The Southern Italians were targets of discrimination in their home country and the U.S. Because they were considered outsiders ever since they were born, when a wave of Puerto Rican immigrants resided in Harlem, the Italians did not want to be associated with the even newer outsiders. I think that the Southern Italians who lived in Harlem hated the similarity in the Puerto Ricans’ and their languages, religon (Catholicism), poverty, and dark skin color because it would make the two ethnicities seemingly interchangable. Because the Southern Italians were staying in the U.S., they wanted to make the best new lives, so they pushed the Puerto Ricans away, even in the festa of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. I find the situation similar to a bullied kid bullying a new kid on the block because the bullied kid wanted to feel power.
I would have cognitive dissonance if I was a Southern Italian immigrant that was confronted about why Italian Americans treated Haitians differently than the Puerto Ricans. The Italian Americans say the reason is that Haitians are not black people, but this implies that the Puerto Ricans are black people, and that this gives them the reason to not welcome Puerto Ricans into their churches and festa. I don’t understand why the Italian immigrants would accept Vodou, and not accept the santeros. Why didn’t the Italians shun the Haitians as they did to the Puerto Ricans?
I think the Italians welcomed the Haitians because they came in the 1980s, and the Italians had already moved into better neighborhoods. Also, the perception of race probably changed. Italians were probably being regarded “white”, rather than an unassimilable race. Also, the Haitians did not live in Harlem. Therefore, the Haitians posed no threat to the Italians. If the Haitians came at an earlier time when the Italian immigrants were trying to exclude themselves from outsiders as they were labeled outsiders, I think the Haitians would be treated to the same extent as the Puerto Ricans were.
