How Italian immigrants became Italian Americans

Italian Americans are Americans with full or partial Italian ancestry, with the largest concentrations in the urban Northeast. The path follows how Italian immigrants in New York built community and political influence, and how discrimination and assimilation shaped their sense of identity.

2 articles, 1 video, 1 book · about 1 hr 39 min of reading and viewing

The reading path

1. Read
   

   the experience of italian immigrants in new york · Wikipedia · 60+ min read

   The New York Times sent reporters to characterize the Little Italy/Mulberry neighborhood in May 1896: "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." Italian Americans in New York City were mobilizing as a political force by the 1890s. They helped elect Fiorello La Guardia (a Republican) as mayor in 1933, and helped reelect him in 1937 and 1941.

2. Read
   

   The Italian-American Immigration Experience - JSTOR Daily · JSTOR Daily · 2 min read

   Stefano Luconi writes that discrimination pushed Italian-Americans "to close ranks and to develop a sense of ethnic identity based on their Italianness in the interwar years." He notes that the newcomers generally didn't even perceive themselves as Italian upon arrival.

3. Watch
   

   Growth, Cities, and Immigration: Crash Course US History #25 · YouTube · 13 min watch

   Late 19th and early 20th century immigration unfolded alongside city growth and industrialization. How immigrants were treated and what rights they had is part of that story, and New York City and Ellis Island show their living conditions.

4. Book
   

   The Fortunate Pilgrim · Bookshop.org

   The Fortunate Pilgrim by Mario Puzo describes Lucia Santa, fresh from the farms in Italy, struggling to hold her family together in a strange land, and one New York City immigrant family's loves, crimes and struggles in Hell's Kitchen.

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