Italian ImmigrantsJoin now to read essay Italian ImmigrantsThe United States has long been known as the melting pot of the world. Many nationalities have influenced the United States. The Italian Americans are no exception. The Italians came to America to work hard with humble beginnings, to find food and get some kind of financial security. They came for the “American Dream”. “They were told that they would find streets paved with gold, only to arrive and realize they had to dig the streets” (Nigro pg 1). But once they arrived they were greeted with great dislike. In a lot for cases they fell into worse conditions than they had left.
In the early 1800s, there were not very many Italians immigrating to the United States, but at the same time Italy was becoming very overcrowded. America was becoming known as “the land of opportunity”. “So by 1930, more than 4.5 million Italians had entered the United States” (Nigro pg 10). As more and more Italians immigrated to the United States, the hostility and displeasure towards them grew greater. People began to become xenophobic which is the hatred or fear of strangers or foreigners. So congress began to pas legislation that restricted immigration and set up quotas. “The first legislation passed reduced the number of immigrants to 3% of the total population in the country.” Congress also passed the National Origins Act of 1924, commonly know as the Johnson Act, which restricted immigration to 2% of the total population,” (Ludwig pg 1). At around the same time the labor, temperance and reactionary movements were happening and looking for support. Many times these groups or similar groups would use the fact that people disliked immigrants to get support and help to further their causes. This led to outrageous immigration laws.
Those Italians that were immigrating to the United States were entering through Ellis Island, New York. They were settling mostly in New York City, Chicago, Detroit, Baltimore, and Philadelphia. New York was the largest colony of Italians. Italian Harlem was located next to the East River and had a population of 150,000 living in an area of one square mile. (Medina)
The majority of the Italian immigrants were taking heavy manual labor jobs in steel mills, clothing factories, shoe factories, and construction. Because the Italians could not initially speak English, they were contracted out by professional labor brokers, known as the pardones, to help them find work. During this time, the Italians were making about $5 – $10 a month working 90 hours a week. Unfortunately, the padrones were not very much help because they were cheating them out of their money.(Magnussan) (Minty) (Lee)
The Italians had a difficult time adjusting to American life like any of the other immigrants, because of their language barriers and culture. The Italians learned English quickly, but found safety in their culture.
75 % of all Italian immigrants to the United States came from regions south of Rome where they had been farmers. Usually they would set up a distinctive ethnic neighborhood, called a Little Italy. By 1920 almost one-fourth of all Italian immigrants lived in New York City, while more than half lived in the Middle Atlantic States and New England.
Usually the man of the family would make the trip to America before the rest of the family. The man would work a seasonal and unskilled job building railroads, streets, skyscrapers, and public transportation systems; mining coal; or working in steel, shoe, and auto plants. Shortly after the women would follow the men to the United States and find work in the urban
garment trades, canneries, and textile mills. The children of the family would often leave school before getting their diploma to help their families make money. Life in Italian immigrants revolved around family, church, and small self-help insurance societies formed by villagers from a single Italian town. Key community businesses included banks, boardinghouses, groceries, and saloons. Later on, the Catholic Church, labor unions, and political parties would foot the bill for social clubs and sports. (Greco)
An example of one of these Little Italys would be Italian Harlem, located in East Harlem. Throughout Italian Harlem, there was extremely poor housing and overcrowding. This Italian Harlem was one of the original settlements for Italian immigrants. This housing was specifically designed for immigrants. As late as 1939, 84 percent of these homes lacked central heating, 67 percent did not have a shower or bathtub, and 55 percent did not even have a private toilet. Only 7.5 percent of these apartments contained five or more rooms. The only park was constructed at the turn of the century. The city demolished six blocks of homes to create open space for this park. In the mid-1920s the district was known as the most populated block in the city. (Magnussan)
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In early 1942, a few years after the initial public appearance, the mayor of Miami was elected unanimously to the district for the district. Mayor B. P. O’Leary came to town and asked for approval of the development: “I have told the district to develop this park, which is designed for the middle and upper Class and will do great business in Miami. And yet, since there is a special interest there, the development at this point is not being done.” However, a few weeks later, Mr. O’Leary was elected as Miami’s next city council president but after a few months, with no other candidates, the area was put back on the map.
An article, An American History of America’s Place in the Third World, was written by Dr. Thomas H. Rufus, Chief Executive of the International Society for the Study of the American Human Right. He was quoted in the section on the new American Human Rights Act of 1990, entitled “The State of Human Rights in the United States.”
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“This was only one of many decisions made over the last two months of the struggle in Europe in the years after World War II,” Dr. Rufus continues “…[B]or those decisions taken by the Government of one of the few countries on the continent to adopt the New Order, those that followed, were made through a series of treaties, which included an adoption of the International Declaration of Economic and Social Solidarity of 1943, and which subsequently became law. As we know from experience in Europe today, the United Kingdom’s submission to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (U.K.C.R.) was of the order of the day.”
The article is dated 9 October 1950, and was written during the period of the American Freedom Defence Foundation’s (ADF) effort in early 1948, to “discourage the systematic, systematic, and sustained practice of discrimination in the occupation, enslavement, and oppression of civilian populations, both in occupied and occupied territories. The policy of occupation, occupation and oppression in Europe in this period was a deeply rooted one, and was strongly and openly opposed by all the political, social, economic and religious groups and associations in the U.K.’s leading international organizations… The United States has pursued this policy in all its international efforts and undertakes to work with and contribute directly to that effort.” The article is followed by an article of its own written 3 September 1948 entitled “The International Declaration of Human Values in Europe and America in 1952.”
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The United States will be remembered for the following great things:
The establishment of an American human rights system that works, in the world at large, towards those peoples whose very lives are taken for granted.
The first steps toward freedom; a fundamental human right which the United States alone has today.
One of the most fundamental forms of human rights was