help your motherland! Buy Italian! Italian propaganda through food ads among Italian American ethnic communities at the turn of the century." History of Retailing and Consumption 8.1 (2022): 49-68. online

• Connell, William J. and Fred Gardaphé, eds., Anti-Italianism: Essays on a Prejudice (2010)
• Connell, William J. and Stanislao Pugliese, eds., The Routledge History of Italian Americans (2018)
• Cordasco, Francesco. The Italians; social backgrounds of an American group (1974)online
• Cosco, Joseph P. Imagining Italians: The Clash of Romance and Race in American Perceptions, 1880-1910 (State University of New York Press, 2012) online.
• Krajewski, Andrew T., Daniel DellaPosta, and Diane Felmlee. "Vertical organizations, flat networks: Centrality and criminal collaboration in the Italian-American Mafia." Social Networks 68 (2022): 127-138.

• D'Acierno, Pellegrino A., ed. The Italian American Heritage: A Companion to Literature and Arts (Routledge, 2021) online.

• D'Agostino, Peter R. Rome in America: Transnational Catholic Ideology from the Risorgimento to Fascism (2004).
• Dainotto, Roberto M. The Mafia: A Cultural History (2015)
• De Ville, John. "Italians in the United States." The Catholic Encyclopedia (1910) vol 8 online
• Diggins, John P. Mussolini and Fascism: The View from America (1972)
• Dore, Grazia. "Some Social and Historical Aspects of Italian Emigration to America" Journal of Social History, 2#2 (1968), pp. 95–122 online
• Diner, Hasia R. Hungering for America: Italian, Irish, and Jewish Foodways in the Age of Migration (2001). 292 pp.
• Fasce, Ferdinando (2009). "Singing at Work: Italian Immigrants and Music during the Epoch of World War I". Italian Americana. 27: 133–48.
• Fox, Stephen, The unknown internment: an oral history of the relocation of Italian Americans during World War II, (1990).
• Gallo, Patrick. Old Bread, New Wine: A Portrait of the Italian-Americans (1981)
• Gans, Herbert J. Urban Villagers (1982), sociological study online
• Gems, Gerald R. Sport and the Shaping of Italian-American Identity. (Syracuse University Press, 2013) 312 pp.
• Giordano, Paolo A. and Anthony Julian Tamburri, eds. Italian Americans in the Third Millennium : Social Histories and Cultural Representations. New York: American Italian Historical Association, 2009.
• Giordano, Ralph G. "Italian Culture in America The Immigrants 1880 to 1930 From Discrimination to Assimilation" (Academica Press 2023).
• Giordano, Ralph G., "Italian Culture in America How a Founding Father Introduced Italian Art, Architecture, Food, Wine, and Liberty to the American People" (Academica 2020).
• Giovinazzo, William, Italianità: The Essence of Being Italian and Italian-American" Dark River, an imprint of Bennion Kearny, 2018. Italianità: The Essence of Being Italian and Italian-American | Book
• Glynn, Irial: Emigration Across the Atlantic: Irish, Italians and Swedes compared, 1800-1950 ,
  Institute of European History
  , 2011, retrieved: June 16, 2011.
• Gardaphe, Fred L. Italian Signs, American Streets: The Evolution of Italian American Narrative (1996)
• Johnson, Colleen Leahy, and Colleen L. Johnson. Growing up and growing old in Italian-American families (Rutgers University Press, 1985)
• Lagumina, Salvatore J. et al. eds. The Italian American Experience: An Encyclopedia (2000) [
• Landry, Harral, ed. To See the Past More Clearly: The Enrichment of the Italian Heritage, 1890-1990 (1994) Austin: Nortex Press
• Leone, Castaldo. Italians in America (2001) Milanostampa, S.p.A.: Mockingbird Press
• Lombardo, Robert M. "Chicago's Little Sicily", Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society Volume: 100. Issue: 1. 2007.
• Luconi, Stefano. From Paesani to White Ethnics: The Italian Experience in Philadelphia (2001)
• Luconi, Stefano (2012). "Contested Loyalties: World War II and Italian Americans' Ethnic Identity". Italian Americana. 30: 151–67.
• Luconi, Stefano. "Food as a Terrain for Identity Construction and Ethnic Confrontation among Italian Americans in the United States." Journal of American Studies of Turkey 60 (2023): 17-42. online

• Maddalena, Marinari. Unwanted: Italian and Jewish Mobilization against Restrictive Immigration Laws, 1882–1965 (2020) excerpt
• Mangione, Jerre and Ben Morreale, La Storia: Five Centuries of the Italian American Experience. New York: Harper Perennial, 1992.
• Martone, Eric, ed. Italian Americans: the history and culture of a people (ABC-CLIO, 2016) online
• Nelli, Humbert S. From immigrants to ethnics : the Italian Americans (Oxford University Press, 1983) online
• Nelli, Humbert S. "Italians", in Stephan Thernstrom, ed. Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups. (Harvard University Press, 1980).
  ISBN 0-674-37512-2
  . pp 545–60.
• Nelli, Humbert S. The Business of Crime: Italians and Syndicate Crime in the United States (1981) online
• Nelli, Humbert S. "The Italian padrone system in the United States" Labor History (1964) 5:2, 153–167, DOI: 10.1080/00236566408583942
• Parati, Graziella, and Anthony Julian Tamburri, eds. The Cultures of Italian Migration: Diverse Trajectories and Discrete Perspectives. Cranberry, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press; 2011.
• Pecorini, Alberto (1909). "The Italian as an Agricultural Laborer". Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 33 (2): 156–166.
  S2CID 151953455
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• Pozzetta, George. "Italian Americans." in Gale Encyclopedia of Multicultural America, edited by Thomas Riggs, (3rd ed., vol. 2, Gale, 2014), pp. 505–522. online
• Reppetto, Thomas A. American Mafia : a history of its rise to power (2004), scholarly history online
• Rolle, Andrew F. The immigrant upraised: Italian adventurers and colonists in an expanding America (Oklahoma UP, 1968)
• Rolle, Andrew. The Italian Americans (1980) psychohistory
• Ruberto, Laura E. and Joseph Sciorra, eds. New Italian Migrations to the United States: Vol. 1: Politics and History since 1945 (University of Illinois Press, 2017). xvi, 201 pp
• Seguin, Charles, and Sabrina Nardin. (2022) "The Lynching of Italians and the Rise of Antilynching Politics in the United States." Social Science History 46.1 (2022): 65-91. online

• Serra, Ilaria. The Imagined Immigrant: Images of Italian Emigration to the United States Between 1890 and 1924 (2009)
• Soresina, Marco. "Italian emigration policy during the Great Migration Age, 1888–1919: the interaction of emigration and foreign policy." Journal of Modern Italian Studies 21.5 (2016): 723–746.
• Sterba, Christopher M. Good Americans: Italian and Jewish Immigrants During the First World (2003)
• Thomas, Teresa Fava. "Arresting the Padroni problem and Rescuing the White Slaves in America: Italian Diplomats, Immigration Restrictionists & the Italian bureau 1881-1901." Altreitalia Riviste 192 Tesi 194 (2010) 40: 57–82. online
• Tommasi, L.F. (ed.), Italian Americans: New perspectives in Italian emigration and ethnicity (1985)
• Vecchio, Diane C. Merchants, Midwives, and Laboring Women: Italian Migrants in Urban America (2006).
• Vecoli, Rudolph J (1978). "The Coming of Age of Italian Americans: 1945–1974". Ethnicity. 5 (2): 119–147.

Localities

Further information:

Italians in Philadelphia § Further reading

• Barton, Josef J. Peasants and Strangers: Italians, Rumanians, and Slovaks in an American City, 1890-1950 (1975). about Cleveland, Ohio online
• Briggs, John W. An Italian Passage: Immigrants to Three American Cities (Yale UP, 1978) on Utica NY, Rochester NY, and Kansas City, MO, 1890–1930. online
• Candeloro, Dominic. "Suburban Italians" in Melvin G. Holli and Peter Jones, eds. Ethnic Chicago (1984) pp 239–68 online
• Candeloro, Dominic. Chicago's Italians: Immigrants, Ethnics, Americans. (Arcadia Publishing, 2003).
• Cinel, Dino. From Italy to San Francisco: The Immigrant Experience (1982)
• Cinotto, Simone. The Italian American Table: Food, Family, and Community in New York City. (University of Illinois Press, 2013)
• Cinotto, Simone. Soft Soil, Black Grapes: The Birth of Italian Winemaking in California, (New York University Press, 2012)
• Critchley, David F. The origin of organized crime in America: The New York City Mafia, 1891–1931 (Routledge, 2008).
• DeBlasio, Donna M., and Martha I. Pallante. "Becoming Italian American in the Nation's Heartland: The Immigrant Experience in Ohio's Mahoning Valley." Italian Americana 40.2 (2022): 99–125.
• Delicato, Armando, Italians in Detroit. (2005).
• Demarco, William M. Ethnics and Enclaves: Boston's Italian North End (1981)
• Fichera, Sebastian. Italy on the Pacific: San Francisco's Italian Americans. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.
• Guglielmo, Thomas A. White on Arrival: Italians, Race, Color, and Power in Chicago, 1890-1945 (2003)
• Jackson, Jessica Barbata. "Before the Lynching: Reconsidering the Experience of Italians and Sicilians in Louisiana, 1870s-1890s". Louisiana History (2017). 58#3: 300–338. online
• Juliani, Richard N. The Social Organization of Immigration: The Italians in Philadelphia (1980) excerpt and text search
• Juliani, Richard N. Priest, Parish, and People: Saving the Faith in Philadelphia's Little Italy (2007)
• Lassonde, Stephen. "Learning and earning: Schooling, juvenile employment, and the early life course in late nineteenth-century New Haven." Journal of Social History (1996): 839-870. online
• Lassonde, Stephen. Learning to Forget: Schooling and Family Life in New Haven's Working Class, 1870-1940 (Yale UP 2005) a major scholarly study focused on Italian Americans
  • ProQuest Dissertations Publishing,  1994. 9523192; PhD dissertation version of Lassonde, online, 1994)
• Luconi, Stefano. The Italian-American Vote in Providence, R.I., 1916-1948 (2005)
• Luconi, Stefano. From paesani to white ethnics: The Italian experience in Philadelphia (SUNY Press, 2001) online.
• Kobler, John. Capone: the life and world of Al Capone (1971) online, on Chicago.
• Mormino, Gary. "The Immigrant World of Ybor City: Italians and Their Latin Neighbors in Tampa, 1885–1985". Gainesville: University Press of Florida. (1987)
• Nelli, Humbert S. Italians in Chicago, 1880–1930: A Study in Ethnic Mobility (2005) online
• Orsi, Robert A. The Madonna of 115th Street: Faith and Community in Italian Harlem, 1880–1950. (Yale UP, 1985) online 3rd ed. 2010
• Ottanelli, Fraser M. " 'Mussolini's Column': Fascist Memorials and the Politics of Italian American Identity in Chicago." Italian American Review 12.1 (2022): 86–107.
• Puleo, Stephen (2007). The Boston Italians: A Story of Pride, Perseverance, and Paesani, from the Years of the Great Immigration to the Present Day. Boston: Beacon Press.
  ISBN 978-0-8070-5036-1
  .
• Smith, Tom. "The Crescent City Lynchings: The Murder of Chief Hennessy, the New Orleans 'Mafia' Trials, and the Parish Prison Mob" (The Lyons Press, 2007). online
• Stanger-Ross, Jordan. Staying Italian: Urban Change and Ethnic Life in Postwar Toronto and Philadelphia (2010).
• Vecoli, Rudolph J. "The Formation of Chicago's" Little Italies"." Journal of American Ethnic History 2.2 (1983): 5-20. online
• Veronesi, Gene. Italian Americans and Their Communities of Cleveland (1977) Ohio city; online
• Whyte, William Foote. Street Corner Society: The Social Structure of an Italian Slum (University of

Chicago Press, 1943) focus on gangs in "Cornerville" (Boston's North End).

• Yans-McLaughlin, Virginia. Family and Community: Italian Immigrants in Buffalo, 1880–1930. (1982) online.

Memory and historiography

• Agnoletto, Stefano. "Ethnicity Versus Structural Factors in North American History: The Case Study of the Italian Economic Niches." Studia Migracyjne-Przeglad Polonijny 40.1 (151) (2014): 161–181. online
• Alba, Richard D. "The twilight of ethnicity among Americans of European ancestry: The case of Italians." in Celebrating 40 Years of Ethnic and Racial Studies (Routledge, 2019). 50-74. online^{[permanent dead link‍]}
• Alba, Richard D. Italian Americans: Into the twilight of ethnicity (2023) online.

• Bushman, Claudia L. America discovers Columbus: how an Italian explorer became an American hero (1992) online
• Cannistraro, Philip, and Richard Juliani, ed. Italian-Americans: The Search for a Usable Past. (The American Italian Historical Association, 1989).
• Cordasco, Francesco. Italians in the United States : an annotated bibliography of doctoral dissertations completed at American universities, with a handlist of selected published bibliographies, related reference materials, and guide books for Italian emigrants (1981) online
• Cordasco, Francesco. Italian Americans : a guide to information sources (Gale 1978) online

• D'acierno, Pellegrino. "Cinema Paradiso: The Italian American Presence in American Cinema." in The Italian American Heritage (Routledge, 2021). 563-690. abstract

• Friedman-Kasaba, Kathie. Memories of migration: Gender, ethnicity, and work in the lives of Jewish and Italian women in New York, 1870-1924 (State University of New York Press, 2012).
• Gabaccia, Donna. "Italian American Women: A Review Essay," Italian Americana 12#1 (1993): 38–61.
• Gabaccia, Donna R. "Italian Immigrant Women in Comparative Perspective." The Review of Italian American Studies (2000): 391-405 online.
• Gardaphe, Fred. L. The Art of Reading Italian Americana, New York: Bordighera Press, 2011.
• Gardaphe, Fred L. Leaving Little Italy: Essaying Italian American Culture (SUNY Press, 2003).
• Giordano, Paolo A. and Anthony Julian Tamburri, eds. "Beyond the Margin: Essays on Italian Americana" (1998).

• Gravano, Alan J., and Alexandra de Luise. "The Italian American Studies Association at Fifty-Five: 1966–2021." Diasporic Italy 1 (2021): 103-123. online

• Hobbie, Margaret. Italian American Material Culture: A Directory of Collections, Sites, and Festivals in the United States and Canada (1992).
• Kosta, Ervin B. "Becoming Italian, becoming American: Ethnic affinity as a strategy of boundary making." Ethnic and Racial Studies 42.5 (2019): 801-819.

• Krase, Jerome, ed. The Status of Interpretation in Italian American Studies (Forum Italicum, (2011) online^{[permanent dead link‍]}.
• Luconi, Stefano, "Is Italian-American History an Account of the Immigrant Experience with the Politics Left Out? Some Thoughts on the Political Historiography about Italian Americans", in Italian Americans in the Third Millennium: Social Histories and Cultural Representations, ed. Paolo A. Giordano and Anthony Julian Tamburri, 55–72. (New York: American Italian Historical Association, 2009).d=103874809
• Luconi, Stefano. "Whiteness and Ethnicity in Italian-American Historiography." in The Status of Interpretation in Italian American Studies: Proceedings of the first Forum in Italian American Criticism [FIAC] (Forum Italicum Publishing, 2011). Online^{[dead link‍]}
• Meyer, Gerald. "Theorizing Italian American History: The Search for an Historiographical Paradigm." in The Status of Interpretation in Italian American Studies (2011): 164+. Online^{[dead link‍]}
• Ottanelli, Fraser M. " 'Mussolini's Column': Fascist Memorials and the Politics of Italian American Identity in Chicago." Italian American Review 12.1 (2022): 86–107.
• Pozzetta, George E. "From Immigrants to Ethnics: The State of Italian-American Historiography." Journal of American Ethnic History 9#1 (1989): 67–95. Online
• Rossi, Guido. "Il progresso Italo-Americano and its portrayal of Italian-American Servicemen (1941-1945)." Nuova Rivista Storica (2023), 107#2 pp. 759–787.

• Simms, Norman. "The Italian-American Image During the Twentieth Century." The Histories 5.1 (2019): 4+ online
• Tamburri, Anthony Julian, Paolo A. Giordano, Fred L. Gardaphé, eds. From the Margin: Writings in Italian Americana (2000, 2nd ed.)
• Tamburri, Anthony Julian. To Hyphenate or not to Hyphenate: the Italian/American Writer: Or, An "Other" American? (1991)
• Tamburri, Anthony Julian. Re-viewing Italian Americana: Generalities and Specificities on Cinema (2011)
• Tamburri, Anthony Julian. Re-reading Italian Americana: Specificities and Generalities on Literature and Criticism (2014)
• Wirth, Christa. Memories of Belonging: Descendants of Italian Migrants to the United States, 1884-Present (Brill, 2015) online review

Primary sources

• Albright, Carol Bonomo, and Christine Palamidessi Moore, eds. American Woman, Italian Style: Italian Americana's Best Writings on Women (Fordham Univ Press, 2011) online.
• Bonomo Albright, Carol and Joanna Clapps Herman, eds. Wild Dreams (Fordham Press, 2008). Stories, memoirs, poems by and about Italian Americans. online
• Ciongoli, A. Kenneth, and Jay Parini, eds. Beyond The Godfather: Italian American Writers on the Real Italian American Experience (University Press of New England, 1997) online
• Gesualdi, Louis J. ed. The Italian/American Experience: A Collection of Writings (2012) online
• Moquin, Wayne, ed. A Documentary History of Italian Americans (1974) online

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Italian diaspora in the United States.

Wikisource has original works on the topic: Italian Americans

• La Gazzetta Italiana - The Italian American Voice
• Italian American Digital Project Archived March 14, 2015, at the Wayback Machine
• National Italian American Foundation
• "Immigration -> Italian." Library of Congress.
• "Italian Immigration." Digital History, University of Houston
• Italian American Museum, New York Archived August 18, 2019, at the Wayback Machine
• Italy Revisited (photo archives)
• Taylor Street Archives
• ItalianImmigrants.org 1855 through 1900
• "Italian". Chicago Foreign Language Press Survey. Chicago Public Library Omnibus Project of the Works Progress Administration of Illinois. 1942 – via Newberry Library. (Selected short newspaper articles, translated into English, 1855–1938).
• The Italian Americans Archived June 29, 2019, at the Wayback Machine - PBS documentary
• "Italian American Stereotypes in U.S. Advertising" (PDF). The Order Sons of Italy in America. 2003. Archived from the original (PDF) on January 26, 2016.
• Cannato, Vincent J. (October 9, 2015). "How America became Italian".
  ISSN 0190-8286
  . Retrieved October 6, 2020.
• Immigration History Research Center (IHRC), University of Minnesota