White American/European American - Essay Example

One of the main reasons why they stuck together the way they did was to escape hostility from other established communities in the country. Italian Americans faced a lot of challenges as they tried to settle to their new living conditions. Segregation and prejudice was a common challenge that the Italians had to face in their day to day lives. When the Italian immigration was at its peak in the late 19th century, there was a lot of hostility towards new immigrants (Parker, 2003). They were treated like second class citizens and they did not enjoy the same kind of social services that other white communities enjoyed.

Many white American communities, who had established themselves much earlier, despised Italians since they were seen as only a working class and nothing more valuable. This is because most of the immigrants came from impoverished backgrounds and therefore many of them lacked professional skills to work in white collar jobs (Sollors, 1996). There was also a lot of prejudice against the Italian immigrants for they were seen to resist assimilation. In fact, several of the immigrants returned to Italy after acquiring the wealth they wanted in the US.

The few that chose to remain continued to be despised for their lack of enthusiasm to integrate with other communities. They were and still are a clannish community who value family ties (Parker, 2003). This could explain why they kept to each other so much. Italian immigrants were also discriminated against for their religious affiliations (Parker, 2003). Many of them were Roman Catholics while the majority of white Americans were Protestants. They were seen as outsiders and treated as such (Burgan and Asher, 2004).

Language was also a major contributing factor to the prejudice being leveled against Italian immigrants. Many of them could not communicate in English and this made them stick