Anti-Italianism

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Anti-Italianism is a hostility toward Italian people and Italian culture. It uses crude or unfair stereotypes about Italian people, a popular one being that most Italians are unnaturally violent, or somehow associated with the Mafia. Aside from the bigotry inherent in this idea, it is also statistically improbable. Like most racist and biased sentiments, anti-Italianism often uses discrimination, prejudice, and even violence.

Stereotypes of Italians and Italian Americans

Because of the common Mafia association, some Italian Americans see all films or shows about the Mafia as potentially harmful to the Italian American community. This became something of an issue for the HBO show The Sopranos when certain Italian Americans complained about the stereotypical nature of the show. Other Italians feel that such shows are problematic only if they feature the Mafia as a common or accepted part of Italian American life. However, possibly in part to the portrayal of the Mafia in the media, Italians have been stereotyped and portrayed as violent, sociopathic, "knife-wielding" gangsters and street ruffians often akin to other minorities. ^[1] ^[2]

Other stereotypes portray Italians as overly-emotional, melodramatic, low-class, superstitious, hot-blooded, aggressive, ignorant, obsessed with food, and prone to crime and vengeance over trivial slights. ^[3] The fear of Italians reproducing too much played a small role in Margaret Sanger's drive toward encouraging birth control^[4]. Italian males are sometimes stereotyped as "Italian Stallions" or "Latin lovers," while females have been stereotyped as either overly matriarchal or voluptuous, flirtatious, and exotic. Italians have often found themselves at the receiving end of ethnic jokes, parodies, and discrimination due to certain stereotypes. ^[5]

In America and many other nations, Italians have also been stereotyped as swarthy perpetual foreigners in a lower class, restricted to blue collar jobs. They have been stereotyped working as construction workers, chefs, beggars, peddlers, plumbers, and in other working class jobs. ^[6] Another stereotype of Italian American is the "goombah" or "guido", a working class Italian male. Degrading and even dehumanizing images have been prevalent in the perpetuation of ignorance and historical myths. ^[7]

Many ethnic stereotypes against Italians have been in use for centuries. In the 16th century, John Calvin, the French preacher who help establish Puritanism, condemned Italians as lazy, two-faced, and deceitful.

After the American Civil War, many poor Italian immigrants were recruited to fill the place of abolished slave labor by working on Southern plantations, while Italians in the North often worked in sweat shops and factories. The Italian American's role as a hard laborer has contributed to many stereotypes that persist today. Many Americans saw the swarthy, darker skinned Italians as a "mixing link" between whites and blacks. In 1921, Congress passed a racially-based quota which limited the amount of Italians that could enter the United States annually. The quota was not repealed until 1965. ^[8]

There also became an association in Protestant society between Italians and the negative image of perceived Catholic immorality; specifically gambling, perversion, and violence. These cases are especially true of stereotyping and discrimination against people of Southern Italian origins, such as Neopolitan or Calabrian, and Sicilian origin.

Sociologically speaking, the largest common denominator among anti-Italians is ignorance and parochialism, a relative lack of exposure to other cultures and ways of life. American ethnocentric attitudes and "nativism" — a form of often racially-rooted chauvinism - have contributed greatly to this kind of prejudice. German-American and Irish-American groups have often been mentioned as particularly virulent in their animosity toward Italians (and most "swarthy" or dark non-British foreigners, a category that includes Greek, Arabic, and Hispanic immigrants), but the claim has not been substantiated as specific to these groups, as this form of rejectionism has been historically documented across all Northern European ethnic groups, and particularly among US Americans of English and Scot-Irish ancestry. As is often the case with hostile racial or ethnic stereotypes, the enormous contributions of Italians, not only to America, but to world civilization in the arts, music, science, mathematics, government and law, urban and infrastructural construction, and even culinary traditions, are forgotten or deliberately ignored.

Violence against Italians

In the United States, Italian immigrants were subject to extreme prejudice, racism, and, in many cases, violence. During the 1800s and early 20th Century, Italian Americans, being seen as non-anglo and oftentimes non-white, were the second most likely group to be lynched.^[9] One of the largest mass lynchings in American history involved the lynching of eleven Italians in the city of New Orleans. ^[10] The Italians, who were thought to have assassinated police chief David Hennessey, were placed in a jail cell before being brutally murdered by a mob, with witnesses claiming that the cheers "were nearly deafening." Reporting on the incident, one newspaper reported "The little jail was crowded with Sicilians, whose low, receding foreheads, dark skin, repulsive countenances and slovenly attire proclaimed their brutal nature." ^[11] In fact, in many areas of the South, Italians were "semisegregated." ^[12] ^[13]

In the 1920s, two Italian anarchists, Sacco and Vanzetti, experienced prejudice and ultimately death due to their Italian ancestry and extreme political views. Though not lynched, Sacco and Vanzetti were subject to a mishandled trial, and many historians agree that the judge, jury, and prosecution were extremely biased against the Italian immigrants. Sacco and Vanzetti were eventually put to death, convicted of a murder despite the lack of evidence against them. ^[14]

Violence against Italians has also taken place in Canada, Great Britain, Germany, Austria, Sweden, and Switzerland, as well as many other places where Italians have settled. Anti-Italianism in Switzerland often cites the 1971 beating death of a recent Italian immigrant named Alfredo Zardini.

In Australia, anti-Italian riots have occurred on numerous occasions since Italian immigrants, or "wogs" (an Australian English slang for Southern Europeans), first began arriving to the country in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Many Austalians viewed the Italian immigrants as "immoral", "low," and "dirty." Riots against Italian immigrants have occurred in Gwalia, Leonora, Coolgardie, Cronulla, Sydney, and other Australian cities. In the 2005 Cronulla riots, many rioters targeted anyone who looked "Mediterranean or Middle Eastern." ^[15]

Italian American internment during World War II

During World War II, thousands of Italian Americans were put in internment camps on American soil, along with German and Japanese Americans. Thousands more were placed under surveillance or had their property repossessed by the government. Joe DiMaggio's father, who lived in San Francisco, had his boat and house confiscated. One official stated that if it had not been for Joe DiMaggio's status as a celebrity baseball player, his father would most likely had been sent to an internment camp. Unlike the Japanese Americans, Italian Americans have never received reparations, even though President Bill Clinton made a public declaration admitting the US government's misjudgement in the internment. ^[16]

Anti-Italianism in politics

Some supporters of Supreme Court justice Samuel Alito, during his nomination process, suggested that anti-Italian bias was responsible for the fact that Alito was sometimes dubbed Scalito, a play on the name of Antonin Scalia, another Italian-American Supreme Court justice.^[17] It was argued that this nickname strips both men of their individuality by lumping them into a group of shared stereotypes. Opposition to Alito based on his views was seen by some of his supporters as representing a hostility to the Roman Catholicism that is traditionally connected to Italian culture.^{[attribution needed]} Opponents of Alito's nomination countered that their criticism was of his record, his views and his judicial philosophy, not his ethnicity or national origin, and that attempts to depict criticism as anti-Italian were a political tactic.

In 2004, Daniel Mongiardo, a Democratic Italian American physician and politician, ran against Republican Jim Bunning in the Kentucky Senatorial election. In response to Mongiardo's dark features, Bunning declared that Mongiardo "looked like one of Saddam Hussein's sons." [18] Bunnings later went on to declare that Mongiardo's "thugs" had assaulted his wife. The comments were viewed by many as ethnic slurs.

Canadian politician Ed Havrot also controversially used anti-Italian slurs while serving in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, referring to one of his Italian-Canadian opponents as a "wop.".^[19]

External links

^ http://www.italianstudies.org/iam/Gesualdi_6.htm
^ Feagan and Feagan, 2003. 79-81, 92-93
^ Gottesman, Ronald. Violence in America: An Encyclopedia [20]
^ http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/sexuality/se0057.html
^ Cordasco, Francesco. The Italian-American Experience [21]
^ Lord, Eliot. The Italian in America [22]
^ LaGumina, Salvatore John. Wop!: A Documentary History of Anti-Italian Discrimination in the United States [23]
^ OSIA [24]
^ Mangione, Jerre. La Storia: Five Centuries of the Italian-American Experience[25]
^ Moses, Norton H. Lynching and Vigilantism in the United States: An Annotated Bibliography [26]
^ Gambino, Richard. Vendetta: The True Story of the Largest Lynching in U. S. History[27]
^ Gambino, Richard. Blood of My Blood: The Dilemma of the Italian Americans [28]
^ Sowell, Thomas. Ethnic America: A History [29]
^ Rappaport, Doreen, The Sacco-Vanzetti Trial, New York: HarperTrophy, 1994, c1993. KF224.R36 1994x.
^ O'Connor, Desmond. http://books.google.com/books?id=dECY9RIn9-MC&pg=PP1&ots=gZDhF5UDvG&dq=no+need+to+be+afraid&sig=XAltZU4HQh3KV_nEIbjL5ix5lVo#PPA62,M1
^ Di Stasi, Lawrence (2004). Una Storia Segreta: The Secret History of Italian American Evacuation and Internment during World War II. Heyday Books. ISBN 1890771406.
^ Claire Hoy, Bill Davis, (Toronto: Methuen Publications, 1985), p. 255.
^ http://www.niaf.org/news/index.asp?id=418