| Notable Sicilian Americans: Joe DiMaggio • Jon Bon Jovi • Frank Sinatra Antonin Scalia • Andrew Cuomo • Lady Gaga Rachael Ray • Al Pacino • Frank Zappa Paulie Malignaggi • Dean Martin • Sonny Bono Roy Campanella • Chris Christie • Martin Scorsese |
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predominantly Roman Catholic, with Protestant and Jewish minorities. |
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A Sicilian American (Sicilian: Siculu-miricanu singular, Sicilian: Siculu-miricani plural), is an American of Sicilian ancestry. They are often considered to be Italian Americans but are sometimes treated as a separate group due to cultural and historical differences between Sicily and the mainland.
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The first Sicilians came to what is now the United States in the seventeenth century as explorers and missionaries. Sicilian immigration to the US then grew substantially in the period starting in the 1880s and in 1906 as many as a 100,000 Sicilians came to the US. By 1924, immigration restrictions had caused this to plummet. This period saw political and economic shifts in Sicily that made emigration desirable. A great portion of the Sicilian immigrants would settle in New York, Tampa, New Jersey, Chicago, Boston, Detroit, Philadelphia, San Francisco, New Orleans and Milwaukee.
Elements of Sicilian culture came with them such as theatre and music. Giovanni De Rosalia was a noted Sicilian American playwright in the early period and farce was popular in several Sicilian dominated theatres. In music Sicilian Americans would be linked, to some extent, to jazz. Many of the more popular cities for Sicilian immigrants, like New Orleans or Chicago, are pivotal in the history of jazz. In Chicago the predominately Sicilian neighborhood was called "Little Sicily" and in New Orleans it was "Little Palermo." One of the earliest, and among the most controversial, figures in jazz was Nick LaRocca, who was of Sicilian heritage.
Sicilian-Americans immigrants faced stereotypes and discrimination, sometimes even from other Italians. Tensions between Italian regions had not been entirely resolved with unification and so northern Italians had sayings that indicated Sicilians were untrustworthy and ethnically different. A more persistent stereotype linked them to the Mafia, and continues to perpetuate through films such as The Godfather that portray Sicilians in this light. As the Mafia is of Sicilian origin, Sicilian Americans were stereotyped as Mafia-linked to an even greater degree than Italian Americans in general, with the rationalization that the Mafia emerged in Sicily. Despite stereotypic pressures, Sicilian Americans have continued to thrive in the cultural climate of America, with many actors, directors, musicians, athletes, politicians, and intellectuals of notable prominence.
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