While Italian immigrants came to New York for a better life, they differed greatly from the Jews and other immigrants of the late 19th and early 20th century. Most Italian immigrants were illiterate Sicilian and South Italian peasants who believed public schools conflicted with parental authority rather than provided a route for upward mobility. Also, many Italians were men as opposed to entire families, who left to escape poverty rather than persecution or a famine. Many of these men came to America with the intention of earning enough money to return home and buy land; the rest saved money to bring their families to New York. From the 1880s until the early 1900s, these men were aided by the padroni, who took a fee from newcomers’ wages to help them find housing and jobs.
Unlike Jewish immigrants, Italians primarily sought manual labor jobs and organized geographically near workplaces; thus, certain portions of New York became highly concentrated Italian neighborhoods. Living in old, dirty, and crammed tenements, Italian immigrants lived in poor conditions and often took in boarders to increase income. To make matters worse, Sicilian criminals earned pay from small businesses with Black Hand threats that demanded money in return for protection, prompting the NYPD’s launch of an Italian crime division in 1904; the murder of Lieutenant Joseph Petrosino of this division in 1909 contributed to the anti-immigrant laws passed in the 1920s.
Italians grew to find employment under the government in municipal jobs, under the NYPD and sanitation department. They also became musicians, barbers, and merchants. Furthermore, Italians served as strikebreakers and buffers to the Jewish workers who were unionizing in the garment industry and the striking longshoremen. Because they were quick to take these jobs during a strike or unionization, and held the approach that they were in America temporarily, employers sought to use Italians as threats against workers on strike. Because Italian men struggled with the seasonal unemployment that comes with manual labor jobs, many daughters took advantage of the rapidly expanding New York garment industry and found jobs in sweatshops and clothing factories. Most of the Italian women in New York were with families, so this income was supplementary to the male’s wages.
It was not until late in the first decade of the 1900s that Italians began to join the Jewish workers in unionizing in the garment industry. While support for strikes was slow at first, by 1913 many Italians supported strikes in the garment industry. However, longshoremen and construction workers who replaced the Irish remained lethargic in unionizing. The slow process of growing Italian involvement in American life included participation in politics. Many Italian immigrants rejected the Tammany Party and elected the first Italian Fiorello La Guardia, a Republican, to the House of Representatives. Many Italians found both parties too unresponsive to the needs of the poor and threw their support behind Socialist organizations. While the Jewish immigrants remained in control of the most prominent socialist clubs in New York, Italian clubs grew and were effective in spreading Socialism amongst Italians.
In the practice of religion, Italian Catholicism clashed with Irish Catholicism across New York City in the 19th Century. Irish Catholics believed the Italians to be anti-institutional and ignorant in their observance. Consequently, Italians were not embraced in the Irish Catholic churches, and the dislike was mutual. Italians were already distrustful of the church at home, believing it did not serve the people’s needs. Therefore, they were predisposed to dislike the churches in America under Irish control, especially because Catholicism was a minority religion in the U.S. Because of the Italians lack of religious embrace, Protestants attempted to convert them. However, Irish Catholics encouraged activities to counter these attempts, such as installing Catholic charities and requesting more Italian priests and expanded parish activities in Italian sectors of New York. While Church leaders encouraged Italians to start parochial schools, the men already distrustful of education were not willing to pay for schools when public schools were free. Therefore, while the movement achieved some degree of success, Italian parochial schools were not popular in the early 20th century among Italian immigrants. Central to Italian religious practices were the festa, parish-organized celebrations of a particular saint that drew thousands.
Italians underwent a process of Americanization that involved growing political activity, economic upward mobility, and the growing accommodation of the Roman Catholic Church. However, Italian immigrants mainly achieved stronger ethnic ties in their settlement in America; they abandoned their provincial identities and truly began to create a self-image as Italians, rather than Sicilians or Southern Italians. While World War I and the restriction acts of the 1920s catalyzed the later generation’s assimilation, the transition to Americanism remained gradual and ethnic ties remained strong.
