It is Christmas Eve Eve and I’m preparing myself for the behemoth task of Italian-American Christmas Eve. To me, Christmas Eve traditions have always been more important than those on Christmas Day. I vividly remember my Grandma cutting bulb after bulb of garlic (That’s right. I didn’t say clove. I said bulb.). She used to take a hammer and chisel to the lobster tails. The more I think about it, the less that sounds like the right way to cook the fish, but it worked for her. My grandmother, my mother, and I would search for weeks for the perfect piece of bacalá (salted cod). There always have to be seven fish on the Christmas Eve table, as is the tradition brought from Southern Italy with my family. In addition to the fish, Mom and I would spend the few days prior to Christmas Eve baking. Our favorite were anginetti cookies. Every Italian American family has their own recipe and “secret ingredient,” and there’s a friendly rivalry over who makes the best. In case you were wondering, it was hands down my mom. Her anginetti were airy and light and had just the very best taste- not too sweet, but not doughy, either.

So where am I going with all of these family stories on a teaching history blog? Family traditions are my history and they are where I see myself the best. Our students may also see their own histories first and clearest in family traditions, or they may look elsewhere depending on what their lives are like. What I do know is that whenever I hear about an Italian-American (not the kind that murders and enslaves people) in history, my ears perk up. I want to know about the people who ate fish because of their ancestors’ proximity to the sea and about the people who have Sunday gravy (not sauce) and about the people who have their own anginetti cookie recipes (that are not as good as my mom’s) . Through my heritage I feel a strong connection to what came before. Unfortunately, the only Italians I learned about were the ones who came to the US through Ellis Island- and I didn’t know why except for “they were poor,” and Sacco and Vanzetti, anarchists who were unfairly tried for murder and robbery in an anti-immigrant, anti-Italian society.

I decided to do some digging into Italian immigration stories. Unfortunately, the records of my own family are difficult to find and the ones that I do have are tough to interpret, as there are name changes and incorrect dates. Great Grandma Saveria left Naples, Italy in 1920 and arrived in New York the same year with her two daughters. My great grandfather, Angelo, was born in Mattaloni, Caserta, Campania, Italy. He arrived in New York in May 1914. What’s missing? The 6 year difference. I can only guess at the set of circumstances that pushed them out of Italy and to the United States.

Italians suffered through a series of push factors in Italy in the late 1800s and early 1900s when the “great wave” of immigration to the United States occurred. Northern Italians came to the US in small numbers between 1820 and 1870. According to the Library of Congress, there were less than 25,000 Italian immigrants in the United States at that point. Northern Italians were typically artisans and shopkeepers who did not come to the US necessarily because of hardship, but to find a new opportunity for sales. By 1920, there were over 4 million Italians in the United States. However, those who came between 1870 and 1920 were mostly from southern Italy. Every Italian immigrant and their family had a unique story for leaving the mother country, but some common themes were poverty, natural disaster, and an unstable government unable or unwilling to help them. The history of Italy is very complex, but the short version of why Italy became inhospitable to Southern Italians starts with the unification of Italy under one government. When Italians began emigrating to the U.S., Italy’s government recently had united all of the Italian city-states in what was known as Risorgimento. The idea of unifying Italian city-states came from when the French controlled some of Italy during the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars, between 1796 and 1815. The French unified some city-states as part of the French empire and a middle class developed as a result. Italy was later ruled by the Austrians, but when Napoleon III fought Austria on Italian soil, Austria surrendered Lombardy and Milan to Napoleon III, who then gave the land back to the Italians. By 1861, Guiseppe Garibaldi united the peninsula and declared Turin the capital. Rome would join unified Italy in 1870. While much of Northern Italy prospered, Southern Italy remained very poor. Fiat opened its first factory in Turin 1899, and the Brenner Pass allowed Northern Italy to participate in the Western European market.

Southern Italians did not fare well at all. Even after unification, Southern Italy remained similar to a feudal society where galantuomini were lords over bracchianti and contadini, or poor farmers and people who worked the fields. Only 2.5% of the population of the South understood Italian; the rest spoke regional dialects (my family was one of those) that were barely “Italian” at all. Very few people were educated and the literacy rate hovered around 30%. In addition to the endless cycle of misery and poverty for Italian families, they also suffered from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius (yes, the Pompei one) in 1906 and again in 1944. Italians who settled in the United States were farmers and laborers who would do any work that was steady. A majority of them were single men who either returned home in a few years or who stayed in the US and sent money home to family regularly. The Library of Congress states a statistic that Italian immigrants sent or took home between $4 million and $30 million a year. Those who stayed settled in New York City and in towns in New Jersey. My family settled in Newark, and I can still visit their homes- often an entire family would live on an entire block- and the places they worked and went to school and attended Sunday mass. The annual Italian festivals for patron saints continue (as a child, I went to St. Gerard’s feast and to the Italian Festival at Good Shepherd Church), as do the family traditions passed down through generations.

Anti-Italian sentiment would lead to the Immigration Act of 1924, which drastically reduced the number of immigrants from Southern Europe that would be allowed in the country. The law allowed only 2% of the 1890 census number of Italians to enter the US. Coincidentally, 1890 is when Italian American immigration began its steady flow. In fact, as Italians tried to flee Mussolini during World War II, the Immigration Act of 1924 barred them from entering the United States. Anti-Italianism was real, as when Italian immigration peaked, the US was in a depression and immigrants, both Italian and Asian, were blamed for “taking jobs.” (Sound eerily familiar?) Italians were subject to “scientific theories” that said that they were inferior to Northern Europeans. (Also sound familiar?) Cartoons criminalized new immigrants and made them appear to be less than human. In the 1890s, 20 Italian immigrants were lynched in New Orleans. Yet, Italians and other immigrant groups persevered.

World War II brought Italian Americans notoriety and more acceptance. Millions of Italians served in the armed forces and worked in war industries. They benefitted from their service by being included in the GI Bill. While some soldiers were purposefully left out of the benefits of the GI Bill, the bill helped Italians with property ownership, education, and social mobility. Italians gained some credit in popular culture, too, as Rosie the Riveter is said to be Rose Bonavita. Italian Americans have continued to contribute to American society in practically every occupation. This is the history I want to and need to remember as I make Christmas cookies and Christmas Eve fish tomorrow night. I often wonder why I never learned this in school and what it would be like if I had seen my own history in class. Yes, I learned about Ellis Island, but that was it. What about the struggles? The joy? What more would I know of and appreciate about myself if I’d learned more? How would I be better able to empathize with others had I known more about my ancestry? The human story is so very important; it helps me connect to the people of the past who look and eat like me, but it also helps me connect to those in the present day who have similar experiences to my own history. My history makes me motivated to understand someone else’s struggles and joys. Let’s keep working to give this gift to our students. Get to know them and help them see part of themselves in the history you teach.

Merry Everything!

Sources:

The Italian American Experience in New Haven: https://www.sunypress.edu/pdf/61273.pdf
The Great Arrival: https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/immigration/italian/the-great-arrival/
The US Italian Community and the Immigration Act of 1924: https://www.lagazzettaitaliana.com/history-culture/8343-the-u-s-italian-community-and-the-immigration-act-of-1924