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Race & ethnic relations: American and global perspectives

Marger, M. N. (2015). Race and ethnic relations: American and global

perspectives (10th ed.). Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning.

WHITE ETHNIC

AMERICANS CHAPTER IO

In this chapter, we look closely at white (or Euro-American) ethnic groups, specifi- cally those described in Chapter 5 as part of the second tier of the American ethnic hierarchy, whose origins are chiefly part of the classic period of immigration that occurred during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

WHY STUDY WHITE ETHNIC GROUPS? -

It is important to look carefully at white ethnic groups for several reasons .

• They are a substantial element of ethnic America. Like other panethnic designa tions, of course, the very term white ethnic is only a categorical conve- nience, linking together numerous distinct groups. Nonetheless, there are many apparent similarities in the original immigration and settlement patterns these disparate groups followed and in their movement toward assimilation into mainstre~m American society.

• Because ethnicity has sharply declined in importance for white ethnic groups, it is easy to assume that it is no longer a factor in the social, political, and eco- nomic life of those who identify with them. But, as we will see, this assumption seems exaggerated and premature.

• None of these groups has reached parity with the dominant Anglo group in economic status and political power, none has entered fully into primary relations with the Anglo group, and none has completely lost its cultural form through assimilation. Hence, although white ethnics are becoming less clearly defined as their cultural and structural assimilation continue unabated, they remain discernible ethnic populations in American society.

• The social and economic disparities between Euro-American and racial-ethnic groups are a troubling issue of American society and have generated much debate among social scientists, policy makers, and the general public. Some see the gap as a product of internal group differences and others as the result of

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282 PART II ETH N ICITY IN TH E UN ITED STATES

inequitable social and economic opportunities. To shed light on this issue, it is necessary to understand how the characteristics and social experiences of white ethnic groups have been similar to and different from those of the country's racial-ethnic groups . What cultural systems and social and economic skills did each bring with them? What was the nature of the opportunity structure open to each? What obstacles to social integration for each were dictated by the domi- nant group? To what extent did each seek assimilation or strive to preserve eth- nic uniqueness? What was the nature and level of prejudice and discrimination directed at each? As we will see, although there are similarities between white ethnic groups and racial-ethnic groups on all these questions, there are also enormously consequential differences.

In much of this chapter, we focus primarily on two groups, Irish Americans and Italian Americans. The Irish are the largest group that came to America as part of the Old Immigration, that period roughly from the 18306 to the 1880s, whereas the Italians constituted the largest element of the New Immigration, from the 1880s to the 1920s. However, it is not only their size that makes it logical to study these two white ethnic groups in some detail. The Irish, as we will see, en- tered at the very bottom of the ethnic hierarchy but have advanced to the point where today they are, arguably, the most assimilated white ethnic group. In fact, in the estimation of some, they ar e now part of the dominant group. As for Italian Americans, in a number of ways they constitute the prototypical white ethnic group, illustrating well much of the general experience of Catholic ethnic groups of the New Immigration-:

Religion is the most critical factor distinguishing white ethnics in American soci- ety. As Catholics• and secondarily Jews (who will be examined in the next chapter), they were immediately set apart from the Protestant majority at the time of their en- trance and given a strongly negative reception. Also, the fact that they were notice- ably distant from the Anglo core group in other cultural ways and that they were generally poor at the time of arrival helped to set them on a more tortuous path of adaptation than had been experienced by earlier immigrants .

IRISH AMERICANS

The immigration of the Irish represents in several ways a watershed point in the his- tory of immigration to the United States.

• Irish immigration constitutes the first large-scale movement to America of non- Protestants. Roughly half of the German immigrants of the Old Immigration were also Catholic, but in numbers they were far overshadowed by the Irish.

• The immigration from Ireland beginning in the mid-nineteenth century repre- sents the first great influx of low-skilled workers destined for the mills and factories of growing American cities, rather than the farms and small towns that had been the more usual destinations of previous immigrants.

• Irish immigration gave rise to a virulent nativist movement aimed at limiting the entrance to America of non-Protestants. In the decades following the Irish influx, efforts to restrict immigration would continue, culminating in the 1920s in the cessation of large-scale immigration from Europe.

CHAPTER IO WH ITE ETHN IC AMERICANS 283

• Irish immigration prompted a redefinition of "race" in American society. Irish Catholics at first were not considered fully part of either the white or black population, and this indeterminate racial status was not resolved for several decades. Other European groups that would follow the Irish, those of the New Immigration, would present a similar dilemma of racial classification.

IMMIGRATION AND SETTLEMENT

We can better understand the Irish American experience by first examining the status of the Irish in their origin society before the great migration began.

ENGLAND IN IRELAND Although a pattern of English domination reaches back to the twelfth century, it was in the early part of the seventeenth century that England em- barked on its thorough colonization of Ireland. The most comprehensive colonizing effort was made in Ulster, the six counties that eventually would be set off from the rest of Ireland as Northern Ireland. There, Irish lands were confiscated and given to Scottish Presbyterians and English Anglicans to settle on. The native Catholics were either driven out of Ulster or subdued into a totally subordinate position. In the re- mainder of Ireland, the population was reduced to a slavelike status.

In the English view, the native Irish were uncivilized people against whom the most brutal tactics could be employed. Indeed, historian George Fredrickson (1981) suggests that the experience of the English in Ireland foreshadowed their colonizing practices and policies toward indigenous peoples in North A~erica. If the natives were uncooperative in ceding their lands, the "savage" image could be invoked, and they could then be either exterminated or confined to reservations. Unlike the settlers' experience with the indigenous peoples of North America, however, the Scottish and English settlers could not so easily dispose of the Catholics. For one, there were simply too few settlers to impose total control. More important, English domination was not accepted easily by the subordinate Irish, and their resistance to colonial rule proved continually problematic. As Marjorie Fallows describes it, Ireland was "too close to England to be ignored" but "too rebellious to be tamed" (1979:16).

In 1641, Irish Catholics revolted in a massacre of Protestants, an action that was avenged a few years later with a countermassacre by the armies of the English dictator

' Oliver Cromwell. Afterward, confiscation of remaining lands held by Catholics began, and by the early 1700s, Catholics possessed only a tiny portion of all land in Ireland.

THE ScoTcH-IRisH At the end of the seventeenth century, James II, the last Catholic English monarch, was defeated by William of Orange. What followed William's vic- tory was an even more sustained suppression of the Catholic populace. The Catholic clergy was also restricted, as was the Irish educational system. A series of statutes called Penal Laws were enacted, intended to divest Catholics of all political and economic power. Though brought to bear most severely against the Catholic popu- lation, many of these oppressive laws were also applied against the Scottish Presby- terians, who had settled mostly in Ulster. This gave rise to the mass emigration of thousands of Ulster Presbyterians to the United States. These settlers were to be known in America as the Scotch-Irish and would make up a major element of the U.S. colonial population in the eighteenth century.

284 PART II ETH N ICITY IN THE UNITED ST ATES

The immigration of Irish Protestants must be seen as distinct and fundamentally different from the immigration of Irish Catholics. In America, Irish Protestants as- similated early on and afterward were in no essential way distinguishable from the Anglo dominant group. Indeed, it was Irish Protestants themselves who appropriated the term Scotch-Irish as a way of differentiating themselves from the subsequent waves of Irish Catholics (Kenny, 2000).

THE F AMINE IRISH Although they were the earliest immigrants from Ireland, the Scotch-Irish did not form the mold of Irish ethnicity in America. Rather it was the much larger and later-emigrating Catholic population of the south of Ireland who became the standard bearers of Irish ethnicity in America and who remain the group of reference when speaking of Irish Americans.

The mass immigration of Irish Catholics to America beginning in ~he 1830s was marked by almost classic push-pull factors . Potatoes had been the Irish staple food and was, literally, the means of subsistence for the peasant population. Although crop failures had been endured in the past, the blight that struck in the late 1840s was nothing short of catastrophic. Famine and disease were rampant, resulting in perhaps a million deaths (Miller, 1985). For most, the choice was simple: emigrate or perish. As historian Lawrence McCaffery has written, most Irish Catholics arriv- ing in the United States during this period "were running away from destitution and oppression rather than rushing toward freedom and opportunity" (1997:7). When combined with the push of a deteriorating rural economy, the pull of North America with its seemingly unlimited labor opportunities was irresistible. The response was overwhelming. Between 1845 and 1855, about one-fourth of Ireland' s entire popula- tion emigrated overseas, almost 1.5 million sailing to the United States and another 340,000 to Canada. Many of those who initially landed in Canada later found their way to the United States.

The journey across the Atlantic was, for this generation of Irish immigrants, al- most as harrowing as the passage of African slaves being transported to America. Disease and starvation ensured that a large percentage would never make it to their destination. In 1847, 30 percent of those bound for Canada and 9 percent of those destined for the United States perished while on board ship or shortly after landing (Kenny, 2000). So many died making the crossing-which could take as long as six weeks-that the vessels carrying Irish immigrants became known as "coffin ships."

In the decades following the Great Famine, push and pull factors stimulating Irish emigration- enduring rural poverty in Ireland and the promise of jobs elsewhere- did nbt essentially change. As a result, Irish immigration to North America continued; more than 2.5 million Irish left for America between 1855 and 1900. With the contin-

., ued flow of immigration, large Irish American communities took shape, which in turn financed the passage of future immigration from the island. Hence, many leaving Ire- land had their passage paid for by relatives or friends already settled in North America (Meagher, 2001) .

S ETTLEMENT AND W ORK The Irish were in many ways unprepared for life in an indus- trial, urban society. Most were poor peasants who lacked the skills and education that could be converted into rapid occupational mobility and economic success in the new society. As a result, most entered the labor force in unskilled jobs, where

CHAPTER IO WHITE ETHNIC AMERICANS 285

they and their children remained. The Irish were, as Edward Levine describes them, America's "first truly proletarian labor force" (1966:59). They found work in rail- road and canal construction, as stevedores on docks of major ports, and in the vari- ous building projects of the expanding cities. Wherever they settled, the Irish were disproportionately concentrated in the lowest-paid, least-skilled, and most danger- ous and insecure jobs (Glazer and Moynihan, 1970; Wittke, 1967).

The majority of Irish immigrants settled in cities of the Northeast, especially New York and Boston, where work was plentiful in manual laboring occupations that were compatible with their low skill levels . This was a settlement pattern unlike that of other groups of the Old Immigration, like Germans and Irish Protestants (the Scotch-Irish), most of whom scattered to other regions . The overwhelming settlement of Irish immigrants in urban areas seems a paradox in light of the fact that most were rural or small-town peasants in origin. Their poverty, however, almost automatically ruled out establishing themselves as farmers. Their immediate need was to secure work as unskilled laborers, which they found in the cities. Moreover, their rural ex- perience had been mostly as workers familiar only with potato cultivation, not as owners or managers (Jones, 1992). Irish tenant farmers in Ireland also had not ac- quired the skills needed for the style of farming prevalent in America. Most were field laborers who knew only how to work small bits of land using simple tools, an agricultural skill set not suited to large independent farms requiring knowledge of planting and harvesting (Levine, 1966; McCaffrey, 1997).

The squalor of living conditions endured by early Irish immigrants to America was comparable to that found in European cities of the nascent industrial age. These teeming urban slums produced Irish death rates that were actually higher than they were in Ireland (Wittke, 1956). With the added burdens of blatant discrimination by Anglo Protestants in almost every aspect of social and economic life, many turned to drink and to crime. High crime and alcoholism rates, in turn, further strengthened the popular image of the Irish as incorrigible, corrupt, violent, drunken, and incapable of ever becoming acculturated to American- that is, Protestant- ways. And, they gave added stimulus to what had already been a virulent anti-Catholic nativism.

WOMEN IN THE WORKFORCE A unique aspect of the Irish immigration to America was its large component of single women. In fact, as many women came as men, all seek- ing work. After the Great Famine, a system of land inheritance was institutionalized in Ireland in which only one son could acquire the family farm . Because marriage was often dependent on having land as a means of supporting a family, men com- monly married late and many did not marry at all. This obviously reduced the chances of marriage for Irish women. The lure of America for young Irish women, therefore, was twofold: the greater likelihood of finding a husband and readily avail- able employment.

Irish immigrant women found their occupational niche as domestic servants. In fact, almost all Irish women who worked did so as domestics. Stephen Steinberg (1989) has addressed the curious fact that working women of other immigrant groups did not engage in this work, typically choosing instead the garment trades or textile factories. Since so many Irish immigrant women, unlike those of other im- migrant groups, were unmarried and had no families in America, Steinberg explains, working as live-in domestic servants was a perfectly logical option: "[I]t provided

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286 PART II ETH N IC ITY IN TH E UN ITED ST AT ES

them with a roof over their head and a degree of personal security until they were able to forge a more desirable set of circumstances" (1989:160). There was no cul- tural proclivity for Irish women to opt for this occupation any more than there was a culturally based distaste for it among those of other ethnic groups. The concentra- tion of Irish women in this occupation was simply a rational choice, necessitated by economic need. Second-generation Irish women, more economically secure, were no more inclined to choose domestic service than women of any other ethnic group.

POWER AN D SOCIAL CLASS

The Irish in America utilized two institutions to establish their place in the society: the Catholic Church and the Democratic Party. Ultimately, they came to dominate both.

URBAN POLITICS For Irish Americans nothing stands out more clearly i~ their adaptive patterns than their great success in the political realm, particularly at the local level. It was in urban politics that the Irish made their initial and longest-lasting mark on American society. No ethnic group ever more successfully exploited urban politics as a means of establishing their place in the society and as a stepping-stone to upward mobility.

In New York and other cities, the Irish took command of the Democratic Party and created an effective political machine. The Irish-led urban machines of the nine- teenth century are often ds;picted as corrupt institutions that ruled cities through voter fraud and by rewarding friends and coethnics with political spoils. This is not an inac- curate picture. But party bosses and their organizations that relied on patronage and graft had been pr~valent in many large American cities long before the Irish came upon the scene. Most important for Irish immigrants, the machines served as key sup- ports for individuals and families adapting to city life, seeking to find their place in a trying and often hostile social environment. In return for loyalty at the polls, the ma- chines helped Irish workers overcome the employment discrimination they often faced by providing government jobs and by negotiating contracts with Irish-owned enter- prises. Police and fire departments in New York, Chicago, and other cities, for exam- ple, became heavily Irish in makeup. The machines also provided money, housing, and food to destitute immigrants who had no other means of support.

The urban political machines, then, were crafted to serve Irish interests and, later, the interests of Poles, Italians, Jews, and other groups that followed them. They were undeniably corrupt, but the means by which they operated must be placed into historical context. This was a time when governments did not provide aid to needy or sick families. A welfare state did not exist to give succor to those who lacked the skills and financial resources to survive in a capitalist system .

Whether the means used by political bosses were corrupt, therefore, must be weighed against their effectiveness in providing what struggling immigrants required. "The politician, " notes Marjorie Fallows, "was a pivotal figure in the complex pat- tern of loyalties that marked the Irish neighborhoods-a realist who was less con- cerned with abstract notions of public service and good government than with the practical concerns of keeping himself in office by building up a patronage system that would bind politician and constituent together in a web of mutual obligation and loyalty" (1979:113).

CHA PTER IO WH ITE ETHNIC AMER ICANS 287

How is it that largely uneducated peasants became so adept at capturing the ur- ban political system and utilizing it to their advantage? Some have attributed Irish political success to their experience with English governmental institutions in Ireland, making it logical that they would adroitly deal with the American system based essentially on a similar legal structure (Levine, 1966). Moreover, the fact that the Irish spoke the language of the dominant group upon arrival proved a huge asset that other groups could not quickly utilize. 1

Others explain the ability of the Irish to take command of urban machine poli- tics as a natural outgrowth of a culture brought from Ireland. Glazer and Moynihan (1970) point out that under the Irish Penal Laws, Catholics had almost no legal rights. For redress, therefore, they had to look outside the legal system, that is, to more personalized agents. This dependency was transferred to the urban setting in America. One could not rely on the legitimate government but needed rather to turn to informal authorities within the Irish American community. This is essentially how city political machines, like the ill-famed Tammany Hall in New York, func- tioned. Also, familiarity with the Roman Catholic Church provided the Irish with a disciplined hierarchical order that could be used as an organizational model (Dinnerstein et al., 2003).

The ability to relate to potential voters at a personal level served as another valu- able asset for Irish American political leaders. Historian Carl Wittke has written that "Irish wit and adaptability, a gift for oratory, a certain vivacity, and a warm, human quality that made them the best of good fellows at all times-espe~ially in election campaigns- enabled the Irish to rise rapidly from ward heelers to city bosses, and to municipal, state and federal officials of high distinction" (1967:157). McCaffrey (1997) suggests that, in addition to such interpersonal sl<ills and knowledge of English, the Irish succeeded in American urban politics because this was an institu- tional area not monopolized by the Anglo-Protestant elite, who were more inclined to pursue business and the professions.

By the 1960s, the power of most urban political machines led by Irish politicians had faded . One notable exception was Chicago's Democratic machine, led by Richard J. Daley. Until his death in 1976, Daley, born and raised in a working-class Irish American neighborhood, governed the city as mayor in the style of an old-time political boss, dispensing jobs, housing, and various urban projects in return for loy- alty at the polls (Royko, 1971). As a consummate power broker, he cobbled together a diverse coalition of various ethnic groups and labor unions that enabled him to hold the reins of political power for twenty-one years. His son, Richard M. Daley, was elected Chicago 's mayor in 1989, a position he would retain, like his father, for more than two decades.

NATIONAL Pmmcs The prominence of Irish Catholics in American politics during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was confined mainly to cities with large white ethnic populations. At the national level the Irish did not play an equally con- spicuous role. This began to change in the 1930s when Franklin Roosevelt appointed

1 This point is disputed by Greeley (1981), who contends that many early Irish immigrants did not speak English or didn't speak it well. Moreover, Anglo Protestants also spoke English but obviously this did not lea d to their dominance of urban politics in the nineteenth century.

288 PART II ETH N ICITY IN THE UN ITED STATES

Irish Catholics to Cabinet and other high-level administrative posltions. But the greatest achievement of national political power occurred in 1960 with the election of John F. Kennedy as U.S. president. Kennedy's election marked a milestone not only for the Irish but for American Catholics generally. No Catholic had been elected president, and only one Catholic before Kennedy had even been nominated as a pres- idential candidate by either party. That occurred in 1928 when Al Smith, a plain- speaking, self-made Irish American Catholic, was chosen by the Democratic Party to run against Republican Herbert Hoover. The election proved to be one that would expose the enduring strength of anti-Catholicism in the United States in the early decades of the twentieth century.

Smith had grown up on the sidewalks of New York City and with the help of Tammany Hall rose through the ranks of the Democratic Party, eventually being elected governor of New York. In the presidential campaign, a number of issues sep-

' arated Smith and Hoover, in particular Prohibition (which Hoover favored and Smith did not), but the issue underlying all else was religion. Despite Smith's strong assurances that his Catholicism would have no influence on his administration, vi- cious innuendos and rumors ceaselessly plagued his candidacy: "The Pope will move to Washington as soon as Smith wins"; "A tunnel connecting the White House to the Vatican will be built"; "Protestant marriages will be annulled." Protestant ministers openly preached sermons against Smith, filled with virulent anti-Catholic rhetoric. Smith's association with Tammany and the fact that he was an Irish Ameri- can who favored ending -Prohibition only magnified the fears of Protestant America, particularly in rural areas and small towns.

Although Sm,ith carried the vote of most of the country' s large cities- whose populations were heavily Catholic working class-he was rejected overwhelmingly in the rest of the country. Even if religion had not been a major issue, Smith likely would have lost since the United States at the time was relatively well off economi- cally. "General Prosperity," said Hoover afterward, "was on my side" (quoted in Boller, 2004:227). But Smith and many others saw the outcome as an expression of the country's still powerful anti-Catholicism. No political observer denied that reli- gion had played a significant role in his defeat.

More than three decades after Smith's failed bid for the presidency, once again the American electorate demonstrated its reluctance to place a Catholic in the highest political office. The 1960 campaign of the Democratic nominee, John F. Kennedy, showed that anti-Catholic prejudice remained sufficiently widespread and deep- seated to strongly influence a national election.

Kennedy was part of a wealthy Irish American family that had played a prominent political role for several generations in Boston. Reminiscent of the Smith candidacy in

., 1928, Kennedy stated unequivocally his belief in the absolute separation of church and state and offered his assurance to skeptical voters that on public matters he did not speak for the Catholic Church, nor did the Church speak for him. Addressing a meet- ing of Protestant ministers in Houston, Kennedy declared, "I am not the Catholic can- didate for President, I am the Democratic Party's candidate for President who happens also to be a Catholic" (quoted in Sorensen, 1965). But the issue persisted throughout the campaign. As in 1928, bigots and extremists on the right continued to issue warn- ings that the Pope would be governing America if Kennedy were elected. Anti-Catholic t\'.~Ct'i> 'N'CH'.. d\<i>t\'.\bu.t\:d ti) m\\hl)m, l)l homes, a\ong wit'n rac\i.o anc\ TI attacks ana

CHAPTER IO WHITE ETHN IC AMER ICANS 289

countless mailings. Kennedy won by the barest of margins, despite the fact that long- term Democrats who were Protestant abandoned the party in droves.2

Kennedy's presidency seemed to put an end once and for all to any obstacles to Catholics in their quest for the nation's highest elective offices. Irish Catholics in prominent political positions on the national political scene are now accepted as commonplace, and their ethnicity ha s virtually no bearing on their public images. In recent years, Irish Americans have served as vice president, as Speaker of the House of Representatives, as Senate Majority Leader, in numerous Cabinet posi- tions, and as justices of the Supreme Court.

THE CHURCH Aside from urban politics, the realm within which Irish Americans would make their strongest impression was the Catholic Church. As the first sizable Catholic immigrant group and one that possessed that priceless asset, the English language, it was perhaps only logical that the Irish would come to dominate the Church in America. By the time other Catholic immigrant groups- Italians, Poles, Slavs- began to arrive in America as part of the New Immigration, the Irish had al- ready taken control of the Church hierarchy. This created discontent and resentment on the part of other Catholic ethnics, who often felt alienated from parishes and priests who did not speak their language and had little understanding or sympathy for their unique religious needs (Levine, 1966).

A vital component of Irish domination of the Catholic Church in America was the establishment of a system of parochial schools at all educational levels. The de- sire to educate Irish children in parochial schools was in large measure motivated by the anti -Catholic discrimination that typified American public schools in the mid- nineteenth century. For succeeding generations, the Catholic school system served not only as a bulwark against what were seen as dangerous Protestant influences but as the key institution in building and sustaining an Irish American community amid the surrounding Anglo majority .

As late as the 1970s, sociologist Andrew Greeley (1972) reported that 35 percent of the clergy and 50 percent of the hierarchy were still Irish despite the fact that Irish Americans were only 17 percent of all Catholics. In recent years the influence of the Irish in the American Catholic Church has begun to wane as Hispanics have become its population bas6; and parishes have adapted to radically changed demographic conditions. Nonetheless, the residue of Irish dominance still permeates the Church's educa tional and administrative structures.

Soc1AL CLASS As already noted, most of the Irish who came during the great surge of immigration in the mid-nineteenth century were poor and unskilled. Indeed, severe impoverishment upon arrival in America is now one of the most frequently noted characteristics of this group's immigrant legacy. The entrance of Irish Americans sol- idly into the middle class, therefore, is a story of relative success. The movement from deep poverty to middle-class status, however, took place over a period of sev- era l generations.

2 In o ne of the closest presidential elections in American history, it was th e efforts of Daley's political machine in Chicago that enabled Kennedy to win Illino is, thereby assur ing him the necessary electoral rn res to win th e presidency.

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290 PART II ET HN ICITY IN THE UN IT ED ST AT ES

In the latter decades of the nineteenth century, Irish Americans began to move up the occupational ladder as they took advantage of the opportunities created by expanding industrialization. Their social ascent was aided as well by the entrance of new immigrant groups whose members began to replace them on the bottom rungs of the class hierarchy. Still, Irish progress was largely incremental, moving within the working class. If the immigrant generation worked in mainly unskilled jobs in manufacturing and construction, their sons (the second generation) moved into occupations as artisans and craftsmen (Hershberg et al., 1979). The rise of labor unions in many new industries, often working in collaboration with urban political machines, was a major factor in facilitating Irish working-class upward mobility.

The Irish, along with other white ethnics, did not experience substantial move- ment into the middle class until the post- World War II era with its booming economy. Like other working-class white ethnics, hundreds of thousands of Irish Americans took advantage of the GI Bill, which enabled them to attend colleges and universities largely at government expense and to purchase homes with government-guaranteed low-interest mortgages.

By the end of the twentieth century, Irish Americans as a collectivity' ranked somewhat lower than other white ethnic groups in median household income, though the absolute differences among the groups were not great (Hacker, 1997). Today, Irish Americans are a solid element of the American middle classes. As can be seen in Table 10.1, on most dimensions of social class the Irish are at or above the national average. It is of note that white ethnics generally have been upwardly mobile in recent decades asjndicated by their increasing net worth. Lisa Keister's re- search (2007) has shown that non-Hispanic whites raised in Catholic families have accumulated relatively high wealth in their lifetimes, despite being raised in compar- atively disadvantage'd families.

PREJUDICE AND DISCRIMINATION

As the first immigrants to enter American society on a massive scale whose religious faith separated them fundamentally from the Anglo -Protestant majority, the Irish early on became the objects of rampant prejudice and discrimination. Much of the hostile reception given them was, by present-day standards, based on racist beliefs and attitudes. To understand the virulence of these beliefs and behaviors, we again need to consider the image of the Irish under their English masters in Ireland.

IR1sH STEREOTYPES In Chapter 4, inequalitarian pluralism was described as a form of ethnic relations in which dominant group members require those of the subordinate, or minority, group to perform the onerous physical laboring tasks of society that they seek to avoid. In rationalizing this system, subordinate group members are re- garded as innately inferior, not fit to perform work beyond the most simple and me- nial, and as childlike, requiring that their immature and irresponsible behavior be held in check by the dominant group. This describes the essential nature of ethnic relations in colonized Ireland. Among the English, a set of negative stereotypes por- trayed the Irish as an almost subhuman people. Irishmen were seen as brutish and animalistic, ignorant, pugilistic, drunken, and thoroughly incapable of ever becom- ing a civilized participant in the mainstream society.

CHAPT ER I O WHITE ETH N IC AM ERI CANS 29I

TABLE IO.I I Soc IOEC ONOMI C STANDING OF E u Ro -A M ERICAN E THNIC GROUPS, 2011""

Percent Professional Median Household Percent College or Managerial Income Graduates Occupations

Total U.S. population $50,502 28.5 36.0

Russiant $70,310 57.5 55.4

Greek $62,873 41.0 46.4

Scottish $62,670 43.0 47.8

Italian $62,286 35.1 42.2

Polish $61,846 37.6 42.9

Czech $61,758 40.4 46.8

Danish $61,669 40 .8 47.3

Welsh $61,188 42.5 49.2

Swedish $60,703 40.5 45.5

Hungarian $60,537 40.6 46.7

Norwegian $60,535 36.9 42.7

German $58,556 33.8 41.0

English $57,355 37.7 45.4

Irish $57,319 33.3 40.9

Portuguese $57,127 23.7 34.0

Scotch-Irish $56,242 41.6 47.3

French $54,688 30.8 40.2

Dutch $52,791 29.3 39.3

*European-origin groups with more than one mill ion who claim sole ethnic ancestry.

t A large percentage of those who claim Russian ethnic origin are Jewish.

Source: U.S. Census•Bureau (2012a).

These harshly negative images of the Irish carried over into North America. Un- like the earlier-arriving Irish Protestants (the Scotch-Irish), who largely escaped rejec- tion, they were poor peasants and, more importantly, Ca tholics, a combination of social characteristics that would set them apart sharply and fuel the nativism of this period. "Nativists in Britain and the United States," writes McCaffrey, "despised Irish Catholics as cultural and political subversives, treacherous agents of authoritar- ianism, ignorance, and superstition, the key ingredients of popery" (1997:2). With anti-Catholicism as the core of nativists' antagonism, the growing waves of Irish im- migrants were portrayed as the carriers to America of a potentially polluting influ- ence. As a result they were subjected to bitter and often militant prejudice and discrimination, expressed by "No Irish Need Apply" notices commonly displayed by landlords and employers.

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292 PART II ETHN ICITY IN THE UNIT ED ST ATE S

The caricature of the Irish as ignorant, drunken, and quarrelsome was a staple of early and mid-nineteenth-century American society. Newspapers would be filled with descriptions of the brawling and rioting of Irish workers. Popular illustrated magazines regularly featured cartoons that portrayed the Irish as "apelike creatures with large mouths , thick lips, protruding lower jaws, jagged teeth, short noses with gaping nostrils, sloping foreheads, receding chins, and dangling arms" (Ross, 2003:133). The totality of these images conveyed above all that the Irish were infe- rior, not only culturally but perhaps even biologically. The fact that most were poor, uneducated, and living in squalid urban conditions reinforced those beliefs.

Greeley points out that much of the same negative portrayal and imagery of blacks in American society was, in the nineteenth century, aimed at the Irish:

Their family life was inferior, they had no ambition, they did not keep up their homes, they drank too much, they were not responsible, they had no morals, it wa.s not safe to walk through their neighborhoods at night, they voted the way crooked politicians told them to vote, they were not willing to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, the y were not capable of education, they could not think for themselves, and they would always remain social problems for the rest of the country. (1972:119- 20)

In the twentieth century, Irish stereotypes were modified to convey a less threat- ening image. The Irish were seen as fun-loving, comic, and affable, but still as exces- sive drinkers and brawlers. The characterization of the hard-drinking, fighting Irish has survived even today as evidenced by media portrayals and in popular culture.

THE IRISH AND WHITENESS It is important to consider how the Irish, the first among many American imrhigrant groups who did not closely conform to the dominant group, were viewed in terms of race and ethnicity. Their case demonstrates the fluid nature of "race" and how the meaning of this concept can be altered. The racial sta- tus of the Irish was indeterminate at the time of their entrance into American society and for many decades afterward. In the labor hierarchy as well as in all other realms of social and economic life they were not considered black, but neither were they qualified to be members of the dominant white (that is, Anglo-Protestant) group. Historian Noel Ignatiev writes that "[s]trong tendencies existed in antebellum America to consign the Irish, if not to the black race, then to an intermediate race located socially between black and white" (1995 :76).

David Roediger (2005) similarly describes the Irish of the mid-nineteenth cen- tury as the first of those groups considered racially "in-between," who only later would be assigned to the "white race." The Catholic and Jewish immigrants that would follow them, as part of the New (second wave) Immigration were character- ized as "races" and would encounter the same question of classification: where did

.. they fit in the American racial configuration? The indeterminacy of the racial status of members of those groups would remain an issue for several decades before they acquired the full status of "whiteness."

Roediger chronicles how the racial status of the Irish and other immigrant groups was eventually decided as a result of government policies, Census designations, and employer preferences that ensured the distinction of white ethnics from African Amer- icans. But the Irish themselves-and later, other white ethnics-shortly after entering the United States came to understand the need to distinguish themselves from blacks.

CHAPTER IO WHITE ETHNIC AMERICANS 293

The new immigrants, Roediger explains, quickly became attuned to the American ra- cial system, and were made aware of white supremacy, characteristically demon- strated by the Irish. They understood that as lowly as they might be viewed and dealt with, they still might become naturalized citizens and thus, at least symbolically, enter the white world. "Even at a low point of their racialization," Roediger writes, "the new immigrants remained in-between, or 'conditionally white'" (2005: 144 ).

Above all, it was in the world of work that the racial distinction between the Irish and free blacks was ultimately determined. Ignatiev has written that in all U.S. historical periods "the 'white race' has included only groups that did 'white man's work"' (Ignatiev, 1995:112) . Thus, in order to authenticate their "white" status, Irish workers refused to work with blacks and monopolized occupations that had previously been filled by free black laborers.

THE IrusH AND AFRICAN AMERICANS The historical relations between Irish Americans and African Americans have commonly been characterized as harsh and confrontational. This relationship stems from the fact that in the early decades of immigration, blacks were frequently the chief competitors of the Irish for unskilled jobs and were often brought in by employers to depress the wage scale or used as strikebreakers against striking Irish workers . More basically, only blacks stood below them in the racial hier- archy. Labor violence, often pitting Irish against black workers, was not uncommon.

In 1863, the tension between Irish and black workers erupted in one of the most horrific riots in American history. The Draft Act of that year, intehded to expand the Union Army in the ongoing Civil War, permitted men to evade military service by buying the services of substitutes to take their place. The impoverished Irish saw this as imposing an unfair burden on them. More important, they did not support one of the key rationales of the war, an end to slavery, since this meant the introduction of freed blacks into the labor market and, therefore, additional competition for unskilled jobs. Anticonscription riots broke out in many northern cities, but the most violent and deadly occurred in New York, where for five days, mobs roamed the streets, kill- ing blacks and burning and pillaging. Although many Irish fought for the Union in the Civil War, they did so, as lgnatiev (1995) explains, primarily to establish their claim to citizenship and secure their place in the racial hierarchy as "white."

In recent decades, opposition to school busing for the purposes of racial integra- tion has sometimes reflected an Irish American tinge. In Boston in the mid-1970s, for example, vivid pictures were transmitted throughout the country of white, largely Irish, rioters in South Boston screaming racial epithets _?t school buses carrying black children into what they saw as their territory. Opposition to affirmative action has also been seen by some political observers as a major factor in explaining the move- ment of a large segment of the Irish American electorate in the past two decades to the Republican Party, abandoning what for more than one hundred years had been its traditional loyalty to the Democrats (McCaffrey, 1997).

Although the historical animosity of the Irish toward African Americans is well documented, the comparison of Irish Americans with other white ethnic groups on racial issues in recent years reveals little difference. In fact, Irish American attitudes toward neighborhood and school integration in the early 1970s were more favorable than among any other white ethnic group, with the exception of Jewish Americans (Greeley, 1977).

294 PART II ETH NIC IT Y IN TH E UN ITED STATES

ASSIMILATI O N

"If one is convinced that the most appropriate goal for American culture is the ho - mogenization of the various components of the total population into one relatively WASP -like group, then the story of the American Irish is a great success." That is how Greeley (1972 :256) has described the status of Irish Americans in the U.S. eth- nic system. More than any white ethnic group, the Irish appear to have been most thoroughly absor bed into the mainstream of American society.

CU LTU RAL A SS IMILATION Looking at contemporary Irish Americans in terms of Gordon's assimilation model (Chapter 4 ), it appears that they have reached the point of full cul- tural assimilation. Many, in fact, would argue that, to all intents and purposes, Irish- American ethnicity exists today only in symbolic form. The Irish, as Greeley puts it, "are the only European immigrant group to have over-acculturated" (197.2:263 ). Or, as McCaffrey has described them, Irish Catholics have become "America's favorite ethnics" (1997:192).

Though Irish Americans can be said to have come close to complete cultural as- similation, one group characteristic remains distinct and strong enough to continue to serve as an identity marker: religion. Thus, despite the almost total lack of a discernable Irish American ethnic culture-St. Patrick's Day has become no less an American holiday than St. Valentine's Day- Catholicism remains an evident cultural feature that distinguishes Irish Americans from the dominant Anglo group .

STRUCTURAL ASSIM ILATION By the 1950s, anti -Catholic prejudice and discrimination had waned considerably and any remaining suspicion of American Catholicism- still overwhelmingly dominated by Irish Americans- was effectively put to rest by the election to the presidency of John F. Kennedy in 1960. Today there appear to be no impediments to the movement of Irish Americans into positions of power and influ- ence in government and in the corporate world. All indications are that secondary structural assimilation is a process that will continue unabated.

In realms of power and influence aside from politics, such as the corporate world and academia, the Irish presence is no less evident than that of other white ethnic groups (Greeley, 1972) . Alba and Moore (1983) found that by the 1970s, Irish Catholics were well represented in key institutions of American society (see also Greeley, 1981). The names of Irish Americans are commonly found among the ros - ters of top corporate executives, in literature and the arts, and on university faculties.

At the level of primary structural assimilation, only religion continues to serve as an obstacle. Here, too, however , there is evidence to indicate a steady movement in the direction of complete assimilation. Intermarriage for Irish Americans is higher han for any other white ethnic group (Alba, 1976; Fallows, 1979). The resulting

ethnic mixture, Fallows writes, " has diluted the meaning of Irish American identity" (1979:149). This trend of increasing interethnic marriage is characteristic of all white ethnic groups, including, as we will see in the next section, those of southern and eastern European origin (Alba, 1990; Sherkat, 2004 ).

What should not be overlooked in the success of the Irish is the fact that they made their initial entrance into American society early on, before the second great wave of immigration, and that from the outset their English-language skills and familiarity with an Anglo ruling class gave them an automatic head start,

CHAPTER IO WHITE ETHNIC AMERICANS 295

notwithstanding the virulent prejudice and discrimination they encountered. As Greeley has pointed out, "The American Irish had the shortest way to come of any of the immigrant groups-for all the impoverishment of the Famine, the Atlantic crossing, and the early years in the slums" (1972:258).

Another factor that accelerated the structural assimilation of Irish Catholics- and of white ethnics in general- was the termination in the 1920s of large-scale im- migration from traditionally Catholic countries in Europe. This gave white ethnic groups time to absorb American ways without the need to attend to a constant flow of new immigrants clinging to the old culture. In addition, the cessation of large-scale European immigration squelched the concerns of Protestant Americans who feared being overwhelmed by non-Anglo immigrants.

The important question regarding Irish assimilation is whether other white eth- nic groups, specifically those of the second great immigration wave of the late nine- teenth and early twentieth centuries, are following in their path. As we will see in the next section, all indications are that they are, though not necessarily in the same form or at the same pace.

ITALIAN AMERICANS AND OTHER WHITE ETHNICS

Although Irish Americans were the first of many non-Anglo, non-Protestant groups that would make the United States an ethnic polyglot, the term white ethnics is often used in a more focused sense to refer to groups of the New Immigration. As noted in Chapter 5, these were immigrants who came in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries pri- marily from southern and eastern European societies, especially Italy, Poland, Russia, Greece, and the various states that made up the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Small numbers of southern and eastern Europeans were part of American society almost from its founding, and a relatively small-scale immigration proceeded throughout the first three-quarters of the nineteenth century. Before 1880, however, about 85 percent of all immigrants came from Britain, Germany, Canada, and Scan- dinavia. By 1896, immigrants from Italy and the Russian and Austro-Hungarian em- pires accounted for more than half of total immigration (Ward, 1971). As part of the New Immigration, Italy contributed by far the largest number. Because of its size and because it represents in many ways the archetypal white ethnic experience, we will focus much of the following discussion on the Italian American population.

IMMIGRATION AND SETTLEMENT

For Italians, the large-scale movement to the United States after 1880 represented the second great emigration. Earlier in the nineteenth century, Italians had immigrated mainly to Argentina and Brazil and only secondarily to the United States. Many of these early immigrants, to the United States as well as to South America, were from northern Italy (Baily, 1999; Foerster, 1919).

IMM IGRATION Beginning in the 1880s, both the origins and destinations of Italian emi- grants changed. With the depletion of coffee plantations in Brazil and political turmoil in Argentina, most Italians now found the United States more attractive. And whereas the northern Italian provinces had previously supplied most of the immigrants,

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296 PART II ETHNICITY IN THE UNITED STATES

southern Italy now became the major region of out-migration. This change in regional origin fundamentally altered the class and cultural character of the Italian population in the United States. By comparison with the more prosperous and literate immigrants from the North, those from the South were poor and uneducated. Moreover, wherea s the northerners had been mostly artisans, shopkeepers, and professionals, those from the South were mainly agricultural peasants.

Southern Italy had historically been an impoverished, backward area, subjected to constant economic and political exploitation by the region's ruling groups; but unusu- ally severe conditions were created in the latter nineteenth century. Depressed wages , little or no opportunity to improve a low agricultural output, little industrialization, poor health conditions, neglect by the central Italian government, and heavy indirect taxation all served to create a strong impetus for emigration. These push factors, com- bined with the pull of a burgeoning American industrialism calling for unskilled labor, resulted in a veritable exodus of southern Italian peasants. Between '1 880 and 1915, four million Italians went to the United States, half of them in the single decade from 1900 to 1910. Between 80 and 90 percent were from the area of southern Italy known to Italians as the Mezzogiorno, and about one-quarter of these were from Sicily (Foerster, 1919; Gambino, 1975; Lopreato, 1970; U.S. Census Bureau, 1975).

One extremely important characteristic of Italian immigrants of this time was that, unlike earlier Irish immigrants, most who went to the United States did not ex- pect to stay permanently. These were primarily men unaccompanied by their fami - lies, intent on earning money to purchase land after returning to their native villages. Many did go back. In fact, no other sizable immigrant group displayed such a high rate of return migration. Between 1908 and 1914, almost one-third of those who arrived from Italy eventually returned or migrated to another society. Be- tween 1915 and 1920, more than half returned, and between 1925 and 1937, 40 percent did so (Learsi, 1954 ). Like the Italians, most Greek immigrants during this period also came with intentions of returning after acquiring sufficient savings to establish themselves in a comfortable life in their home villages (Lopata, 1976).

SETTLEMENT Most Italians, like the majority of all immigrants of the New Immigra- tion, settled in cities. By 1920, three-quarters of America's foreign-born population were urban dwellers, including almost 90 percent of Russians, 85 percent of Italians and Poles, and 80 percent of Hungarians (Ward, 1971). The attraction of the cities was twofold. Most important, it was here that the great masses of low-paid unskilled laborers were needed. Secondly, most of the immigrants entered in a chain migration process, joining friends and relatives who had preceded them to these areas.

Italian immigrants in the cities tended to settle in depressed areas, inhabiting run-down tenements that had been vacated by earlier ethnic groups such as the Irish . The cluster of Italians in these areas was partially the result of simple economic ne- cessity; such housing was available and affordable. However, as with other groups of the New Immigration, the creation of ethnic concentrations in New York and other cities was also the product of the natural attraction of immigrants to areas inhabited by those from their regions in Italy who had preceded them to the United States. Ital- ian immigration was network driven, in which those from one village gravitated to locations where previous emigrants from the village had settled. There was little identity with the Italian nation per se. Rather, immigrants identified with the

CH APTER IO WHITE ETH N IC AMERI CANS 297

province from which they came or simply their village. As a result, Italian sections of American cities were internally subdivided into "Little Calabrias," "Little Sicilys," and the like, and neighborhoods were often settled by those from a common village or town in the province (Vecoli, 1964). Settlement patterns were similar even outside the large cities (LaGumina, 1988).

URBAN A DJUSTMENT Because cities like New York were at this time establishing their industrial infrastructures- roads, rail lines, subways, factories, housing- opportu- .. nities abounded for unskilled labor. It was there that these immigrants, like the Irish before them, found their occupational niches. Italians made up three -quarters of the building laborers in New York City at the turn of the century and almost the entire labor force constructing the city's subway system (Glazer and Moynihan, 1970) .

THE ITALIAN A MERICAN POPULATION TODAY

With almost 18 million people claiming either full or partial Italian ancestry, Italian Americans are one of the largest among America 's white ethnic groups (see Figure 5.2). Although it is far more dispersed than in earlier times, the Italian American population continues to be heavily urbanized and concentrated in the states and large cities of the Northeast (Table 10.2) . Italian Americans in the New York- New Jersey metropolitan region, for example, number more than 2.5 million, one of the largest elements of its ethnically diverse population.

W HITE ETHNICS AND SO CIAL CLASS

The southern and eastern Europeans who arrived in America as part of the New Im- migration are well into the third generation; many are even into the fourth genera- tion. Given the length of time since these groups ' large-sca le entry, some evaluation can be made of their progress on various socioeconomic measures, both in absolute terms and in relation to other American ethnic groups. How far have they come, what means have they employed in seeking upward mobility, and how might we ac- count for their current status in the overall stratification system? Again, we use Ital- ian Americans as that group that best illustrates the white ethnic experience.

TABLE I0 . 2 I STAT ES WITH HIGHEST P ERCENTAGE OF ITALIAN AMERICANS

Italian American Percent of Total State Population Population

Rhode Island 199,580 19.0

Connecticut 683,411 19.0

ew Jersey 1,480,876 16.8

M assachusetts 937,916 14.2

New York 2,674,040 13.7

Pennsylvania 1,559,649 12.2

o urce: U.S. Censu s Bureau (201 2a).

298 PART II ETH NICITY IN THE UNITED STA TES

INCOME AN D OccuPATION In terms of income, occupation, and education, Italian Amer- icans have "made it" in American society to a greater degree than many ethnic groups and to a far greater degree than African Americans, Latinos, and American Indians. Although upward mobility was minimal for the first two generations, the third and fourth generations are now exhibiting solid evidence of middle-class status. As seen in Table 10.1, the median family income of Italian Americans is well above the national average. As with Irish Americans, especially significant improvement oc- curred during the 1950s, a period in which the American middle class expanded greatly.

Little occupational mobility was evident for Italian Americans and other white ethnics between the first and second generations (Greeley, 1977; Yans -McLaughlin, 1982) . That is, most of the children of immigrant parents remained in working-class jobs. In the case of Italians, because children were expected to contrib'ute to the fa- mily's support, they entered the labor force early, precluding the more extensive edu- cation needed for higher-status jobs. Most Italian children thus followed their fathers into manual laboring occupations. But those of the third and fourth generations, with greater education, have moved in significant numbers into all occupational areas- including the top professions of medicine and law, where they had been se- verely underrepresented (Alba, 1985; Glazer and Moynihan, 1970) .

As with other indicators of socioeconomic status, in educational attainment Euro-American ethnic grolJpS have in recent years converged, with marginal differ- ences among them. Alba (1995) has shown that for men of southern and eastern European ancestry born between 1916 and 1925, there remain some apparent disadvantages whe~ compared to the educational levels of those of northwestern European ancestry. But when those born between 1956 and 1965 are looked at (these would be third - or fourth-generation ethnics), southern and eastern European origin men are at or above the average of northwestern European origin men.

Italian Americans remain more solidly working class than Jews, Irish, and sev- eral other white ethnic groups . Moreover, some have argued that Italian American mobility is a reflection not so much of the group's progress per se as of a change in the society's occupational structure. As more white-collar and professional jobs have been created, more Italian Americans (and other white ethnics as well) have filled them (Alba, 1985; Gallo, 1974). But the extent of their mobility is in any case quite extraordinary considering how relatively ill equipped they were at the time of their arrival to succeed in the American economic system.

In sum, the class position of white ethnics is on most measures at or above the national average. Moreover, for the third and later generations, parity with the so-

., ciety's core ethnic group, northwestern Europeans, has nearly been reached (Alba, 1985, 1995, 2009). Overall, then, the socioeconomic differentials between various Euro-American groups seem to be shrinking.

POLITICAL AND E CON OMIC POWER

Having looked at the place of Italian Americans and other white ethnics in the eco- nomic realm, let's look briefly at the power hierarchy. To what extent do members of these groups occupy positions of authority in the society's two key power institu- tions, government and the corporation?

CH APT ER IO W HITE ETH NIC AME RI CANS 299

N ATIONAL Pou11cs Patterns of participation at the highest levels of government paral- lel patterns in the economic realm: the first two generations made little progress, but in recent years, white ethnics have begun to achieve important positions in signifi- cant numbers .

Catholics in general- and southern and eastern European Catholics in particu- lar-were traditionally underrepresented in the highest offices of the federal govern- ment (Alba and Moore, 1982; Mills, 1956; Schmidhauser, 1960; Stanley et al., 1967). Figure 10.1 shows how radically this historical pattern has changed over the .. past several decades. Catholics, most of whom are white ethnics, today are actually overrepresented in the U.S . Senate and House in proportion to their share of the total population. Moreover, the choice of Michael Dukakis, the son of Greek American immigrants, as the Democratic nominee for president in 1988 seemed to mark a cul- mination in the national political fortunes of southern and eastern European ethnic groups, indicating their fullest entrance into American politics.

What is perhaps even more indicative of how radically and relatively quickly the role of religion has changed as a determinant of membership in the American political elite is the present-day makeup of the U.S. Supreme Court. No more than a few dec- ades ago, the Court was described as having a "Catholic seat" or a "Jewish seat," im- plying the need for at least token membership by non-Protestants. In 2013, not a single Protestant served on the Court, with six of its judges Catholic and three Jewish.

Looking at Italian Americans specifically, prior to the 1960s, their presence at the highest levels of the federal government was limited. Not until 1950 was an Ital- ian American elected to the Senate, and not until John F. Kennedy's administration in 1962 was an Italian American named to a Cabinet post. Since then, Italian Ameri- can representation in the Congress and at the higher levels gf the executive branch has steadily increased. By 1980, at least twenty-five Italian Americans were serving in the Congress, compared with four in the 1930s and eight in the 1940s

All numbers shown are percentages. Refused/

Jew ish o 't k 2 Am erican Public (adults) 2 ____ ~ on now

Protestant · Catholic Unafilliated 20 48 22

2

Congress-Senate and House

All other faiths J 5

Unspecified/ Refused/

Don 't know 2.1 ~-d

Protestant Catholic ., .. 56.1 30.6 '.

Mormon 2.8

All other faiths =:=l 2 .3

F IGURE IO . I I RELIGION OF THE AMERICAN PUBLIC AND CONGRESS Source: Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life (2012).

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3 00 PART II ETH N IC ITY IN THE UN ITED ST ATES

(Rolle, 1980). In 2012, six U.S. senators and twenty-five members of the U.S. House of Representatives were of Italian ancestry (NIAF, 2012) . Moreover, two Italian Americans currently serve on the Supreme Court, a sharp change from the past in light of the fact that no southern or eastern European Catholics had served on previ- ous Courts (Lieberson, 1980; Schmidhauser, 1960) .

STATE AND LOCAL Pmm cs Having arrived after the Irish had secured their place in the urban power structure, groups of the New Immigration began their movement into state and local politics only after World War II. Much of their success depended on the size of the white ethnic population in any particular city or state. Italian Americans, for example, attained substantial power in states and communities of the Northeast, where they constituted a large proportion of the electorate (Dinnerstein et al., 2003; LaGumina, 1988). Similarly, in cities and states of the Midwest, with large eastern European communities, white ethnics by the 1950s and 1960s commonly occupied high political offices (Lopata, 1976; Marger, 1974).

THE CORPORATE WORLD In the past, the number of Italian Americans in the executive suites of America's largest corporations had been well below their proportion of the general population. A study of Chicago's largest corporations, for instance, revealed that although Italians in the 1970s made up almost 5 percent of the city's population, they made up less than 2 percent of these corporations' directors and 3 percent of their officers (Barta, 1979). In New Haven, Connecticut, Wolfinger (1966) found that al- though Italians in 1959 made up 31 percent of the registered voters and held 34 per- cent of major political offices, they made up only 4 percent of the city's economic elite.

Similar patterns have been evident for other white ethnics. In the past, few entered into the top ranks of economic power. For example, in the previously cited study of Chicago's top corporations, Poles, that city's largest white ethnic group, were shown to be even more severely underrepresented than Italians. Although they made up al- most 7 percent of the city's population, they made up only 0.3 percent of these corpora- tions' directors and 0.7 percent of their top officers. Numerous studies have shown the historically consistent domination of the American business elite by those of northwest- ern European and Protestant origins (Baltzell, 1991; Davidson et al., 1995; Marger, 1974; Mills, 1956; Newcomer, 1955). Sociologist Suzanne Keller (1953), for example, found that 89 percent of top business leaders in 1900 and 85 percent in 1950 were Pro- testants, most of British descent; 7 percent in each year were Catholics; and 3 and 5 percent, respectively, were Jews. By the 1970s, little had changed- Catholics made up 14 percent and Jews 6 percent of the corporate elite (Burck, 1976). Alba and Moore in 1982 found a continuation of Anglo dominance of economic power positions. How- ever, Anglo overrepresentation in power elites (including those of the corporate world) now seems in decline, and Catholics are steadily moving toward parity (Christopher, 1989; Davidson et al., 1995; Zweigenhaft and Domhoff, 2006).

P REJUDICE AND DISCRIMINATION

In the United States today it is hard to visualize the fervor of prejudice and discrimina- tion directed at white ethnic groups in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Anti-Semitism (prejudice and discrimination aimed at Jews) has a long history in

CHA PT ER I O W HIT E ET H N IC AMER ICANS 301

American society, as we will see in Chapter 11, but, as was noted earlier, anti- Catholicism also has a lengthy heritage. It is important to emphasize, however, that the prejudice and discrimination directed at white ethnics never was as intense, wide- spread, or institutionalized as that aimed at racial-ethnic groups- African Americans, Latinos, American Indians, and Asian Americans. Though at times intense and even violent, discriminatory actions were ordinarily limited to derogation and denial of access to certain jobs, schools, and neighborhoods . Never were white ethnics denied ._ legal rights, as were blacks and, to a lesser degree, Asians; nor were they ever so thor- oughly excluded from the larger society.

ITALIAN A MERICANS: I MAGES AND ATTITUDES Italians suffered the usual antagonisms di- rected at Catholics generally, but anti-Italian feelings ran especially high as part of the newly inspired nativism and jingoism that arose in response to the new immi- grants of the late nineteenth century. Indeed, with the arrival of hundreds of thou- sands of southern Italian peasants, Italians now replaced the Irish as the chief target group of the country's well-worn anti-Catholicism.

Much of the prejudice and discrimination leveled at white ethnics was founded on racist ideologies. The early years of the twentieth century were a time when ideas of social Darwinism prevailed among scholars and policy makers alike, and new ra- cial theories were widely espoused and endorsed. Those groups composing the New Immigration-overwhelmingly Catholics and Jews-were therefore described in ra - cial terms, that is, as morally and even physiologically inferior, to Americans of northwestern European origin. The new immigrants were perceived not simply as different from those who had preceded them but as threatening to the very social and biological fabric of the society (Higham, 1963). Italians were seen as the most degraded of all the entering groups.

The poor and illiterate peasants from southern Italy were received quite differ- ently than the earlier northern Italian immigrants. Whereas the latter had been seen as honest, thrifty, law abiding, and generally "molto simpatici to the American char- acter," the southern Italians were viewed as degenerate, ignorant, lazy, dirty, desti- tute, violent, superstitious, and criminally oriented (Train, 1912, cited in Moquin and Van Doren, 1974). Northern Italians, too , seemed to share the prevalent Ameri- can view of the~r southern counterparts as a generally repugnant people (Gambino, 1975) . One journalist of the time put the matter quite bluntly: "What shall we do with the 'dago'?" Note his description of the Italian as almost animalistic in nature:

This "dago, " it seems, not only herds, but fights. The knife with which he cuts his bread he also uses to lop off another "dago's" finger or ear, or to slash another's cheek. He quarrels over his meals; and his game, whatever it is, which he plays with pennies after his meal is over, is carried on knife at hand. More even than this, he sleeps in herds; and if a " dago " in his sleep rolls up against another " dago," the two whip out their knives and settle it there and then; and except a grunt at being disturbed, perhaps, no notice is taken by the twenty or fifty other "dagoes" in the apartment. He is quite as familiar with the sight of human blood as with the sight of the food he eats. (Train, 1912, cited in Moquin and Van Doren, 1974:261)

The most serious elements in the negative image of Italians in America con- cerned their "criminal nature" and the existence of a widespread Italian criminal community, known as the Mafia, or the Black Hand. Few accounts of Italian

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302 PA RT II ETHN ICITY IN T HE UN IT ED STATES

immigrants during the late nineteenth century neglected the presumed criminal orga- nizations among them. By the 1890s, the image of the criminally prone Italians and their association with the Mafia was well established (LaRuffa, 1982).

The strong anti-Catholic sentiments of a large segment of the American populace as well as government leaders aroused fear of Italian immigrants and not infrequently incited hostile actions against them. Anti-Italian antagonism was also partially a re- sponse of established workers, who saw the immigrants as a cheap labor force and thereby a threat to their jobs. Killings and lynchings of Italians, mostly in the South but in other regions as well, were numerous between 1890 and 1915. The most seri- ous of these incidents occurred in New Orleans in 1891. Following the murder of the city's police superintendent, it was assumed that Sicilian immigrants were responsible, and hundreds of Italians were arrested. Nine were subsequently brought to trial, but none was found guilty. Anti-Italian sentiment was so feverish, however, that eleven of the suspects were taken from their jail cells by a mob and murdered; officials made no attempt to intervene. Afterward, local newspapers and business leaders expressed approval of the action (Gambino, 1977; Higham, 1963; Nelli, 1970).

Another especially notorious incident occurred in 1927. This was the infamous trial of Sacco and Vanzetti. Two Italian immigrants, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, were implicated in an armed robbery in Braintree, Massachusetts. Numer- ous witnesses attested to their lack of involvement in the crime, but despite the dubi- ous evidence against them, they were found guilty. After numerous appeals, they were executed in 1927. The case created a storm of protest among civil rights groups throughout the country_ and remained a cause celebre for many decades afterward. It emerged not only as an ethnic controversy but also as an issue of symbolic class war- fare. Those defending the two men's innocence saw their trial as a conflict between the oppressed ~or king classes and the wealthy WASP elite (Baltzell, 1964 ).

The guilt or innocence of Sacco and Vanzetti is still debated, but historians gen- erally agree that their trial was considerably biased and that the judicial process was seriously abused. Indeed, the perversion of justice in the case was finally acknowl- edged in 1977 when the state of Massachusetts officially proclaimed the trial unfair. In addition to the strong anti-immigrant sentiments of the time, the fact that the two defendants were avowed anarchists undoubtedly contributed heavily to their convic- tion. This was the era of the Red Scare, when government officials fanatically de- nounced and harassed union and socialist activities, in which Italians often took part. To many, Sacco and Vanzetti represented an affirmation of the perceptions held by much of the American public that Italian Americans were radical, conspira- torial, and criminal. These perceptions seriously colored the two men's arrest, trial, conviction, and, finally, execution (LaRuffa, 1982).

The Sacco and Vanzetti case had an enormous and lasting effect on Italian Americans, and for many years it influenced their view of the state and the judicial process. As Gambino has put it, "The outcome of the affair was simply another con- firmation of the ancient belief of the Italian immigrants that justice, a very important part of their value system, had little to do with the laws and institutions of the state" (1975:122).

E NDURING ITALIAN A MERICAN STEREOTYPES Although they are rarely expressed today as vir- ulently and hostilely as they were during the period of immigration, many of the early

CHA PTER IO W HI TE ETHN IC AMER ICANS 303

Italian American images remain dynamic elements of American ethnic mythology (Alba and Abdel-Hady, 2005). Few would be hard put to describe the "typical" Ital- ian American. Gambino observed the consistency of responses of non-Italians to his query about the Italian American image: "the Mafia; pizza and other food; hard hats; blue collar; emotional, jealous people; dusky, sexy girls; overweight mammas; frightening, rough, tough men; pop singers; law and order; pastel-colored houses; ra- cists; nice, quiet people" (1975:352). These stereotypes are reinforced by media depic- tions, especially television and films, and are frequently used in marketing products, ~ despite the fact that they do not reflect the reality of contemporary Italian American life (Gambino, 1998; Lichter and Lichter, 1982; Mitrano and Mitrano, 1996).

In 2009-2010, the reality series Jersey Shore, shown on MTV, seemed to illustrate the obdurate nature of these stereotypes. All of the hackneyed features of an Italian American, mostly working-class, ethnic subculture, created in large measure in 1977 by the film Saturday Night Fever, were on display: tough-talking, sexually obsessed young men and women wearing tight jeans and ostentatious jewelry, speaking in heavy Brooklyn dialect. One television critic described it as "less a reality show than a car- toonlike comedy that magnifies the vulgarity and bravado of a particularly colorful eth- nic stereotype" (Stanley, 2011). The show's theme created controversy in the Italian American community, with some deriding it as the prototypical negative depiction of Italian Americans. Others, mostly younger Italian Americans, saw the show and its ref- erence to "Guido culture" as less disapproving, simply reflective of an ethnic style. As one of the show's protagonists put it, "I was born and raised a Guido. It's just a lifestyle, it's being Italian, it's representing family, friends, tanning, gel, everything" (Cohen, 2010).

The most enduring negative image Italian Americans have had to deal with con- cerns the connection to organized crime. Because the Mafia is synonymous with orga- nized crime and Italian Americans are identified with the Mafia, the logic, to many, becomes simple: "Italians= organized crime" (Iorizzo and Mondello, 1980). Although few deny the considerable involvement of some Italian Americans with organized crime, Italians have held no monopoly on such activities. As many have explained, crime has been a traditional avenue of upward mobility for members of most ethnic groups in American society (Albini, 1971; Bell, 1962; Ianni, 1974). Italian domination of organized crime did not emerge until the late 1920s, when Prohibition made traf- ficking in liquor profitable. Before that time, much of organized crime was controlled by the Irish. As illicit drugs replaced liquor as the major underworld-supplied item, Italian organized crime turned to more legitimate business areas, leaving the drug traf- fic to newer urban ethnic groups (Cook, 1971; Ianni, 1974; Kleinknecht, 1996).

Even though Italians did not introduce organized crime to the United States, and never were more than a tiny percentage of Italian Americans ever engaged in such activities, the connection of Italian Americans with crime families remains steadfast in the public imagery. Movies and television have been important purveyors of this stereotype (Carilli, 1998; Cortes, 1994 ). Dating from the 1930s, the association of Italians and organized crime has remained a common Hollywood theme. Movies such as The Godfather, Married to the Mob, and GoodFellas, and television pro- grams such as The Sopranos are reflective of this genre. A survey in 2000 questioned teenagers of different ethnic backgrounds on their perception of movie and television stereotyping. When asked specifically to identify the role a character of Italian

304 PART II ETHNICITY IN THE UNITED STATES

background would be most likely to play in a movie or on television, most (including Italian Americans) responded "crime boss" (NIAF, 2001). Recall the relationship of media depictions of ethnic groups with the creation and persistence of ethnic stereo- types, discussed in Chapter 3.

PREJUDICE AND D1scRIMINATION TODAY Surveys have regularly recorded the periodic changes in prejudice toward blacks, Jews, Latinos, and Asians. By contrast, there has been little study of shifting public attitudes toward Italian Americans and other white ethnics. Beyond the persistence of certain negative stereotypes, what little evi- dence exists indicates a significant decline in prejudice and discrimination against these groups in recent decades. Cases of rejection in occupation and neighborhoods on the basis of ethnicity, however, were still evident well into the 1950s, In 1960, for instance, it was discovered that home owners in the exclusive Detroit suburb of Grosse Pointe had maintained a rigid point system for screening potential home buyers, based on personal traits such as accent, name, swarthiness, and especially ethnicity (Detroit News, 1990; Time, 1960) . Out of one hundred points, Jews were required to score a minimum of eighty-five, Italians seventy-five, Greeks sixty-five, and Poles fifty-five. Blacks and Asians did not count at all!

Antidiscriminatory legislation has made such cases today uncommon, but preju- dice and discrimination in subtle forms fueled by unrelenting stereotypes is not en- tirely something of the distant past (Crispino, 1980; LaGumina, 1996). For example, one study (Alba and Abdel-Hady, 2005) looked at the degree to which Ital- ian Americans have ,been afforded entry into the American intellectual elite, as indi- cated by their election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, composed of the most honored people in the academic, artistic, and scientific worlds. It found that Italian Americans were noticeably underrepresented and tentatively concluded that a process of ethnic exclusion, driven by traditional demeaning Italian American stereo- types, might account for this . And, in 2010, charges were leveled at the City Univer- sity of New York (which recognized Italian Americans as an official affirmative action category for employment), claiming that Italian Americans were underrepre- sented in university jobs (Foderaro, 2010).

ASSIMILATION

Whereas the applicability of either assimilationist or pluralist models of ethnic rela- tions in the cases of African Americans and Hispanic Americans has been widely de- bated, for Italian Americans, as well as for other white ethnic groups, there is little argument that assimilation has been the preeminent pattern of their adaptation to

.., American society and their relations with the dominant group. Although Italian Americans illustrate quite well the assimilation model of ethnic

relations, their collective rate and extent of assimilation have differed in the cultural and structural dimensions. They have substantially adopted the dominant cultural ways but have not entered into equal relations with the dominant group to a corre- sponding degree at either the primary or secondary level.

CULTURAL AssIMILATION Italian Americans have, with each succeeding generation, shed Italian cultural ways increasingly in favor of those of the core culture. Indications of cultural assimilation are apparent in such areas as family patterns, language usage,

CH APTER I O WHITE ETH N IC AM ERICA N S 3 0 5

and diet. In his study of Italian Americans in Boston's West End, Gans (1982) found that even by the second generation most no longer remained attached to the major features of the southern Italian culture. This generation had retained only traditional cooking and foods as well as some use of the Italian language. At the conclusion of his study in 1962, Gans predicted that with each following generation the traditional Italian culture would be further diluted; subsequent research has confirmed his pre- diction. In a study of Italian Americans in Bridgeport, Connecticut, Crispino (1980) .. found that even in such areas as food and cooking, acculturation had taken place to a very great extent in later generations. Whereas 44 percent of first-generation re- spondents continued the tradition of making their own pasta (which, Crispino as- serts, is "a more discriminating test of Italianness than cooking habits in general"), only 15 percent of the fourth generation did so.

Even intensely strong family ties and loyalties- the sine qua non of the Italian American cultural system-are weakened by the third generation or have begun to be replaced by more common American patterns (Alba, 1985; Crispino, 1980; Gans, 1982). For example, whereas divorce is either taboo or limited in the first two generations, it becomes more accepted in the third.

Perhaps the most telling evidence of the cultural assimilation of white ethnic groups in American society is the loss of the mother tongue. This is especially apparent in the case of Italian Americans. In Crispino's study (1980), 72 percent of second- generation respondents (both parents born in Italy) spoke Italian, but only 14 percent of the third generation (both parents born in the United States) amd 10 percent of the fourth generation (those most thoroughly assimilated culturally) did so. This pattern of language conversion is typical of all white ethnic groyps. Whereas many older members of these groups still speak a European mother tongue in the home, among younger people, usually by the third generation, hardly any do (Alba, 1995). Today, Italian remains one of the most common non-English languages spoken in U.S. homes (around 750,000), but this represents a tiny fraction of the total U.S. Italian American population and is likely to decline with each passing generation.

Observers of the Italian American ethnic group have uniformly noted the rela - tionship between social class and cultural assimilation (Crispino, 1980; Gambino, 1975; Gans, 1982; Lopreato, 1970; Roche, 1982). As class rises, the level of cultural assimilation ris~s correspondingly. Today the Italian American ethnic culture-to the extent that it is evident-remains essentially a working-class phenomenon. As they continue to leave the working class, moving into middle-class occupations and neigh- borhoods, Italian Americans become indistinguishable from other middle-class Americans. This is especially so among those of the third generation and beyond. These assimilation patterns are evident among other white ethnic groups as well.

STRUCTURAL A ss1MILATION At the secondary, or formal, level of structural assimilation, we have seen that Italian Americans have begun a large-scale movement into the American mainstream. Their occupational, income, and educational levels are at or above the average for the society as a whole (Table 10.1) . Most important, they have begun to enter positions of power within most institutional realms, though still in only small numbers at the very top echelons.

Within the context of personal social settings (that is, at the primary group level), the pace and degree of structural assimilation for Italian Americans is related

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3 0 6 PART II ETH N ICIT Y IN TH E UN ITED ST AT ES

to social class and generation. With upward mobility, close friendships are founded on common class interests and lifestyles, not ethnic or kinship ties (Alba, 1994; Crispino, 1980; Gans, 1982; Roche, 1982).

A key indicator of primary structural assimilation is residential integration. His- torians and sociologists have often noted the long-lasting cohesiveness and stability of Italian American neighborhoods (Glazer and Moynihan, 1970; LaRuffa, 1988 ). But this too appears to be mostly a class-related phenomenon, rather than something uniquely Italian American. Working-class people are generally more stable residen- tially primarily because their opportunities for spatial mobility are more limited than those of middle-class people. Therefore, because most first- and second-generation Italian Americans were working class, they were inclined to remain in their original central-city neighborhoods. With mobility into the middle class, hqwever, there has been as much propensity among Italian Americans as among other ethnic groups to leave the ethnic neighborhood for the more heterogeneous suburbs (Alba, 1995, 2009; Crispino, 1980; Gans, 1982; Martinelli, 1989).

Moreover, the residential solidarity of Italian Americans has often been exagger- ated. Studies have shown that in Chicago and Philadelphia, for example, Italians from the outset moved frequently from their original areas of settlement, regardless of their social class. The "Little ltalys" of various cities were in any case apparently never as homogeneous as has commonly been assumed (Hershberg et al. , 1979; Lopreato, 1970; Nelli, _1970). At an early point of the New Immigration, some groups, including Italians, were highly segregated in northern cities, to be sure. But this pattern changed quickly and radically in the early years of the twentieth century (Lieberson, 1980). Today, even wh.ere Italian American ethnic communities are evi- dent, their homogeneity is evaporating. In the greater New York region, Alba found that " [ t ]he Italians, some of whose ethnic communities are still conspicuous, reside mostly in non-ethnic areas, and their continuing suburbanization is eroding the most ethnic Italian neighborhoods" (1995:12).

INTERMARRIAGE The most critical indicator of primary structural assimilation is the ex- tent to which members of an ethnic group have intermarried with those of the domi- nant group or outside their own ethnic group. For white ethnics, there appears to be an increasing tendency toward intermarriage with each successive generation; in fact, most marriages today involve some degree of ethnic intermixing (Alba, 1995; Lee and Bean, 2010; Lieberson and Waters, 1988; Sherkat, 2004). As Waters has noted, "For white ethnics, the longer a group has been in the United States and the greater the percentage of its members in later generations, the lower the in-marriage ratios" (1990:104). By the 1990s, almost three -quarters of younger Italian Americans had spouses without Italian ancestry, and for Polish Americans the out-marriage figure was even higher (Alba, 1995).

THE FUTURE OF ETHNICITY FOR WHITE ETHNICS

THE DISAPPEARANCE OF WHITE ETHNICITY?

It is clear that the strength of ethnicity for Italian Americans and other white ethnic groups diminishes as they move increasingly from the working class to the middle

CHAPTER IO WH ITE ETHN IC AMERICANS 3 0 7

class. With upward mobility, social class rather than ethnicity becomes the most sig- nificant determinant of job, school, neighborhood, lifestyle, friendship circle, and even marital partner. For these groups there is also strong evidence to support what has been called straight-line theory, which posits that movement toward more com- plete assimilation proceeds irreversibly with each successive generation (Gans, 1979; Sandberg, 1974). 3

Does this spell the eventual disappearance of the Italian American ethnic COYQ- munity and others like it? That development may lie in the future, but it is unlikely in the lifetimes of contemporary white ethnics or their children. Whereas certain so- cial forces are propelling assimilation relentlessly, others serve to retard the process .

SYMBOLIC ETHN ICITY In any case, the form of ethnicity for current and future genera- tions of Italian Americans and other white ethnic groups in the United States will not be the same as it was for their parents or grandparents. Although they will probably continue to assert an ethnic identity and retain a few major elements of the ethnic cul- ture, their acknowledgment of ethnicity will be largely expressive rather than instru- mental. Gans (1979) has suggested the idea of symbolic ethnicity to describe the continued and at times even accentuated expression of ethnicity among those of the third and fourth generations. Ethnicity, he explains, becomes a matter of voluntary personal identity, but it is largely devoid of vitality as a determinant of social behav- ior. It is, as Richard Lambert (1981) has put it, vestigial, something of the past that people can identify with but that has a very limited effect on their daily lives.4

Distinctive and substantial white ethnic communities that ~nee made up much of the urban landscape of cities like New York, Chicago, and Boston are fast disappear- ing. For most white ethnics, upward mobility continues to impel residential disper- sion to heterogeneous suburbs, which, in turn, seems to lead irreversibly to a decline of ethnic awareness and identity. For these groups, ethnicity appears destined to function largely in a symbolic fashion.

EURO-AMERICANS : A N EW ETHNIC GROUP?

As ethnicity for Euro-Americans continues to decline as a consequential factor in various areas of social life, the boundaries of white ethnic groups become less and less distinct.' Ethnic consciousness has, as a result, progressively weakened. In fact, Lieberson and Waters (1988) have found that a substantial and growing portion of the white population is apparently unaware of its ethnic origins, does not identify with any of the commonly understood ethnic groups, or simply refuses to identify its ethnic ancestry. They refer to this grouping as "unhyphenated whites."

One of the forces contributing to this blurring of ethnic lines and the tendency for Euro-Americans to deemphasize ethnicity, at least in an instrumental fashion, is the enormous intermixing of ethnic groups that has been occurring continuously for the past 150 years. Today, it is increasingly difficult for people to affirm their ethnic

3 Gans, who first suggested the straight-line theory, has suggested that it be renamed "bumpy-line theory" to account for the unexpected movements that the assimilation process may take, sometimes even reverting to a more expressive ethnic identity. The direction of the movement-toward more thorough assimilation-does not change, however (Gans, 1992). 4 For a rejoinder to Gans' s thesis, particularly as it applies to Italian Americans, see Vecoli (1996\_

308 PART II ETHN IC IT Y IN THE UN ITED STAT ES

ancestry without declaring two and often several additional categories. For example, they may describe themselves as "Irish" but "Italian" as well. And, as earlier noted, ethnic intermarriage continues unabated. The result is that ethnic identity for Euro- Americans has become largely a matter of choice. And as ethnicity becomes more voluntary, resulting in fading ethnic boundaries, "in a sense," writes Richard Alba, "a new ethnic group is forming- one based on ancestry from anywhere on the Euro- pean continent" (1990:3).

Sociologist Mary Waters (1990) studied these fading ethnic divisions and found that, increasingly, white ethnics make conscious choices about their ethnic identity. Not only can they choose their ethnic affiliation but they can choose whether to em- phasize ethnicity in their lives at all. "Ethnicity," she writes, "is increasingly a matter of personal preference" (1990:89). Given the strong rate of intermarriage among white ethnics, each generation's ethnic background becomes more oomplex and dif- ficult to clearly define. Individuals-if they think of ethnicity at all- therefore begin to identify themselves in ethnic terms that reflect only a part of what may be their very elaborate ethnic heritage. People tend to stress only one element of their com- plex ethnic ancestry for any number of reasons. They may know more about one parent's family history than another, or their surname or physical characteristics may conform to stereotypical images of the chosen group, or they may perceive cer- tain of their ancestral lines as more socially desirable than others (Waters, 1990). In any case, for white ethnics, ethnicity is increasingly voluntary.

Yet the fact remains-that most Euro-Americans do choose and continue to affili- ate with some ethnic group. Thus ethnic identity, which may be in large part uncer- tain or even fictive, continues to play a symbolic function for many whites however little bearing it has on their social behavior or economic standing. They may care- fully pick and choose their ethnic affiliation, but, as Waters explains, "[i]t is clear that for most of them ethnicity is not a very big part of their lives" (1990:89). Ethnic- ity becomes mostly something that provides a feeling of community as well as an identification that may set one off as unique and interesting. It has no impact on vital life decisions like where to live, whom to associate with, or even whom to marry.

The tendency for individuals to make choices about their ethnic identity demon- strates that ethnicity is not fixed; it is fluid and can change in significance within one's lifetime or from one generation to the next.

In considering these "ethnic options," as Waters refers to them, it is important to understand that the kind of freedom to select the content and strength of one's ethnic identity is not the same for racial-ethnic groups. Whereas for Euro -Americans the question, "What are you?" can be answered as the individual chooses, for members of racial-ethnic groups the answer has already been given by out-group members. Af-

., rican Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and many Latinos do not, therefore, enjoy the same kind of options in the realm of ethnicity. "The reality," notes Waters, "is that white ethnics have a lot more choice and room for maneuver than they themselves think they do. The situation is very different for members of racial minorities, whose lives are strongly influenced by their race or national origin regardless of how much they may choose not to identify themselves in ethnic or ra - cial terms" (1990:157). Failure on the part of Euro-Americans to acknowledge that difference often leads to their belief that ethnicity need play no greater role for Afri- can Americans or Hispanic Americans or Asian Americans if they so choose.

CHAPTER IO WHITE ETHNIC AMERICANS 309

This creates misconceptions about the continuing strength of ethnicity and its impact on the lives of members of racial-ethnic groups.

SUMMARY

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Starting in the 1830s, Irish Americans were the first non-Protestant immigrants to enter American society in large numbers. They were almost all poor and .. unskilled at the time of their entrance and experienced severe prejudice and discrimination, primarily as a result of their Catholic faith. Nativism of the early and mid-nineteenth century was mostly an anti-Catholic movement, and the Irish, as a result, became its primary targets. The Irish used the urban political machine and the Catholic Church as the two institutions to establish their place in America . No other group, before or after, so effectively used the local political system to advance their cause as the Irish. The Catholic Church in America was basically shaped and led overwhelmingly by Irish Americans. Irish Americans have assimilated more completely than any other white ethnic group. Cultural assimilation occurred relatively quickly and structural assimila- tion has occurred over several generations. Today, aside from religion, the Irish are hardly distinguishable from the dominant Anglo group. Italian Americans are representative generally of Euro-American ethnic groups that derive from the classic (or New) immigration period from the late nine- teenth to the early twentieth centuries. Italian Americans, having entered the society at the -bottom of the class hierar- chy, had displayed significant upward mobility by the third generation. Today, they are at or above the national average in income, occupation, and education, and they have begun to enter positions of political and economic power. This holds true for other white ethnic groups as well. Beginning with large-scale immigration in the late nineteenth century, Italians in the United States were the objects of prejudice and discrimination, sometimes of a particularly virulent nature. Perhaps the most persistent negative stereotype that Italian Americans have had to deal with involves their identification with orga- nized crime. Italian Americans today display a relatively high level of cultural assimilation, and although it is less thorough and rapid, structural assimilation is also occur- ring steadily. As the assimilation process continues, for Italian Americans as for other white ethnic groups, ethnicity is increasingly reduced to a symbolic function and be- comes less a determinant of social behavior. As ethnic boundaries weaken, a new, Euro-American ethnic group may be emerging.

CRITICAL THINKING

1. Nativism in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries focused primarily on Catholics and Jews. Compare nativism then with its more current forms, di- rected primarily at Hispanic immigrants and Muslims. Are the claims,

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arguments, and political rhetoric of present-day nativists similar to those used earlier against Catholics and Jews?

2. If, as this chapter explains, the Irish were redefined as white ("became white") after several decades, will this occur for Asian ethnic groups and most Latinos, now considered "nonwhite?" What social, political, and economic forces would bring about that reclassification?

3. What is the likelihood that contemporary immigrant groups to the United States will assimilate in a manner similar to that of white ethnic groups of the nine- teenth and early twentieth centuries? Consider the social and economic circum- stances faced by Irish and Italian immigrants, and the various factors that affect assimilation, discussed in Chapter 4.

4. Consider the prevalence and strength of anti-Catholicism in America prior to the early twentieth century. Today, anti-Catholicism seems little mor~ than a his- torical footnote. What occurred to bring about such a radical shift in social thought and behavior?

PERSONAL/PRACTICAL APPLICATION

1. Most Euro-Americans today can claim to be ethnic hybrids, that is, children of multiple ethnic origins. As this chapter explains, they can literally choose their ethnic identity. If you are non-Hispanic white and are questioned about your ethnicity, how do you i dentify yourself? How did you decide on your ethnic self- identity?

2. Given the growing prevalence of intermarriage among all racial and ethnic groups, increasingly those who are not Euro-American can also begin to "choose" their racial-ethnic identity. However, is their freedom of choice the same as for Euro-Americans? Explain this .