The Italians in Italy and the United States - Research Paper Example

? The Italians in Italy and the United s The Italians in Italy and in America brought a rich heritage to both nations. However various factors such as negative stereotyping of Italian Americans, a declining birth rate in Italy, declining immigration rates of Italians and economic problems may jeopardize that heritage. Since the 1880’s many Italians emigrated from Italy to America in search of a better life and more opportunity like other immigrants. Many of these immigrants would eventually come to lead prosperous lives equivalent to many Americans, establishing roots throughout the nation. Many Italian immigrants and Italian Americans made contributions in various fields such as science, entertainment and the military. While the number of people immigrating to the United States from Italy has decreased in recent years immigrants that come are inspired by the opportunities offered. The population of Italy is expected to decrease dramatically due to the declining birth rate. This combined with the unstable economy of Italy may contribute to a loss of its identity. Many Italian American organizations fear that future generations will not know about the positive aspects of their heritage due to the negative stereotypes of Italians perpetuated by the media. The Italians in Italy and the United States The Italians in Italy and in the United States brought a rich heritage to both nations. In Italy and in America Italians made contributions in various aspects of society throughout history. However factors such as a slow population growth in Italy, a decrease in immigration from Italy to the United States, an unstable economy and negative stereotypes of this ethnic group threaten that heritage. Italians in Italy and in America are threatened with the loss of their identity and uniqueness. Italians are no longer the predominant immigrant group in the United States. The future of Italy is imperiled by its stagnant growth. The paper will discuss current and past immigration trends of Italians, contributions made by Italians in Italy and the U.S, the current state of Italy as well as negative stereotypes of Italians. In the 1880’s massive economic decline and an overpopulated nation resulted in a dramatic increase in Italian immigration to the United States. Some early Italian migrants were young men who wanted to work for brief periods and then return to Italy. Others would settle in America in predominantly Italian areas. The men mostly did physical labor which included building the communication infrastructure. “The Italian contribution to the refining of America also derives from the immigrant labor used to build reservoirs, streetcar lines, subways, railroads and buildings to pave streets and to install and repair sewage lines.” (Scarpaci & Mormino p.12) Italian immigrants brought with them an agrarian, family oriented culture that placed emphasis on hard work as a means to succeed and survive. They felt that during troubled times, they can always trust in family. Throughout most of the 20th century there was a gradually increasing influx of immigrants from Italy who would settle in America. During the 1920s most Americans were leading prosperous lives and many Italian American colonies received infusions of capital derived as a result of breaking Prohibition laws. Most Italian Americans were adversely affected by the Great Depression. As a result they became part of Franklin D. Roosevelt's Democratic coalition. From World War 2 to the 1950s and 1960s more Italian Americans were middle class due to ample employment opportunities. By the mid-1970s Italian American young people were attending college at the national average. According to Census Bureau data, Italian Americans have an average high school graduation rate, and a higher rate of college and post graduate degrees compared to the national average. (Scarpaci & Mormino, 2008)From 1998 to 2002 many college students throughout the United States took classes to learn Italian. It is the fourth most commonly taught foreign language in U.S. colleges and universities with Spanish, French, and German being the first three most common. (Scarpaci & Mormino, 2008) While the number of Italians who immigrate to the United States has decreased currently compared to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, they mostly share the belief of previous generations of immigrants that there are many opportunities for success in the United States. According to Cavaioli (p.214) they generally “regard America as a “meritocracy,” as a land of greater opportunity where cumbersome bureaucracies do not hinder advancement.” . Unlike previous generations the present immigrants tend to be better educated, come by plane and continue to speak Italian. Many current Italian immigrants are more likely to maintain loyalty with their homeland and the United States leading to economic, political and social interaction between the two countries. “Exchange of money, participating in home country elections and emotional attachments characterize behavior of recent arrivals to the United States.” (Cavioli, p.224) This can partially be attributed to advancements in communications such as the Internet as well as in transportation. The 2000 census estimated about 16 million Americans (or 6 percent of the total U.S. population) are of Italian ancestry. (“Immigration, 2011”) The states with the most Italian American are New Jersey (1.5 million, 18.5 percent), Connecticut (653,000, 19.8 percent), and Rhode Island (202,735, about 20 percent). The Italian American population of New York is about 2.7 million, or 14.8 percent; Pennsylvania, 1.4 million or 13 percent; Nevada, 142,658 or 7.3 percent; California, 1.4 million or 4.3 percent; and Massachusetts, 890,000 or 14.5 percent. Other states with significant Italian American populations are Illinois (706,000, 5.8 percent), Florida (1 million, 6.5 percent), Ohio (713,015, 6.7 percent), and Louisiana (360,333, 5.2 percent). (“Immigration”). They primarily live in urban areas, however an increasing number of Italian Americans live in suburban areas throughout the United States. Italian Americans made contributions in various fields. During the latter part of the 20th century they had achieved equivalent levels of education, employment and income with Americans. Italian Americans served with honors in all of America's wars. Some received the Congressional Medal of Honor. There have been dozens of Italian Americans who have been elected to state governors, including most recently, Chris Christie of New Jersey, and Andrew Cuomo of New York. At the start of the 21st century Nancy Pelosi was Speaker of the House under President Obama, “the first woman to serve in that high office”. (Sandalow, p.3) Italian Americans made major contributions in engineering, medicine and science. For example, Robert Gallo initiated research that identified a cancer-causing virus, and the AIDS virus; Ricardo Giacconi developed the X-ray telescope. (Cavaioli and LaGumina) Some Italian Americans who are popular television personalities include talk -show hosts such as Jay Leno and Kelly Ripa. There are several Italian Americans who host cooking shows that feature Italian cooking. They include Rachel Ray, Mario Batali and Giada DeLaurentis. (Cavaioli and LaGumina) Italian Americans throughout the United States work in a variety of fields, from skilled trades, to the arts, to engineering, science, mathematics, law, and medicine. As of 2007 the population in Italy has remained at 58,147,733. (Cavaioli). Italy had always stressed the importance of family life, however currently it has a low population growth rate: 0.01% According to Cavaioli Italy’s birth rate “stands at 8.54 per 1000 births among the lowest in the world.” (p.224) Most families throughout much of Italy have no more than two children. Despite this slow growth Italy has taken in many migrants from Eastern Europe and Northern Africa. However this may not be enough to make up for Italy’s declining birth rate in order for Italy to maintain a reasonably sized population. According to the United States Census Bureau’s International Programs Center Italy’s population is projected to decrease to 56,234,163 in the year 2025 and then to 50,389,841 in the year 2050. (Cavaioli) In Italy most of the people live in urban areas. Rome, Milan and Naples are its largest cities. Each of these cities has more than a million people. “The most densely populated areas of the country are the industrialized regions of Lombardy and Liguria in the northwest, the Latium region in central Italy and the Campania region of the South.” (“Italy,”2011, p.499”) The mountainous regions of Italy have the least amount of people. Italian is the primary language spoken in most parts of Italy. However in some of the northern parts of Italy German and French predominate. Northern Italy is richer than Southern Italy in the sense that it is more urbanized and industrial than the South. There are more rural areas in the Southern part of Italy. More people in the South work in the agricultural fields. In both parts of Italy many people are employed in construction, manufacturing and construction. Many people from Southern Italy travel north for work in these industries because of the greater amount of opportunities to be found there. (“Italy, 2011”) Italy has made contributions in the arts and sciences. During the time of the Renaissance “Italy produced some of the greatest painters, sculptors and architects in art history.” (“Italy”, p.504”) Some of these achievements included those in architecture such as St. Peter’s Basilica which was designed in the 1500’s. Fillipo Brunelleschi designed the dome for the cathedral of Florence at that time as well. Throughout history Italian writers made contributions to literature that would have a lasting impact on future generations. For example Dante’s The Divine Comedy is a “masterpiece of world poetry.” (“Italy”, p. 504) The Italians also contributed to music and art. The first opera was composed during the 1500s. The artist Donatello created the statue of “David” which still stands in Florence. In the 1900s, Umberto Buccioni was a founder and the leading sculptor of the Futurism movement. Giorgio de Chirico became famous for his haunting paintings of empty city squares. Some Italians who contributed to the sciences include Giovanni Domenico Cassini who made many important discoveries about the Solar System; Marcello Malpighia a doctor and founder of microscopic anatomy; and the biologist Lazzaro Spallanzani, who conducted important research in bodily functions, animal reproduction, and cellular theory. (“Italy, 2011”) The worldwide financial crisis of 2007 decreased the economy of Italy by six percent. (“Italy, 2011”). In 2011, after some growth the economy again stagnated. For several years the Italian government has used money from the budget surplus on interest payments to other nations who have assisted Italy. The country’s debt to foreigners is nearly 800 billion euros is greater than the amount of Greece, Ireland and Portugal put together. Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi stated that he would resign as Prime Minister only if Parliament passed an economic stability law that would enact some of the austerity measures that the European Union wanted. The measures were passed on November 12, 2011 and Berlusconi resigned that day. He was replaced as Prime Minister by Mario Monti. With the newly formed government Mr. Monti began to work on new reform measures intended to help Italy’s economy. In March 2012 the Italian Senate approved several policies that could potentially foster economic growth. This was known as the Grow Italy bill. The proposals included liberalizing Italy’s closed professions and guilds, encouraging competitiveness and modernizing the nation’s outdated infrastructure in an effort to improve Italy’s economy.(Piangianni, 2012)The bill intended to increase competition in various sectors including those controlled by professional unions such as lawyers, notaries and pharmacists. However parties which supported the government were against this and other proposals so Monti curtailed the number of pharmacy licenses the government issued. He also agreed to allow individual city mayors to decide on how many taxi licenses to grant after a strike among them in major cities. The measures that Monti proposed require banks to provide fee-free bank accounts to low income retirees. Economists feel that high labor costs have decreased Italy’s productivity and employment rate. Companies that lower the cost of firing workers and increase protections for shorter term contracts would encourage companies to hire fostering growth. On April 18, 2012 in response to the worsening recession in Italy Monti pushed back Italy’s balanced budget deadline by a year. The Italian Cabinet is in the process of revising its three year economic plan which is intended to spur improvement of the Italian economy. “The Italian economy has lost 335,000 jobs since January 2011 and the unemployment rate is 9.3 percent increasing to almost 32 percent for people aged 15-24.” (Donadio & Piangianni, 2012, p.2) The Italian government has stated that changes of the Italian labor law need to be implemented in order for Italy’s economy to grow and to provide permanent job protection to workers of all ages. Monti has struggled to push through these changes. During a news conference in Rome he said “We are a short-term government called on to make enduring changes,” (Donadio & Piangianni, 2012 p.2). He further stated that the changes he intends to implement would take place gradually but some growth would take place in the short term. Everything that we are doing now goes in the direction of spurring growth.” (“Donadio & Piangianni, 2012, p.2) A bill being reviewed by the Italian Parliament would increase raise payroll taxes on full-time permanent jobs to provide more social security benefits to shorter-term contracts. The Italian government had vowed to balance the budget in 2013, but it anticipates a deficit of 0.5 percent of gross domestic product next year. By the following year the deficit is expected to decrease significantly and there was projected to be no deficit by the year 2015. Many Italian Americans as well as Italian natives are offended by the negative stereotyping of their ethnic group. An example of such a stereotype is the belief that all Italians are in the Mafia and engage in criminal acts. These stereotypes have been perpetuated in the media through films such as The Godfather, Goodfellas and Casino as well as TV shows such as the Sopranos.(Mangione) Other reinforcements of the stereotype have come from video games and board games with Mafia themes, and TV and radio commercials using these same themes. The stereotyping of Italian Americans as being associated with the Mafia crime was shown by a study of Italian American culture on film, conducted from 1996 to 2001, by the Italic Institute of America. The findings showed that over two thirds of the more than 2,000 films studied portray Italian Americans negatively. It was further shown that since the Godfather movies were released there have been several films that were released each year which portrayed Italian Americans as criminals. According to The Italic Institute of America: “The mass media has consistently ignored five centuries of Italian American history and has elevated what was never more than a minute subculture to the dominant Italian American culture.” (“Hollywood vs. Italians, 1997”) Reality television shows have seemed to dominate broadcasting in the last decade. Some of these reality shows perpetuate negative stereotypes of Italian Americans. One of these shows “Growing Up Gotti” which ran for two years on the A&E network featured Victoria Gotti daughter of the late mob boss John Gotti and her three teenage sons Carmine, John and Frank. These three boys were consistently seen speaking disrespectfully to their mother and other authority figures and have helped perpetuate the stereotype of Italian Americans being disrespectful, obnoxious and immoral. The “Gotti” boys had also indirectly led many people to believe a stereotype about Italian Americans being overly tan and using excess amounts of hair gel. ( “Stanley, 2004”)The show “The Jersey Shore” which is on MTV continues some of these stereotypes. The show portrays mostly Italian American young people living in a beach house in Seaside Heights, New Jersey. They mostly have odd names such as “Snooki”, JWow”, The Situation, “Pauly D” and “Sammi Sweetheart”. The young men on the show are stereotyped as "Italian Stallions". The young ladies on the show are stereotyped as flirtatious and indulging in high end fashions such as Prada and Gucci. Prior to its premiere in 2009 the National Italian American Foundation and the Order of Sons of Italy in America viewed the promos for the show and expressed criticism over the use of terms such as “Guido” and “Guidette” by its characters. These terms are considered demoralizing to most Italians. The majority of the dialogue on “The Jersey Shore” is incomprehensible but whatever is comprehensible mostly consists of cursing and discussions of hitting the tanning salon , looking for sex as well as petty violence. According to Andre Di Mino , President of Unico National, “Their behavior is reprehensible and demeaning in all respects. I don’t see any redeeming value in the show.” (Wyatt, 2009, p.3)These things encouraged more negative stereotypes. In the United States there are several organizations that help to protest against negative stereotypes of Italian Americans and highlight the positive contributions of this group. With the decline of immigration from Italy and the increase of immigration from other groups there is fear that the Italian heritage will be forgotten. “Italian Americans and their organizations are demanding to be heard and respected in their struggle for power and recognition.” (Cavaioli, , 2008,p.225) Some of these organizations include The Italic Institute of America, the Italian American One Voice Coalition and the Commission for Social Justice, the anti-defamation arm of The Order Sons Of Italy In America. Recently the CSJ initiated a national program to discuss who contributed to America. “Speakers were sent to schools to discuss the achievements of Italians, Italian-Americans and Italy’s contribution to the world.” (Milione, De Rosa & Pellizioli, 2010,p.3) In conclusion the richness of the Italian heritage may eventually be lost due to decreasing immigration to the United States from Italy, economic issues as well as a declining birth rate in Italy. Negative stereotypes of Italians perpetuate a false image of Italians in general to the extent where few people recognize the positive accomplishments of Italians. References Cavaioli F. (2008). Patterns Of Italian Immigration To The United States. The Catholic Social Science Review. 13, 213-229. Cavaioli, F. & LaGumina S. (2000). The Italian American Experience: An Encyclopedia. New York, N.Y.: Garland Publishing. Donadio, R., and G. Pianigiani. "Italy Pushes Back Balanced Budget by 2 Years" The New York Times April 18, 2012: 1-3. Managione, J.. La Storia: Five Centuries of the Italian American Experience . New York, N.Y.: Harper Collins Publishers, 1992. Millione, V., C. De Rosa, and I. Pelizolli. "Italian American Youth and Educational Achievement levels: How are we doing?" Calandra Italian American Institute (2010): 1-13. Pianagianni, G. (2012). Reform Bill Scaled Back as Italians Apply Politics. The New York Times, p. 1. Sandalow, M. 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