che cute. (: /ˈke/ /kju:t/)

Some Cases of Documented Anti-Italian Rhetoric in the United States

sicilianu:

New York Times Editorial

“The Italians are not a category of immigrants we can welcome without running risks. Because of their clannishness, attachment to their language, their living habits and customs, Italian and Chinese immigrants are much alike, except that the controversial pigtail-wearers are much more clever at home and with themselves.  But the Chinese rarely give problems to the police and the courts, while it is well known that, among the foreigners with whom we have had to deal, there are no people who can surpass the Italians in resorting to fatal stabbings at the slightest provocation.”

Letter from Cardinal Prefect of Propaganda Fide (U.S.) to Vatican

“It is humiliating to have to acknowledge that after the disappearance of the Indian and the emancipation of the blacks, the Italians are the one who are pariahs of the great American republic… Many reduced to extreme misery by misfortune and vice, give themselves over to begging.  The enormous majority does not know any language but its native dialect.”

(Socialist Paper)

“They come to America with the sole intention of making money. So they live like sheep.. Their one concern, their dream, painstaking to accumulate, is a bundle of money which, after twenty years of unheard privations, will give them the chance to enjoy moderate comfort in their hometown.”

Anonymous WASP

“We may doubtless learn courtesy from many an Italian… But we should remember that in forming a race of unknown value, there is being sacrificed a race of acknowledge superiority in originality and enterprise.  This is without taking into account, as regards the physical side, that the average stature will be reduced and the skull will become broader and shorter.”

Consul Carroll (to Palermo) in a letter to the Department of State

“They are ignorant in the widest sense of the term in that they are unable to read or write. But normally they are able-bodies and hard-working.  They are dirty and often filthy but would be otherwise out of their element. Generally, they have no intention of becoming American citizens nor would they be desirable as such.  Their sole ambition is to make a little money and return to their own country and exist thereon by one venture to another for the balance of their days.”

Miscellaneous

“They have not adapted to the American way of living and do not seem to care to imitate it.  They had no idea of bringing up their families after the American custom. They do not appreciate the institutions of a free land; they care nothing for the public schools and very little whether their children receive any education at all. They appear to have no desire for the comfort they might easily have, but are content to live in a way no native American would endure complacently.  They have no desire to own a home, to become part of the community. The object of many of them is merely to save enough money to enable them to return to their old homes where they can live in idleness for the remainder of their lives. To attain this end, each member of the family must contribute his labor, the earnings usually going to some common fund; and in the meantime, they live more like cattle than like human beings, with little or no regard for sanitation or the common decencies of life.”

A slightly more positive comment—Yankee Apostle Bernardy

“While the American is essentially a mechanical and systematized being, the Latin mentality is characterized by the greatest variety and versatility, even when rudimentary.  Side by side with childish ingenuity, it has profound psychological depths.  Even when he is a hundred times more illiterate than his American counterpart, the Italian is a thousand times more intuitive.  Besides, depth of soul, the delicacy of Latin intuitions and other Latin qualities are a closed book to the American spirit.”

yup, and unfortunately now the descendants of (southern) italian immigrants’espouse the same racist, xenophobic, and orientalist bullshit, and have become deeply embedded to the oppressive institutions (especially the ‘justice’ system) that once oppressed our bisnonni. 

i made a post a few weeks ago about making some kind of directory of radical/progressive italian americans on tumblr a few weeks ago. so far @sempreavanti-senzapaura has hmu. i think i also kind of want to make a directory of resources— books, articles, films, etc.— that are useful or interesting. with descriptions/contextualizations of them, information about how to access them, etc. i’m writing my final paper for peter gran about this kinda shit pretty much so once i’m done with the chaos of finalz week i’ll start getting on this shit for real!

recently, on tumblr and in real life i’ve encountered a lot of really cool amerikans of italian descent who have good radical/progressive politics. having grown up in a community where our identity as southern italians in the diaspora has been expressed in a very reactionary, racist, and arguably fascist way (i’m lookin @ u frank rizzo) it’s nice to see that there are some of us that can embrace our culture and language (which is certainly subaltern in the context of the italian southern question) while at the same time recognizing capitalism as the main contradiction, and at the root of racism, misogyny, and other oppressions and prejudices.

at this point i’m thinking we need to make some kind of directory or blog or something that will allow progressive/radical italian amerikans to connect. currently, @firesandwords and i are working on a zine about italian americans, radicalism, and assimilation. i feel like without tumblr these means of communication between wops with good politics wouldn’t exist, and at the same time i have a lot of good activist friends off tumblr who are into this stuff, so i feel like we should expand on this and we could all do really good work?!

i also know of some really good online projects like struggles in italy, fonderia usa, and italy calling, which post a lot of good content relating to italian struggles, emigration/imigration, etc. 

there’s so many conversations that we should be having. we should be talking about the southern question and how we can develop a consciousness about the exploitation of southern italy without relying on reactionary neobourbon populists like pino aprile. we should be reading gramsci and malatesta and a whole slew of italian radicals who came before us. we should be talking about our relationships with black people, latin@ immigrants, and other people of color, and we should also be talking about migrant communities in italy. we should be talking about the experience of being queer in the diaspora, and looking to pastoral and mediterranean concepts about gender that shape those experiences. we should be talking about u.s. imperialism, capitalist exploitation both domestically and abroad. of course, everyone should be talking about this, but can we have these conversations in a productive, even revolutionary manner with in the context of being of italian descent in the u.s.?

idk if you’re of italian descent and consider yourself progressive or radical or if anything i’ve been saying has been interesting to you.. please hmu! let’s be friends! my email is pinto.cma@gmail.com