Anti-Italianism

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Anti-Italianism is a hostility toward Italian people and Italian culture. It uses crude or unfair stereotypes about Italian people, a popular one being that most Italians are unnaturally violent, or somehow associated with the Mafia. Aside from the bigotry inherent in this idea, it is also statistically improbable. Like most racist and biased sentiments, anti-Italianism often uses discrimination, prejudice, and even violence.

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[edit] Other stereotypes of Italians and Italian Americans

Because of the common Mafia association, some Italian Americans see all films or shows about the Mafia as potentially harmful to the Italian American community. This became something of an issue for the HBO show The Sopranos when certain Italian Americans complained about the stereotypical nature of the show. Other Italians feel that such shows are problematic only if they feature the Mafia as a common or accepted part of Italian American life. However, possibly in part to the portrayal of the Mafia in the media, Italians have been stereotyped and portrayed as violent, sociopathic gangsters and street ruffians often akin to other minorities.

Other stereotypes portray Italians as overly-emotional, melodramatic, low-class, superstitious, aggressive, 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.

Italians have also been stereotyped as swarthy perpetual foreigners in a lower class, restricted to blue collar jobs. They have been stereotyped working as construction workers, chefs, beggars, peddlers, plumbers, and in other working class jobs. Another stereotype of Italian American is the "guido", a thuggish, bruttish, working class Italian male. Degrading and even dehumanizing images have been prevalent in the perpetuation of ignorance and historical myths.

There also became an association in Protestant society between Italians and the negative image of perceived Catholic immorality; specifically gambling, perversion, and violence. These cases are especially true of stereotyping and discrimination against people of Southern Italian origins, such as Neopolitan or Calabrian, and especially those of Sicilian origin.

[edit] Violence against Italians

In the United States, Italian immigrants were subject to extreme prejudice, racism, and, in many cases, violence. During the 1800s and early 20th Century, Italian Americans, being seen as non-anglo and often times non-white, were the second most likely group to be lynched. One of the largest mass lynchings in American history involved the lynching of eleven Italians in the city of New Orleans. The Italians, who were thought to have assassinated police chief David Hennessey, were placed in a jail cell before being brutally murdered by a mob, with witnesses claiming that the cheers "were nearly deafening." Reporting on the incident, one newspaper reported "The little jail was crowded with Sicilians, whose low, receding foreheads, dark skin, repulsive countenances and slovenly attire proclaimed their brutal nature." According to one historian in New Orleans: "Akin to Negroes, Italians were not white and subject to a racial prejudice only slightly subtler -- mingled with a baseless and deliberately orchestrated Mafia scare...." In fact, in many areas of the South, Italians were "semisegregated."

In the 1920s, two Italian anarchists, Sacco and Vanzetti, experienced prejudice and ultimately death due to their Italian ancestry and extreme political views. Though not lynched, Sacco and Vanzetti were subject to a mishandled trial, and most historians agree that the judge, jury, and prosecution were extremely biased against the Italian immigrants. Sacco and Vanzetti were eventually put to death, convicted of a murder despite the lack of evidence against them.

Violence against Italians has also taken place in Canada, Great Britain, Germany, Austria, Sweden, and Switzerland, as well as many other places where Italians have settled. Anti-Italianism in Switzerland is often attributed to the death of recent Italian immigrants such as Alfredo Zardini.

In Australia, anti-Italian riots have occurred on numerous occasions since Italian immigrants, or "wogs," first began coming to the country. Large riots against Italian immigrants have occurred in Gwalia, Leonora, Coolgardie, and other Australian cities. Recently, in the 2005 Cronulla riots, Mediterranean immigrants, including Italians, but especially Middle-Easterners, were targeted by rioters.

[edit] Italian American internment during World War II

During World War II, thousands of Italian Americans were put in internment camps on American soil, along with Japanese Americans. Thousands more were placed under surveillance or had their property repossessed by the government. Joe DiMaggio's father, who lived in San Francisco, had his boat and house confiscated. One official stated that if it had not been for Joe DiMaggio's status as a celebrity baseball player, his father would most likely had been sent to an internment camp. Unlike the Japanese Americans, Italian Americans have never received reparations, even though President Bill Clinton made a public declaration admitting the US government's misjudgement in the internment.

[edit] Anti-Italianism in United States politics

Some supporters of Supreme Court justice Samuel Alito, during his nomination process, suggested that opposition to his nomination in part reflected anti-Italian bias. For example, Alito was sometimes dubbed Scalito, a play on the name of Antonin Scalia, another Italian-American Supreme Court justice. It was argued that this nickname strips both men of their individuality by lumping them into a group of shared stereotypes. Opposition to Alito based on his views on abortion was seen by some of his supporters as representing a hostility to the Roman Catholicism that is traditionally connected to Italian culture. Opponents of Alito's nomination countered that their criticism was of his record, his views and his judicial philosophy, not his ethnicity or national origin, and that attempts to depict criticism as anti-Italian were a political tactic.

When Hillary Clinton campaigned on behalf of Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer against former Republican Senator Al D'Amato during the 1998 New York Senate race, she ridiculed him as 'Senator Tomato', which some interpreted as an ethnic slur relating to the role of tomatoes in Italian cuisine. In D'Amato's 1992 Senate race, then-Attorney General Robert Abrams called him a fascist, which was also interpreted by some as a derogatory reference to fascism in Italy.

In 2004, Daniel Mongiardo, a Democratic Italian American physician and politician, ran against Republican Jim Bunning in the Kentucky Senatorial election. In response to Mongiardo's dark features, Bunning declared that Mongiardo "looked like one of Saddam Hussein's sons." Bunnings later went on to declare that Mongiardo's "thugs" had assaulted his wife. The comments were viewed by many as ethnic slurs.

A frequent criticism of 2008 presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani is that he is allegedly a "thug" [1]. He has also been referred to, even by mainstream press figures as Chris Matthews as being a "little bit fascist" [2].

[edit] See also

[edit] Further reading

  • Henry Heller. "Anti-Italianism in Sixteenth-Century France". Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2003. xii, 307 pp

[edit] External link

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