Anti-Italianism

Anti-Italianism arose among some Americans as an effect of the large-scale immigration of Italians to the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Anti-Italian prejudice was sometimes associated with the anti-Catholic tradition that existed in the United States, which was inherited as a result of Protestant/Catholic European competition and wars, which had been fought between Protestants and Catholics over the preceding three centuries.

Anti-Catholic sentiments in the U.S. reached a peak in the 19th century, when the Protestant population became alarmed by the large number of Catholics who were immigrating to the United States from Ireland and Germany.

To remedy this situation, Pope Leo XIII dispatched a contingent of priests, nuns and brothers of the Missionaries of Saint Charles Borromeo and other orders (among which was Sister Francesca Cabrini), who helped establish hundreds of parishes to serve the needs of the Italian communities, such as Our Lady of Pompeii in New York City.

The anarchy movement in the United States at that time was responsible for bombings in major cities, and attacks on officials and law enforcement.

[4] As late as 1963, James W. Vander Zander noted that the rate of criminal convictions among Italian immigrants was less than that among American-born whites.

When the United States enacted prohibition in 1920, the restrictions proved to be an economic windfall for those in the Italian-American community who were already involved in illegal activities, as well as those who had fled from Sicily.

[11] [12] Nineteen Italians who were thought to have assassinated police chief David Hennessy were arrested and held in the Parish Prison.

Many historians agree that Sacco and Vanzetti were subjected to a mishandled trial, and the judge, jury, and prosecution were biased against them because of their anarchist political views and Italian immigrant status.

[19] Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis declared August 23, 1977, the 50th anniversary of their execution, as Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti Memorial Day.

His proclamation, issued in English and Italian, stated that Sacco and Vanzetti had been unfairly tried and convicted and that "any disgrace should be forever removed from their names".

[20] In the 1930s, Italians together with Jews were targeted by Sufi Abdul Hamid,[21] an anti-Semite and admirer of Mufti of Palestine Amin al-Husseini.

During the early 20th century, the KKK became active in northern and midwestern cities, where social change had been rapid due to immigration and industrialization.

[31] A comprehensive study of Italian-American culture on film, conducted from 1996 to 2001, by the Italic Institute of America, revealed the extent of stereotyping in media.

[32] Four Internet-based organizations are: Annotico Report,[36] the Italian-American Discussion Network,[37] ItalianAware[38] and the Italian American One Voice Coalition.

[42] An early manifestation of anti-Italianism in Britain was in 1820, at the time when King George IV sought to dissolve his marriage to Caroline of Brunswick.

A sensational proceeding, the Pains and Penalties Bill 1820, was held at the House of Lords in an effort to prove Caroline's adultery; since she had been living in Italy, many prosecution witnesses were from among her servants.

The Italians were now seen as a national security threat linked to the feared British Fascism movement, and Winston Churchill gave instructions to "collar the lot!".

In the interbellum period, Germans believed the Kingdom of Italy had "stabbed them in the back" by joining the "Big Four" in the (Treaty of London, 1915).

Because many writers have uncritically repeated stereotypes shared by their sources, biases and prejudices have taken on the status of objective observations, including the idea that the Germans and British were the only belligerents in the Mediterranean after Italian setbacks in early 1941.

Wartime bias in early British and American histories, which focused on German operations, dismissed Italian forces as inept and or unimportant and viewed Germany as the pivotal power in Europe during the interwar period.

Hundreds of Italian citizens, suspected by ethnicity of potential loyalty to Fascist Italy, were put in internment camps in the United States and Canada.

[50] Objective World War II accounts show that, despite having to rely in many cases on outdated weapons,[51] Italian troops frequently fought with great valor and distinction, especially well trained and equipped units such as the Bersaglieri, Paratroopers and Alpini.

In his article, Anglo-American Bias and the Italo-Greek War (1994), Sadkovich writes: Knox and other Anglo-American historians have not only selectively used Italian sources, but they have also gleaned negative observations and racist slurs and comments from British, American, and German sources and then presented them as objective depictions of Italian political and military leaders, a game that if played in reverse would yield some interesting results regarding German, American, and British competence.

[55]Sadkovich also states that such a fixation on Germany and such denigrations of Italians not only distort analysis, but they also reinforce the misunderstandings and myths that have grown up around the Greek theater and allow historians to lament and debate the impact of the Italo-Greek conflict on the British and German war efforts, yet dismiss as unimportant its impact on the Italian war effort.

Alan Levine even goes most authors one better by dismissing the whole Mediterranean theater as irrelevant, but only after duly scolding Mussolini for 'his imbecilic attack on Greece'.

In the aftermath of the end of imperial colonies and other political changes, many ethnic Italians were violently expelled from these areas, or left under threat of violence.

[59] At the end of World War II, former Italian territories in Istria and Dalmatia became part of Yugoslavia by the Treaty of Peace with Italy, 1947.

[63] Other forms of anti-Italianism showed up in Ethiopia[citation needed] and Somalia in the late 1940s, as happened with the Somali nationalist rebellion against the Italian colonial administration that culminated in a violent confrontation in January 1948 (Eccidio di Mogadiscio).

[66] The massacre was not the first attack by French workers on poor Italian immigrant labourers that were prepared to work at cut-rate wages.