How Italians Became 'White'

 Annamaria on Monday

This post is, mostly, a summary of an article by Brent Staples, published in the New York Times Sunday Review on October 13, 2019. I cut it out because it taught me a great deal about a subject that has interested me since I was a small child and the victim of some of the "Vicious bigotry" in the piece's subtitle.  Frequent readers of my Monday blogs may remember that one of my mother's brothers was one of the villains.

I don't remember the circumstances, but at some point, when I was in elementary school, I complained to my father about name calling by the kids in my school.  He said, "There was a university and library in Sicily when their ancestors were living in trees and painting themselves blue."  My dad, who lacked formal education, was a voracious reader with a broad appetite.  To this day, I believe that he knew whereof he spoke.

Sam decades after the conversation

described above, but still studying.

Many of my recent posts have dealt with racism.  I don't imagine that most readers here need any explanation of why I am trying to understand how to deal with it.  to that end, I went back to Brent Staples's article.  (See below for his photo and a clip of his bio information.). Here is my summery of his analysis.  I have done my best to be true to his point of view, and I apologize to him and to all you readers if I have misinterpreted any of his points.

 First all little background from me:  The overwhelming majority of Italians who immigrated to the US in the late 19th and first half of the 20th centuries were from the south of Italy, where the local economy was in taters and children were eating dirt, trying to survive. Those Italian immigrants came here out of desperation. 

My Sicilian Grandfather, Andrea Puglisi (seated), his 

son Paul, and his friends who immigrated with him.

 In his article, Staples points out that the Italians who immigrated had been subjected to the same treatment by northern Italians when they were still in Italy. After arriving in the states, they were quickly labeled "uncivilized" and racially inferior. They were denied housing and could only find work that no one else wanted. Generally speaking, these horrid circumstances followed them here and continued.

Pretty much nationwide, Sicilians and African-Americans were both thought to be "utterly unfit," flowed, and lesser than real human beings, prone to criminality.  

Things got worse for Sicilians who settled in New Orleans.  I imagine that they liked it there because the weather was better than the frigid north winters that they were not used to. They further sealed their fate by moving into black neighborhoods and eventually, intermarrying with blacks and mulattos. Then, along with their black neighbors, they became victims of white supremacist.  It all came to head when David Hennessy, a police chief was assassinated. Hennessy was popular with the white people, but he had already been accused of murder in a conflict with a professional rival. He also clashed with two Italian business men who he targeted because he wanted to take over their businesses. Soon, the "dagoes" where accused of his murder.

It became clear that this was a put up job when the first nine defendants went to trial.  Because the prosecution lacked evidence to prove the crime, six were acquitted and three others were granted miss trials. But that did not stop the whites, who hated the Italians because of their fraternizing with African-Americans.  Eleven of the supposed Italian Assassins were lynched by a white mob. Even up north, A Times editorial justified, the lynching, calling the lynched Italians "descendants of bandits" and "a pest without mitigation."

This is where the United States government got involved. You see, the Italian government objected to the slaughter of 11 of its people. President William Henry Harrison might have ignored the whole thing, but then the case was made by the Italians, who cited Christopher Columbus as an Italian hero for Americans. This gave Harrison a rationale.  It was, what seems to me, a long shot since Columbus never set foot in North America, and there was no United States when he was on his discovery voyages.  Stil,l in 1892 President Harrison declared Columbus Day a national holiday.  That meant that Italians were no longer the scum of the Earth, but maybe they might even be thought of as white people.

Racism and hatred being as powerful as they are, declaring Columbus a hero for Americans did not change everybody's attitudes. Nowadays, many people on the left now consider Columbus a criminal.  I myself suffered from it into the 21st century.  

But as far as I know, Italian people are now considered white. I'm not sure that is something that I, a descendent of four Italian immigrants, is happy about. Not while racism is once again rampant in my country.  Today's migrants, like those of the past, are desperate.  Those who target them and other poor Americans and people "of color" do so out of hatred and lust for power.  Evil is the only word to describe those who support torturing the already desperate.

Addendum:

You can find Staples's full article here.