Introduction
This paper focuses on how the media portrays Italian Americans and how this has affected how society perceives Italian American families in the United States of America. Italian immigrants living in America are stereotyped due to the exploitation in mainstream culture and Hollywood iconic portrayals of Italian American culture.
This paper seeks to understand the Italian American culture, the ways in which Italian Americans are portrayed, and how this stereotyping affects them as a society. It explores the ways in which Italian American society has evolved with time and the struggles these Italians face in trying to preserve their culture.
History of the Italian Americans
Italian Americans are defined as Italian immigrants living in the United States of America or someone born in the United States with an Italian heritage. The first Italian to pass the New York harbor was Giovanni Da Verrazano. The other Italian was Filippo Mazzei, a promoter of liberty. Italians arrived in America throughout the 1800s in small numbers, though most immigration from Italy occurred in the 20th century between 1880 and 1960. Until World War 1, which made it very difficult for them to travel, most of the Italians came from Naples and in Italy. Most of the immigrants were peasant farmers, and two-thirds of them were men. The main reasons for Italian immigration were the poor economic conditions in Italy during this period, particularly in the southern regions. In the United States, Italians settled in and dominated specific neighborhoods, which were called “Little Italy,” where they could interact with one another, establish a familiar cultural presence, and find favorite foods. Many Italian immigrants arrived with very little money to help them establish themselves. They were not educated, and since they did not have professional skills, they generally performed manual labor. Their neighborhoods were what we would regard in present-day as slums were overcrowded and had poor sanitation. Hence, there was a widespread of diseases such as tuberculosis and dysentery (Woll, 1980, page 25).
Some immigrants did not have the intention of settling in the United States. They merely wanted to make money and return to Italy. They were commonly referred to as “birds of passage.” Over time Italian Americans have been described through attributes such as passion, passion for family, dynamic, frugality, education, and hard work. The descendants of Italian immigrants have generally come to understand the American dream and have also managed to achieve it (Gardaphe, 2003).
However, most of the first immigrants were subjected to a lot of discrimination. Examples of such discrimination are religious discrimination, anti-migration discrimination, and sometimes violence such as lynching were very common. Although these types of discriminations are common whenever new races come together, Italian Americans have had to face these types of discrimination for a long time (Gardaphe, 2003).
Writers and Literary Works of Italian Americans
Hollywood has featured Italian Americans in a lot of its productions, hit series such as The Godfather, The Sopranos, and films such as Donnie Brasco. Hollywood actors include stars such as Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, John Travolta, Frank Sinatra, and many more. These artists have been able to succeed in Hollywood despite the prejudice they have had to endure due to their race (Gambino, 1997).
The Godfather saga trilogy centers on a family’s struggle with American life. The patriarch of the family, Don Corleone, is in charge of a family-run mafia group. The conflict revolves around this family’s feud with another family. These two families are always running into each other’s territories and constantly revenging against each other. The main themes running in the book revolve around violence, illegal possession of weapons, betrayal, family loyalty, revenge, materialism, and punishment (Dika, 2000).
There are several incidences of violence in the book. For example, Pipi Cross, Don Corleone’s grandson, burns his half-brother in a villa after the half-brother double-crosses him and their father, the theme of punishment is also shown here. Weapons are owned by families as well as individuals for punishment and protection regardless of the legal requirements. The Godfather reveals that gangsters have become an important part of the American film industry as it has a large fan base.
Themes in the hit series ‘the sopranos’ are similar to those of the Godfather trilogy, e.g., revenge, loyalty to family, etc. Although in The Sopranos, other aspects of the life of Italian Americans are depicted, regardless of being stereotyped as gangsters. Italian Americans throughout the United States are well represented in a wide variety of occupations and professions, from skilled trades to the arts, to engineering, science, mathematics, law and medicine, police officers, FBI agents, etc. In reality, Italian Americans are also known to have won Nobel Prizes. Hence, they should not be discriminated against in terms of intellect.
The film Donnie Brasco is based on a true story about an FBI agent who infiltrates the mob, and after years of living as one of them and gathering hard evidence against them, he turns them in. Emotionally he finds it difficult to let go of his past and deals with a lot of pain in having to betray the people who had trusted him with their lives.
Writer Peter E. Bonnadella in his book- Hollywood Italians: Dagos, Palookas, Romeos, Wise Guys, and Sopranos (2004), scrutinize The Godfather and its two sequels, ‘The Sopranos,’ the themes of the family hood, gangsters, and revenge. This was in response to Gay Palini, who put up a notice asking where the Italian Americans were. Interestingly, twenty-three writers responded to this by writing books on their experiences. Among these writers was Ciongoli. ‘Beyond the Godfather’ (1997) by Ciongoli explains life in the Italian culture, their fight against stereotypes, and preservation of their culture. The writer writes about his own life and the prejudice he has faced in America. Italian American literature has shaped the Italian American culture in many ways, the most important being that it has helped in the preservation of the Italian American culture. Italian American literature has also instilled the Italian American society with a sense of pride in their culture and who they are as a people. Italian American culture has also helped other members of the American society and the world, in general, to understand Italian Americans and appreciate them as a people (Ciongoli, 1997).
The Italian American Culture
Italian Americans have preserved their culture and still maintain certain aspects of their culture, such as Italian food, drinks, art, annual Italian American feasts, entertainment, and a strong commitment to a passion for family. Italian Americans influenced popular music in the 1940s and, as recently in the 1970s, which is one of their major contributions to American culture. In movies that deal with cultural issues, Italian American words are used in films as part of the script.
Among the most characteristic and popular Italian American cultural contributions to American society has been their feasts. Throughout the United States, wherever one may find an “Italian neighborhood” as previously referred to as ‘Little Italy,’ one can find festive celebrations such as the well known in New York City the unique Our Lady of Mount Carmel “Giglio” Feast in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, New York. Italian feasts involve elaborate displays of devotion to God and patron saints. These feasts are much more than simply isolated events within the year. They express a “typically Italian” approach to life and are taken very seriously by the communities who prepare them. The feast, which is called ‘festa’ in Italian, is an umbrella term that collectively describes the various secular and religious, indoor and outdoor activities surrounding a religious holiday. Typically, Italian feasts consist of festive communal meals, for example, zeppole and sausage sandwiches, religious services, games of chance and skill, and elaborate outdoor processions consisting of statues resplendent in jewels and donations. This merriment usually takes place over the course of several days and is communally prepared by a church community or a religious organization over the course of several months.
Italian language in the American society
Italian is the fourth most taught language in American institutions. From 1998 to 2002, the enrollment for Italian courses in America grew by 30% (De Sanctis, 2005). This is faster than the enrollment for French and German. Italian is the fifth most spoken language in America spoken by over one million people due to the migration of Italians into America. Italian is spoken in most parts of Chicago, Milwaukee, St Louis, San Francisco, and especially New York City.
Today, the Italian language is promoted through awarding Italian linguists through the Bordighera annual poetry prize, which was founded by Daniela Gioseffi, Alfredo Di Palchi, and Pietro Mastrandrea. These people, with the support of several presses, have helped encouraged linguists to read and write in Italian. The Italian Opera has encouraged people to appreciate the Italian language and theater.
After World War Two, the American government prejudiced other foreign languages, including Italian, and people who spoke Italian who did not have citizenship papers, those who praised Benito Mussolini were selected for internment. Following this, many Italian language schools closed down, especially in the San Francisco bay area, since most of their teachers were interned. However, this did not discourage the Italian language from flourishing, and the interest in the language has greatly flourished through the years. The Italian language that is taught in American colleges is perhaps standardized, such as that the Italians by birth find it somewhat different from the language they were handed down by their ancestors; this is pronounced among the people whose ancestors came into the United States from northern Italy.
Religion among the Italian Americans
Fred Gardaphe’s book ‘Leaving little Italy’ (2004) emphasizes the forces that have influenced religion in Italian American society. Most Italian Americans had been Catholics in Italy. However, it is noted that they often became more devoutly Catholic in the United States since their faith was a distinctive characteristic in the U.S.; devout Italian Americans often identified themselves as Catholics. In spite of the Catholic dominance, the Italian religious minorities like the Italian Jews, the Waldensians, Greek Orthodox, Greek Catholics, and Italian Jews also took part in the Italian immigration to America.
The Italian Americans are keen on celebrating days such as St. Joseph’s day, which is celebrated on March 19; Columbus Day, St Januarious day, which is celebrated on September 19; Santa Rosalia, celebrated on September 4; Saint Rocco’s day, which is celebrated by the immigrants from Potenza, Italy, in the third week of August. Many still celebrate the Christmas season with a feast of seven fishes. The feast of assumptions is celebrated in Little Italy, Cleveland, Ohio, on August 15. On this day, people will pin money on other statues of the Virgin Mary to symbolize prosperity. The statue is paraded through Little Italy to Holy Rosary Parish.
While most Italian-American families have a Catholic background, there are various groups of Italian-American Christians who have chosen to practice Protestant Christianity for various reasons. These non-catholic Italian Americans worship regularly at a local church with which they identify, but they keep with the Catholic tradition in schooling their children at Catholic parochial or private schools, as well as fully participating in Catholic worship when attending Catholic churches.
In some cases, there are individuals and families who have become resentful or disenchanted with the Catholic religion and completely leave the Church, no longer considering themselves as being a part of the Catholic traditions in any way. Many joined Episcopal churches because of disagreement with the local Catholic Church. Many Italian Americans converted to Protestantism because they did not agree with the ritualistic nature of the Catholic religion, as well as their belief that Catholics have an incorrect interpretation of certain doctrines concerning the Bible, the Virgin Mary, the Saints, and the doctrine of Transubstantiation.
There are many ex-Catholic Italian-American members of the mainline liberal Protestant Church, most of whom left the Catholic Church because they thought it to be too doctrinally conservative. There is also a significant number of ex-Catholic Italian Americans. For example, Frank Santora is an ex-Catholic Italian-American pastor of Faith Church which is a large Evangelical church in New Milford, Connecticut, with a small charismatic congregation, A church primarily formed by ex- Italian American Catholics is called the Christian Church of North America, which is rooted in the Italian Pentecostal Movement that came out of Chicago in the early 1900s. It should also be noted that the first group of Italian immigrants to Trenton converted to the Baptist Church. Religion has shaped and continues to mold the Italian culture from the time of their immigration to the present-day Italian Americans.
Stereotypes of Italian Americans
Italian Americans were often stereotyped as being violent and organized into mafias. In the 1920s, two Italian anarchists, Sacco and Vanzetti, were wrongly sentenced to death. After this incident, Americans labeled Italian immigrants as anarchists and criminals, and in the 1800s and early 20th century, Italian Americans were hated and considered one of the most likely groups to be lynched. In 1891, eleven Italian immigrants in New Orleans were lynched due to their ethnicity and suspicion of being involved in the Mafia; this was considered one of the largest mass lynchings in United States history.
To this day, Italian Americans are frequently associated with organized crime and mobs by many Americans, largely due to media stereotyping. A number of popular movies such as The Godfather and Goodfellas and television series such as the sopranos are the tools in which the media uses to describe the Italian American culture (Monte, 1978).
However, Italian American organizations have surveyed that organized crime and mafias in the United States consisted of not more than one thousand people, and the mentality that the majority of Americans had is because the media has greatly magnified the issue of Italians this survey was done in 1998.
Francis Ford Coppola’s “Godfather Trilogy” book depicts ethnicity and race as portrayed in American films and books, reference works, and essays. It focuses on how different cultures are portrayed, not just Italian Americans but also the British Americans, African Americans, Asian Americans, south sea islanders, Hispanic Americans, Tibetans, Buddhists, Canadians, and Muslims through analyzing major films and filmmakers projecting ethnicity and race as a necessary subject for researchers interested in ethnicity and film imagery to study their field as it is an excellent reference book on this subject with a wide range of scholars. Other Italian writers include Addonizio, Alfonsi, Ferdinand Anania, Michael Ancona, Barone, Dennis Basso, Hamilton, Bellarosa, James M, Benasutti among others. Some of the authors who have written about everyday, hardworking Italians are Pietro Di Donato, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Dana Gioia, Executive Director of the National Endowment for the Arts, Daniela Gioseffi. Other stereotypes portray Italians as overly emotional, melodramatic, plebeian, superstitious, hot-blooded, aggressive, ignorant, obsessed with food, and prone to crime and vengeance over trivial slights. The fear of Italians reproducing too much played a small role in Margaret Sanger’s drive toward encouraging birth control. Italian males are sometimes stereotyped as “Italian Stallions” or “Latin lovers,” while females have been stereotyped as either overly matriarchal or voluptuous, flirtatious, and exotic. Italians have often found themselves at the receiving end of ethnic jokes, parodies, and discrimination due to certain stereotypes.
Peter Bonnadella examines the typecast of Italian film roles, they are considered gangsters, romantic, have excellent culinary skills, rosary beads, and immigrants, but in his book, Bondanella shows other positive aspects associated with the Italian culture. He portrays their passion and loyalty to family and work. He shows that despite their negative Image, Italian Americans have been accepted into American society.
Bondanella analyses films such as the Italian (1915), Rocky and Saturday Night Fever, and The Sopranos, and he shows that Italian Americans should not be stereotyped as mobsters but should be treated as normal people who would work as teachers, doctors, policemen, etc., as portrayed in ‘The Sopranos.’ The cultural face of Italian Americana is widening and changing daily to combat stereotyping by American movies and television.
Fred Gardaphe’s book ‘From wise guys to wise men’ studies the culture of gangsters and how masculinity is projected. In his book, gangsters are seen as treacherous people. They are said to use violence to get business deals. They are portrayed as non-Americans as they don’t speak English, they have families but still, keep mistresses, and this is considered non-American. The book analyses the culture of this group of immigrants as Gadaphe analyses the role of gangsters in their films. Gadephe says, ‘The gangster speaks for the people by rejecting the norms that the society imposes on the people in modern life’ (Gadaphe, 2002; page 10). This means that the gangster does not conform to the norms of the society, but whenever he finds a problem with the system, he voices against it. This positive side of a gangster, a person who stands up and fights for what he sees as justice, comes through.
In America and many other nations, Italians have also been stereotyped as swarthy perpetual low-class foreigners and as people restricted to blue-collar jobs. In many ways, they have been stereotyped working as construction workers, chefs, beggars, peddlers, plumbers, and in other manual working-class jobs (Gambino, 1997). Another stereotype of Italian Americans is the “goombah” or “guido.” This word is used to describe a working-class or lower-class Italian male. In their own community, Italian Americans themselves will sometimes refer to such “buffoon-like” Italian males as “cafoni.” “Cafone” is an Italian word that originally meant ‘peasant,’ but its meaning evolved to describe people, particularly those from the south who are arrogant, rude, ignorant, and uncouth (Gambino, 1997).
Effects of stereotype on Italian Americans
Stereotyping has both negative and positive effects on individuals and societies as well. A positive effect of stereotyping is that it provides a sense of security. For example, most Italians are perceived to be fine people, and their food is considered one of the world’s best, so an Italian chef would pursue the culinary field with confidence, knowing that he is already regarded as a good chef just because he is Italian (Goodman, 1996).
A negative effect of stereotypes is prejudice will be discussed further in the next topic. Possible prejudicial effects of stereotypes are:
- Justification of ill-founded prejudices or ignorance. When the producers of Hollywood depict Italian Americans as mobsters, the society has adapted this and regard their neighbors who are Italian Americans as such, however wrong it may be (Dika, 2000).
- Unwillingness to rethink one’s attitudes and behavior towards the stereotyped group. Due to the media portrayal of Italian American society, many people are not willing to change the mentality that most Italian Americans are somehow involved in organized crime. A survey revealed that 78 percent of teenagers 13 to 18 associated Italian Americans with either criminal activity or blue-collar work, and seventy-eight percent of adult Americans believe most Italian Americans have some connection to organized crime (Juliani, 1978). This shows just how deep stereotyping can affect one’s mentality.
- Stereotypes can also prevent individuals from maximizing their potential (Juliani, 1978).
- As Italian Americans are stereotyped as people who are good businessmen, the Italian American society faces prejudice in finding employment in professional career.
Prejudice Faced by Italian Americans Today
The Italian Americans experience a lot of segregation from other members of the American society. However, they also divide themselves into classes, and these classes are mostly economic; rich, middle, and poor classes, respectively (Dika, 2000).
Most people who know Italian Americans know that they are fine people, and prejudice against Italian Americans is based almost always on perceptions that have accumulated over many decades and which have been disseminated through mass media, which has contributed to a subtle form of mass hysteria. Discrimination against Italian Americans is more art than science since most people really aren’t sure why they may be tempted to discriminate or even know when they are discriminating (Dika, 2000).
In the twenties and thirties, Italian American baseball players were despised and were described using words such as ‘dago’ and ‘wop.’ Dago is a word usually describing a sailor or deckhand. “Diego” is the Portuguese nickname for any deckhand, and “Jack” is the British equivalent. It describes a sailor who was required to fulfill several roles at sea would be known as a “Jack of all trades” This word is derogatory in the sense that it undermines the Italian American intelligence and reduces them to people who are no good Intellectually. ‘Wop’ is an English pejorative ethnic slur for a person of Italian descent. It is derived from the Neapolitan word “guappo,” meaning a person who flaunts an overbearingly cocky and swaggering attitude. In Italy, the term “guappo” is still used, often sarcastically, to describe those young men who try hard to act brave, play cool, court every pretty girl, and those that are arrogant to the point of inducing a fight (Baldassaro, 2005).
Sadly, distinguished papers such as the New York Times and the sporting news used these words to describe Italian American Baseball Players. These words are derogatory and discriminate against Italian American society (Talese, 1993).
Politically Italian Americans are not entirely discriminated against. The United States Congress includes Italian Americans who are regarded as leaders in both the Republican and Democratic parties. The highest-ranking Italian American politician is currently Nancy Pelosi, who became the first woman and Italian American Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, but former Republican New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani was a candidate for the 2008 U.S. president as was Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo, among many others (Italian/American Digital Project, 2008).
However, the stereotyping of Italian Americans is so much a part of the American culture that it has reached the highest level of the administration of the American government. “I was surprised when I got to Washington to see how my fellow Congressmen stereotyped me because I am an Italian American from New Jersey” (De Sanctis, 2005). U.S. Congressman Bill Pascrell told the Italian American conference participants. “They made a lot of jokes about my Italian roots, but I wasn’t laughing” (De Sanctis, 2005). Another example of ethnic prejudice in politics is during the 2004 elections is the story of Daniel Mongiardo, an Italian American Democrat, when he ran against Republican Jim Bunning in the Kentucky Senatorial election in 2004. During his political campaign, Bunning said in response to Mongiardo’s dark features that Mongiardo “looked like one of Saddam Hussein’s sons,” so he does not deserve votes from the people of Kentucky (Times, 2006). Bunning continued to say that Mongiardo’s “thugs” had assaulted his wife (Times, 2006). The comments were viewed by many as ethnic slurs. Bunning was using the fact that Italian Americans were viewed as mobsters to lure the voters into voting for him during the elections.
Religiously, Italian Americans being notoriously Catholics is prejudiced by their fellow Catholics and Protestants. They are seen as hypocrites representing Catholic immorality, specifically gambling, perversion, and violence. This is clearly seen in the themes of popular books films in the Hollywood film industry as well as popular sitcoms; this is shown in the Godfather trilogy and Good fellas. In reality, this may not be entirely true, but society perceives them as such due to the fact that society is poisoned by the way Hollywood portrays them. These cases are especially true of stereotyping and discrimination against people of Southern Italian origin (De Sanctis, 2005).
Conclusion
Evidently, Hollywood’s iconic portrayals of has affected racial profiling in many drastic, more negative than positive ways. Italian Americans have to overcome stereotyping and prejudice in many ways. The Italian American culture has also changed greatly with time by adopting some aspects of the American culture. Italian Americans have significant input into the American culture through music, art, theater, professional and science fields.
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