La Shawn Barber's History Of Immigrants

La Shawn Barber writes:

"Back in the day, immigrants flocked to the United States, ready, willing, and able to become assimilated, English-speaking Americans. They prized not only America’s opportunities but what America symbolized. These immigrants didn’t just want a good job or higher standard of living. They wanted to be productive and proud Americans. Today’s “immigrants,” mostly from Central America, have no such ambitions. They come to the U.S. for the employment opportunities and to take advantage of America’s social services. They know what suckers we are for the “disadvantaged,” and they use our own generosity and laws against us."

Great aunt, grandmother and great grandfather, Sicily c. 1913. My great grandfather was a shoemaker, thus the nice shoes.

Restoration, Dr X., Photoshop, 2005, click photo for full-size view

Barber's assessment of earlier immigrants to the US is consistent with a popular American narrative, but that narrative is hardly the entire story of immigration to the US.  Plenty of scholarly work on immigrant history has been done and there is a great deal of worthwhile material available to the nonacademic reader, as well. As anyone who gives the subject a moment of serious thought might imagine, the historical reasons for immigration, the characteristics of immigrants and immigrant adjustment to life in the US varies with nativity and time period.

My own family history is typical of the nearly 7 million Italians who arrived in the US between 1880 and 1925. La Storia: Five Centuries of the Italian American Experience includes a well-rounded account of Italian immigration to the US. That account is entirely consistent with what I know from first hand contact with my immigrant relatives, the last of whom died in the early 1990s.

I can't speak from personal knowledge about all immigrants "back in the day," but I can speak about my Italian ancestors and many family friends who emigrated from Italy between 1900 and 1921, shortly before the US closed the door to immigrants because of widespread concerns that are quite similar to the concerns Americans have about immigrants today. One big difference between then and now is the easy movement and communication between the old country and the new, but in many respects, including motivations for immigration and feelings about their adopted country, the old immigrants and the new are not nearly as different as Barber imagines.

I’m not sure if Barber had some particular group of past immigrants in mind, but Italians were the single largest group of non-English speaking immigrants to the US in the early 20th century. Her characterization of earlier immigrants has nothing to do with the immigrants I knew growing up in my large extended family, many of whom lived in the Italian ethnic neighborhoods of Brooklyn.

If she includes the single largest non-English speaking immigrant group in her generalization about earlier immigrants to the US, then Barber is wrong in her opinion about the acquisition of English language skills. Only a few of my immigrant family members ever learned to speak decent English. Their children were bilingual while none of the second generation learned to speak Italian even though we heard it spoken daily.

Barber is also wrong about the reasons these immigrants came to the US. They didn’t come here because they wanted to be Americans. They came for economic reasons. This was typical of Italian immigrants who were born into the entrenched poverty of Southern Italy and Sicily. When times were tough, many received public assistance of one sort or another. For example, they made use of the public hospitals when they suffered serious illnesses. One uncle of mine had a severe spinal problem requiring surgery and six months hospitalization as a teen, all paid for by the City of New York in the late 1930s.

These immigrants were decent, hardworking human beings who were not looking to game the system, but when they needed help, they accepted it. They were not unusual in that regard. I realize that doesn’t fit the current mythology, but the mythology has gotten the story wrong.

One little known fact about Italian immigrant history is that many of these immigrants had no intention of remaining permanently in the US when they arrived here and they had very mixed feelings about life in America. A fair number never became US citizens at all. Most of those who became American citizens did so only after they decided that they would never return to live in Italy.

And, even though travel by sea was slow and costly, there was more travel back and forth between the US and Italy than is generally realized. While some of my ancestors never returned to Italy, one great grandfather made the trip six times and another made the trip twice. A group including a great grandmother, an aunt and an uncle moved back to Italy for several years in the 1960s. After several years, they returned to the US to live out their lives having concluded that they weren’t quite Italian or American. This was not an uncommon experience for these immigrants, although it was unusual to make the move back so many years after initially coming to the US.

There is a complex history behind why these immigrants came to the US in the first place, why they stayed or returned to Italy, how they felt about their lives here and how the succeeding generations became part of mainstream America. Obviously, Barber did not grow up with intimate, sustained contact with Italian immigrants, nor I suspect did she know any southern European immigrants. I believe that there are serious problems with immigration today, as there were 100 years ago and my comments should not be construed as an argument for or against current immigration policy. I would just say that Barber is off base in her sweeping generalizations about past immigrants and that I believe it is terribly unfair of her to rely on a fictional narrative to demean today’s arrivals.

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h/t: maggies farm

Comments

[Tim Agazio]

I'm surprised you didn't get completely flamed for addressing the issue with facts instead of the popular emotional fiction. Well said!

Tim Agazio
www.genealogyreviewsonline.com
www.agaziofamilyhistory.org