Our Foreigners: A Chronicle of Americans in the MakingOrth, Samuel Peter
History
Our Foreigners: A Chronicle of Americans in the Making
Orth, Samuel Peter
Immigrants -- United States; United States -- Emigration and immigration
They have come in two distinct streams: one from northern Italy,
embracing about one-fifth of the whole; the other from southern Italy.
The two streams are quite distinct in quality. Northern Italy is the
home of the old masters in art and literature and of a new
industrialism that is bringing renewed prosperity to Milan and Turin.
Here the virile native stock has been strengthened with the blood of
its northern neighbors. They are a capable, creative, conservative,
reliable race. On the other hand, the hot temper of the South has been
fed by an infusion of Greek and Saracen blood. In Sicily this strain
shows at its worst. There the vendetta flourishes; and the Camorra and
its sinister analogue, the Black Hand, but too realistically remind us
that thousands of these swarthy criminals have found refuge in the
dark alleys of our cities. Even in America the Sicilian carries a
dirk, and the "death sign" in a court room has silenced many a
witness. The north Italians readily identify themselves with American
life. Among them are found bakers, barbers, and marble cutters, as
well as wholesale fruit and olive oil merchants, artists, and
musicians. But the south Italian is a restless, roving creature, who
dislikes the confinement and restraint of the mill and factory. He is
found out of doors, making roads and excavations, railways,
skyscrapers, and houses. If he has a liking for trade he trundles a
pushcart filled with fruit or chocolates; or he may turn a jolly
hurdy-gurdy or grind scissors. In spite of his native sociability,
the south Italian is very slow to take to American ways. As a rule, he
comes here intending to go back when he has made enough money. He has
the air of a sojourner. He is picturesque, volatile, and incapable of
effective team work.
About 300,000 Greeks have come to America between 1908 and 1917,
nearly all of them young men, escaping from a country where they had
meat three times a year to a land where they may have it three times a
day. "The whole Greek world," says Henry P. Fairchild, writing in
1911, "may be said to be in a fever of emigration.... The strong young
men with one accord are severing home ties, leaving behind wives and
sweethearts, and thronging to the shores of America in search of
opportunity and fortune." Every year they send back handsome sums to
the expectant family. Business is an instinct with the Greek, and he
has almost monopolized the ice cream, confectionery, and retail fruit
business, the small florist shops and bootblack stands in scores of
towns, and in every large city he is running successful restaurants.
As a factory operative he is found in the cotton mills of New England,
but he prefers merchandizing to any other calling.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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