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Introduction
At
the turn of the 20th century, a growing tide of Italians,
largely from the south, immigrated to the United States
where work was plentiful and land was cheap.
They left Italy in search of opportunities their homeland
denied them. In southern Italy, for example, noble families
owned half of all the farmland. As a result, millions
of peasants were sharecroppers, lucky to find work six
months out of the year because the landowners were careless
about farming and productivity suffered accordingly.
When they did work, the peasants had to give as much as
half their crops to the landowners. At the same time,
these peasants were taxed by the government of a newly
united Italy, had their sons drafted into the Italian
military and watched their children die from poor nutrition
and inferior medical care.
The exodus of Italians from their villages more than a
century ago has no parallel in history. Out of a population
of 14 million southern Italians, an estimated five million
left by the outbreak of World War I. It is the largest
recorded exodus of a single ethnic group in history.
Most of these immigrants came to the United States during "The
Great Migration" between 1880 and 1922. In 1923, the United
States restricted the immigration of southern and eastern
Europeans, but by then more than 3 million Italians had
became permanent U.S. residents.
Today, the descendants of those early Italian immigrants
number nearly 16 million, according to the U.S. census
of 2000, although through intermarriage, the number of
people in the United States with at least one Italian
grandparent is estimated to be about 26 million.
The U.S. Census Bureau also reports that Italian Americans
are the nation's fifth largest ethnic group with two-thirds
of them in white-collar positions in business, medicine,
law, education and other professions.
Social scientists strive to explain how so many millions
of Italian immigrants achieved success in America despite
the challenges of a new language, foreign economic and
commercial practices, and the initial prejudice and hostility
of an American society unfamiliar with Italians and their
customs.
Despite these barriers, the Italian immigrants and their
children became part of American society in less than
100 years. Their story is remarkable and inspiring. Read
about it here!
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