Anti-Italianism

Anti-Italianism is hostility toward Italian people, as well as people with Italian ancestry, expressed by using stereotypes about them, such as the idea that the Italians are tolerant of violence, political corruption, Italy's former alliance with Nazi Germany and criminal groups such as the Mafia. Its opposite is Italophilia.

Anti-Italianism in the United States

Anti-Italianism in the United States is a fairly recent phenomenon that coincides with the period of large-scale Italian immigration beginning in the last part of the 19th century. Prior to that time Italians, who had lived in America from the beginning of the 17th century, were respected craftmen, musicians, soldiers, merchants, missionaries, educators, artists and architects. An Italian Filippo Mazzei, a close friend and confidant of Thomas Jefferson, is credited with the phrase "All Men Are Created Equal". Italians played an important role in the settling of the country, and were generally well regarded. Later immigrants, who were escaping poverty and turmoil in Italy, had a much different reception.

In United States, and other English-speaking countries to which they immigrated, such as Canada and Australia, the later Italian immigrants were often viewed as perpetual foreigners in a lower class, restricted to blue collar jobs. Their Catholicism, frequent lack of formal education, folkways and competition with earlier immigrants for lower paying jobs accounted for much of this prejudice. Ethnocentricism and racism exhibited by the earlier settlers toward the Italian immigrants, who appeared somewhat different than themselves, were also major factors - this being especially true in the racially stratified southern states. Their experiences in North American countries were notably different than in the South American countries to which Italians immigrated in large numbers. Italians were key to developing countries such as Argentina and Brazil and quickly rose into the middle and upper classes there. Italian Americans have often been viewed mainly as construction workers, chefs, plumbers, or other blue-collar workers. However, by 1990, more than 65% of Italian Americans were managerial, professional, or white-collar workers.

Anti-Italianism can be closely linked to the anti-Catholic tradition that existed in the United States. When the United States was founded, it inherited the anti-Catholic, anti-papal animosity of its original Protestant settlers. Anti-Catholic sentiments in America reached a peak in the nineteenth century when the Protestant population became alarmed by the number of Catholics immigrating to America. This was due in part to the standard tensions that arise between native-born citizens and immigrants. The resulting anti-Catholic nativist movement, which achieved prominence in the 1840s, led to hostility that resulted in mob violence, and the burning of Catholic property. Italian immigrants, who began arriving in the last quarter of the 19th century, were especially vilified because of the millennia-long leadership role of Italians in the Catholic Church and the fact that, from earliest times, the popes were predominantly Italian (Roman Catholicism in Italy).

Many of the later immigrants from southern Italy brought with them a political disposition toward socialism and anarchism. This was a reaction to the economic and political conditions they experienced in Italy. In America, they were in the forefront of organizing Italian and other immigrant laborers in demanding better working conditions and shorter working hours in the mining, textile, construction and other industries. As a result, they were branded as radicals and labor agitators by many of the business owners and the wealthier class of the time, and were subjected to intense anti-Italian sentiments.

While the vast majority of Italians immigrants brought with them a tradition of honesty and hard work, a very small minority brought a very different custom. This criminal element used intimidation and threats to extract protection money from the wealthier immigrants and shop owners, and were also involved in 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 '30s 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 between the various ethnic groups, Italian Americans were among the most notorious. They came to symbolize in the minds of many the prototypical gangster, which had a long-lasting effect on the Italian American image.

Violence against Italians

Rioters breaking into Parish Prison. Anti-Italian lynching in New Orleans, 1891

In the United States, Italian immigrants were frequently subjected to extreme prejudice, racism and, in some cases, violence. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Italian immigrants were often seen as ignorant uneducatable peasants. Italians were actively recruited to come to the United States after the American Civil War to work mainly in agriculture and as laborers. Most soon found themselves the victims of prejudice, economic exploitation and sometimes violence. Italian stereotypes abounded during this period as a means of justifying this maltreatment of the immigrants. Later waves of Italian immigrants inherited these same virulent forms of discrimination and stereotyping which, by then, had become ingrained in the American consciousness.

One of the largest mass lynchings in American history involved eleven Italians in the city of New Orleans in 1891. Nine Italians, who were thought to have assassinated police chief David Hennessy, were arrested, tried, and acquitted. Subsequent to the trial, they were dragged from the jail and lynched by a mob that had stormed the jailhouse, together with two other Italians who were being held in the jail at the time on unrelated charges. Afterwards, hundreds of Italian immigrants, most of whom were not criminals, were arrested by the police.

In 1899, in Tallulah, Louisiana three Italian Americans shopkeepers were lynched because they had given equal status in their shops to blacks. A vigilante mob hanged five Italian Americans, the three shopkeepers and two bystanders.

In 1920 two Italian immigrants, Sacco and Vanzetti, were tried for robbery and murder. Many historians agree that Sacco and Vanzetti were subjected to a mishandled trial, and the judge, jury, and prosecution were biased toward them because of their anarchistic political views and Italian immigrant status. Despite world-wide protests, Sacco and Vanzetti were eventually executed.

In Australia, anti-Italian riots occurred on a number of occasions since Italian immigrants, or "wogs" (an Australian derogatory term for Southern Europeans), first began arriving to the country in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the midst of an economic depression. Union members were averse to these strangers settling in their midst and competing for work, and it was easy to implant stereotyped fears of high murder rates and secret societies. In Western Australia, where in 1897 Italians competed with Britons for work in the gold fields, Parliament was warned that, along with Greeks and Hungarians, Italians "had become a greater pest than the coloured races in the United States ".

Anti-Italianism is believed to have been a factor in the 1971 beating death of Alfredo Zardini, an Italian immigrant to Switzerland.

In Canada, anti-Italian and anti-Jewish riots occurred in Toronto and other major cities in Canada. The Riot at Christie Pits Park was an August 16, 1933 anti-Semitic riot in Toronto between Anglo-Saxon (and ethnic German) members of a pro-Nazi youth gang called the Anglo-Canadian Pit Gang which was affiliated with the Anglo Anti-Semitic Swastika Clubs, and predominantly Jewish and Italian youth members of the Spadina Avenue Gang. The riot, which occurred over a six hour period, was sparked by a baseball game at Christie Pits between two local clubs, one predominantly Jewish and Italian and one predominantly Anglo-Saxon. About 5 people were arrested and 30 were injured. The riot occurred in the midst of the Great Depression in Canada.

Anti-Italianism was part of the racist ideology of the Ku Klux Klan, a white supremacist and nativist group that targeted Italians as foreign Roman Catholics, as opposed to Anglo-Saxon Protestants. A hotbed of anti-Italian KKK activity was in Southern New Jersey in the mid 1920s, including a mass protest against Italian immigrants in Vineland, New Jersey, where in 1933 Italians made up 20% of the city population. However, during the mass protest, the Italians drove the KKK out of town. The KKK soon lost all of their power in Vineland and left the town for good as a result of this incident. Today, over a third of the current residents in Vineland are of Italian descent.

Italian American and Italian Canadian internment during World War II

Further information: Italian American internment

See also: Anti-fascism

During World War II, hundreds of Italian citizens who were believed to be loyal to Italy were put in internment camps in the U.S. and Canada.

Thousands more Italian citizens suspected of loyalty to Italy were placed under surveillance. Joe DiMaggio's father, who lived in San Francisco, had his boat and house confiscated. Unlike the Japanese Americans, Italian Americans and Italian Canadians have never received reparations, even though President Bill Clinton made a public declaration admitting the US government's misjudgement in the internment.

Anti-Italianism in the United Kingdom

After Benito Mussolini's alliance with Nazi Germany in the late 1930s, there was a growing hostility toward everything Italian in the United Kingdom. The most famous example is related to the sinking of the steamship SS Arandora Star on 2 July 1940, that resulted in the loss of over 700 lives—including 446 British-Italians being deported as enemy aliens.

During and after World War II there was much propaganda directed at Italian military performance, usually with persistent stereotypes, including that of the "incompetent Italian soldier". More accurate accounts of Italian performance in World War II show that, in spite of having to rely in many cases on outdated weapons Italian troops frequently fought with great valor and distinction, especially well trained and equipped units such as the Bersaglieri and Alpini. Nevertheless, these stereotypes are well entrenched in the British literature, as can be read in the following extract from a Lee & Higham's book:

Because many writers have uncritically repeated stereotypes shared by their sources, biases and prejudices have taken on the status of objective observations, including the idea that the Germans and British were the only belligerants in the Mediterranean after Italian setbacks in early 1941. Sadkovich questioned this point of view in 'Of Myths and Men' and 'The Italian Navy', but persistent stereotypes, including that of the incompetent Italian, are well entrenched in the literature, from Puleston's early 'The Influence of Sea Power', to Gooch's 'Italian Military Incompetence,' to more recent publications by Mack Smith, Knox and Sullivan. Wartime bias in early British and American histories, which focused on German operations, dismissed Italian forces as inept and or unimportant, and viewed Germany as the pivotal power in Europe during the interwar period.

Bias includes both implicit assumptions, evident in Knox's title 'The Sources of Italy's Defeat in 1940: Bluff or Institutionalized Incompetence?' and the selective use of sources. Also see Sullivan's 'The Italian Armed Forces.' Sims, in 'The Fighter Pilot,' ignored the Italians, while D'Este in 'World War II in the Mediterranean' shaped his reader's image of Italians by citing a German comment that Italy's surrender was 'the basest treachery' and by discussing Allied and German commanders but ignoring Messe, whose 'Come finì la guerra in Africa' is an account of operations in Tunisia, where he commanded the Italian First Army, which held off both the U.S. Second Corps and the British Eighth Army.

Anti-Italianism after World War II

Former Italian communities once thrived in their African colonies of Eritrea, Somalia and Libya, and in the areas at the borders of the Kingdom of Italy. These communities have now been reduced to a few hundred people, mainly due to violent expulsion and persecution.

Indeed two countries, Libya and Yugoslavia, have shown high levels of anti-Italianism since WWII, as illustrated by the following examples:

• Libya. Some 150,000 Italians settled in Libya, constituting about 18% of the total population. All of Libya's Italians were expelled from the North African country in 1970, a year after Muammar al-Gaddafi seized power (a "day of vengeance" on 7 October 1970).

• Yugoslavia. At the end of World War II, former Italian territories in Istria and Dalmatia became part of Yugoslavia by the Treaty of Peace with Italy, 1947. Economic insecurity, ethnic hatred and the international political context that eventually led to the Iron Curtain resulted in up to 350,000 people, nearly all Italians, choosing to leave the region. Furthermore, the nearly complete disappearance of the Dalmatian Italians (there were 45,000 or nearly 20% of the total Dalmatian population in 1848, while now there are only 300) has been related to democide and ethnic cleansing by scholars like R. J. Rummel.

Italian-American Stereotyping

While Italian Americans in contemporary American society are generally not subjected to the same virulent discrimination and bigotry endured by the early Italian immigrants, they are faced with a different issue that many Italian Americans consider problematic for their community, which is pervasive negative stereotyping. The stereotype of Italian-Americans is the standardized mental image which has been fostered by the entertainment media and movies, especially movies such as The Godfather, GoodFellas and Casino, and TV programs such as The Sopranos. This follows a known pattern in which it is possible for the mass media to effectively create universally recognized, and sometimes accepted, stereotypes. The stereotype of Italian Americans is continuously reinforced by the frequent replay of these movies and series on cable and network TV. Other reinforcements of the stereotype have come from video games and board games with Mafia themes, and TV and radio commercials using these same themes.

Movies from early on included portrayals of Italian gangsters. After the early decades of the 20th century, poignant melodramas of destitution and misfortune gave way to a combination of muted "otherness" and grossly stereotypical characterizations. Because of the common association made, many Italian Americans see films and TV dramas about the Mafia as harmful to their community. This became something of an issue for the HBO series The Sopranos when people complained about the stereotypical nature of the show. Other Italian Americans feel that such shows are problematic only if they feature the Mafia as a common or accepted part of Italian American life. The entertainment media, as well as fictional films, have stereotyped the Italian American community as tolerant of violent, sociopathic gangsters. Other stereotypes portray Italian Americans as overly-emotional, hot-blooded, aggressive, obsessed with food, and prone to violence. MTV's series, "Jersey Shore", which is considered by many to be very offensive, portrays Italian American men as ultra-macho types of low intelligence, and Italian American women as promiscuous.

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. 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. The study also brings to light that, according to recent FBI statistics, Italian American organized crime members and associates number approximately 3,000; and, given an Italian American population estimated to be approximately 18 million, it may be concluded that only one in 6,000 has any involvement with organized crime. 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.

Pervasive Italian American stereotyping has also lead to an increase in public slurs and the use of negative-stereotyping rhetoric, and even to the use of these negative stereotypes in political ads. This is illustrated by the following examples:

• Canadian politician Ed Havrot controversially used anti-Italian slurs while serving in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, referring to one of his Italian-Canadian opponents as a "wop".

• In March 2008, Rev. Jeremiah Wright caused controversy when he noted in an article that the Italians looked down their "garlic noses" at the Galileans. The Joint Civic Action Committee of Italian Americans said it was "saddened" by the comment, while the Italian American Human Relations Foundation called it an example of "hatred".

• On February 26, 2009 Curtis Sliwa began a discussion on his radio show about an Italian-American museum being granted federal money for its future construction. Sliwa, upon reading the headline stated,

  "The Italian-American Museum in Little Italy? What the hell is that? I mean, what do you need an Italian-American Museum in Little Italy for? Plus, what do we need to be spending federal tax dollars? You go to the Italian-American Museum, you make a contribution. Or, you have an enforcer there from the Genovese, Gambino, Lucchese, Colombo, Bonanno crime families who forces you to pay a contribution?

  Sliwa later apologized for the comments he made during this conversation in a letter to the president of the Italian-American museum. He stated in part, "I certainly wouldn't want any of my comments to be construed as my having negative feelings toward the museum or the Italian-American community as a whole."

• A campaign ad against former Illinois treasurer Alexi Giannoulias, a Greek American, uses unflattering stereotypes of Italian-Americans and concludes that “Tony Soprano would be proud of Alexi Giannoulias”.

• A campaign ad against Republican gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi used the theme of The Sopranos as background music.

• On July 3, 2011, during the TV program "Newsmakers", NY State Senator Greg Ball, speaking on the possibility of Governor Andrew Cuomo running for President of the United States in 2016 after his recent victories in Albany, was quoted as saying: "I think he is going to have a tough time running for president. First, let's be honest, he is an Italian American. I would like to see it get done, and also he is going to have a tough time in the southern and western primaries". That was interpreted as an "anti-Italian" comment by some critics, suggesting that it would not have been acceptable if anybody had said the same thing on TV about any candidate, replacing "Italian American" with "African American", "Latino", "Asian", "woman", etc.

Italian-American Organizations

A number of organizations have been active in combatting stereotyping and defamation of Italian Americans in the media, and in shedding positive light on their history and accomplishments. The country's largest Italian American anti-bias organization, the Italian American One VOICE Coalition, has a nationwide network of activists who are dedicated to fighting stereotypes and defending Italian culture and heritage. Three major Italian American fraternal and service organizations, Order Sons of Italy in America, Unico National and National Italian American Foundation have active anti-defamation arms. Another prominent organization, the Italic Institute of America, is also in the forefront of these activities. Three excellent Internet-based organizations are: Annotico Report, the Italian-American Discussion Network, and ItalianAware.

See also

• Anti-Catholicism
• Istrian exodus
• Italian American
• Racism
• Racism in Italy
• UNICO National
• Fascist League of North America
• Italophilia
• Hetalia Axis Powers

Further reading

• Connell, William J. and Fred Gardaphé, eds., Anti-Italianism: Essays on a Prejudice [5]

• Smith, Tom. The Crescent City Lynchings: The Murder of Chief Hennessy, the New Orleans "Mafia" Trials, and the Parish Prison Mob [6]

External links

• http://www.rps.psu.edu/0405/dark.html
• [7]