PBS documentary details Italian struggle to make it in America
There is a template for the immigrant experience, dating to the 19th century: People come to the United States seeking better lives, often band together with their own kind for a while and eventually assimilate into the storied melting pot of American culture. Older generations are generally slower to adapt, often leaving it to their children and grandchildren to become fully Americanized, to the frequent dismay of their elders.
In some cases, though, the old ways die especially hard, and that was true for “The Italian Americans,” subjects of a fascinating four-hour documentary airing over the next two weeks on PBS.
Written and produced by John Maggio and narrated by actor Stanley Tucci, “The Italian Americans” begins, of course, in Italy before it was Italy. Even after Garibaldi succeeded in joining the northern and southern parts of the peninsula, life in southern Italy was harsh and impoverished. Unification only made things worse, as Rome imposed heavy tax burdens on poor farmers of the south. If you had a small garden plot near your house, you wouldn’t tell anyone except your closest relatives because if word got out, you’d be taxed.
That mind-set, added to the tradition of the impenetrably strong Italian family unit, accompanied Italian immigrants when they journeyed to the United States in the late 19th century. Eighty-five percent of Italian immigrants were from the poverty-stricken southern part of the boot.
Discrimination is an ugly and sadly unavoidable part of the immigrant experience, and Italian Americans endured it far longer than some ethnic groups and in different ways over the years. Arriving in this country, they were classified as white, but their “dark” complexions were noted in official paperwork.
The more they stuck to their Italian-speaking families, the harder it was to find work or acceptance in the U.S. Many never intended to stay permanently anyway, just long enough to make some money to take home to Italy.
In the early years of the movie industry, Italian-born Rudolph Valentino was a megastar but only in so-called exotic roles. He was said to be terrified of going out in the sun because exposure would darken his complexion even further. Despite his success in films such as “The Sheik,” he couldn’t get a non-exotic role.
The documentary’s segment on Prohibition and the rise of the mob is relatively short for two reasons. First, the era has been covered extensively in other films, including Ken Burns’ “Prohibition.” Another reason, though, is that while the image of the Italian gangster endures in popular culture, Italians didn’t have a monopoly on gangs during Prohibition: Many other ethnic groups responded to the lure of bootleg bucks as well. But they weren’t represented in Hollywood films of the ’30s and beyond. The dark Italian gangster in the pinstripe suit became a cultural icon that stuck through the ’50s and was then given a massive boost with the publication of Mario Puzo’s “The Godfather.”
Wrongly assumed mob connections weren’t the only basis of discrimination. In the years before and during World War II, the rise to power of Benito Mussolini in Italy and the growing possibility of war with Italy made Americans of Italian descent suspect.
Angelo Rossi was a three-time mayor of San Francisco and the first man of 100 percent Italian descent elected mayor of a major American city. He was a fierce anti-communist, battled corruption in the Police Department and was mayor when the city’s two most famous bridges opened in the ’30s. Yet, in 1942, he was hauled before a government committee and accused of being an Italian sympathizer and of making fascist salutes during the San Francisco Columbus Day parade. His political career was ruined.
World War II did a little to temper anti-Italian prejudice, but it also reinforced it. While thousands of Italian Americans fought beside other ethnicities in both Europe and the Pacific, some 600,000 Italian Americans were classified by the government as enemy aliens as soon as war broke out. Some were even sent to internment camps. Many of the victims of this heinous act by the government were elderly Italians who, with their traditional (and apparently well-founded) distrust of government, didn’t want to subject themselves to the process of becoming citizens.
Many viewers may be surprised by some of the stories of discrimination told in Maggio’s film. Oftentimes, it didn’t matter how American you were: If you were Italian, you were inferior.
Countless Italian Americans have risen to the highest ranks of politics (Nancy Pelosi, both Mario and Andrew Cuomo, Geraldine Ferraro), the judiciary (Antonin Scalia), sports (Joe DiMaggio), television (David Chase), music (Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Dion DiMucci, Connie Francis, Madonna), acting (John Turturro, James Gandolfini) and in virtually every other American walk of life.
Discrimination and other obstacles didn’t stop any of the men and women any more than it did a man named Amadeo Giannini, born in San Jose in the 19th century. He began as a produce broker in San Francisco and rose to become a director of the Columbus Savings and Loan. He had a comfortable life but observed that there were no lending institutions catering to Italian American immigrants. In 1904, he founded the Bank of Italy.
Two years later, San Francisco was devastated by an earthquake and subsequent fire. Giannini set up a temporary bank (a board resting on two barrels) on Fisherman’s Wharf and began lending money to Italian American small-business owners who had lost everything in the disaster. Knowing their work ethic, he was sure they were good for it, and they were. The city’s North Beach neighborhood rose from the ashes and rubble faster than other parts of the city, thanks to the man who founded what would be renamed the Bank of America.
Italian Americans have had to sacrifice a lot to make it in the U.S. As the film begins, we visit the Pennsylvania town of Roseto, which was overwhelmingly Italian at one point and was an object of study because of how few of its citizens died of heart attacks. The reason, which came to be known as the Roseto effect, was that Rosetans were unusually happy about their lives, defined by family unity and Old World values. As time went on, and Rosetans either became more Americanized or left the town, heart attacks rose to approach the national norm.
That says a lot about what Italian Americans hold dear, what they’ve had to sacrifice and what they’ve lost as they fought to gain equal status in the American melting pot.
Maggio employs the now-standard historical documentary technique employed most visibly by Ken Burns, but the real strength of his film rests in the care with which he builds his case about the epic struggles Italian Americans have had over the years, and their invaluable contributions to a culture that has taken a long time to accept them.