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Jessica Lee Dissertation “To the Seventh Generation” Italians and the Creation of an American Political Identity, 1921-1948 Jessica Harriet Lee Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2016 © 2016 Jessica Harriet Lee All rights reserved ABSTRACT “To the Seventh Generation” Italians and the Creation of an American Political Identity, 1921-1948 Jessica Harriet Lee The increase in Italian American political power from the 1920s through the 1940s coincided with the rise of Fascism in Italy and Americanism in the United States—two opposing ideologies that greatly influenced how Italians practiced political citizenship. Benito Mussolini’s Fascist ideology demanded Italians’ permanent subservience to the Italian corporate state, even to the seventh generation abroad. At the same time, American xenophobes pushed Americanism; an anti-immigrant ideology that demanded foreigners’ total loyalty to America, its Constitution, and its Anglo-Saxon culture. Scholars have separately noted Italian Americans’ overwhelming support of Fascism and dramatic rise in electoral participation during the Great Depression, but few have investigated the overlap between those two developments. None have placed Italian Americans’ growing ethnic awareness within the context of American nationalism. This dissertation uncovers the causal relationship between Italian Americans’ Fascism and growing political capital, and demonstrates how ethnic elites worked with the Italian and American states to develop a new transnationalistic citizenship. Their new concept of citizenship did not deny the inherent nationalism of Americanism or Fascism, but rather recognized migrants as a special category of citizens with specific and unique rights and obligations to each of their nations. Beginning in 1930, Italian American elites made shrewd choices about how Fascism would spread and function in the United States to avoid government investigations. Italian immigrants first organized pro-Fascist clubs to find a collective purpose as transnationalistic citizens. Hoping to prove their value to Italy, immigrant elites first used their clubs to mobilize their growing communities in support of favorable terms of repayment for Italy’s World War I debt to the United States. The war debt campaign taught the Italian government and pro-Fascist immigrants that Italian Americans had the potential for great political power, but only if they naturalized and organized. To pursue naturalization and ethnic politics simultaneously they first needed to overcome their ideological conflicts with the Americanist values of total assimilation. Italian American elites resolved the tensions of choosing between Americanism and Fascism by bringing their communities together around an ethno-cultural nationalism, called Italianità, that pursued the ascension of Italian Americans in the United States and the supremacy of Italy in Europe. Italianità helped immigrants win support for their transnationalistic citizenship by using culture as a screen for advancing their political causes without drawing criticism. Seemingly apolitical events organized by Mussolini’s supporters brought Italian Americans masses to the attention of American politicians, like on Columbus Day. The more active Italian Americans became in support of themselves and their homeland, the more aggressively American politicians courted their votes. By 1941, Italians had far surpassed Germans and Japanese in continual demonstrations of pro-Fascist nationalism through Italianità. Because they also eclipsed their co-ethnics in American voting power, the government largely ignored Italians in its extensive investigations of un-American activities before and after Pearl Harbor. This dissertation is the first to recognize the political roots of the government’s investigations into Germans and Italians and the resulting arrests during the war. The strategies employed by immigrant elites in the 1920s and 1930s enabled Italian ethnics to escape the mass internment and arrests of the 1940s. Rather than shrink from their ethnic identity, Italian Americans employed the full weight of their political capital to serve their community through the end of World War II. Table of Contents List of Tables and Charts iii List of Abbreviations iv Acknowledgements v Introduction 1 Chapter One: 27 To the Seventh Generation: Fascism, Americanism, and Transnationalistic Citizenship, 1921-1929 The Origins of Fascism in America, 1921 33 Problems and Solutions for Italian American Citizenship 38 Fascism Abroad: In Action and Out of Control 53 End of the Fasci, Beginning of Fascism in America 63 Chapter Two: 70 From a Political Virginity: The Development of Italian American Fascism, 1930-1940 Quantifying Fascism 74 Defining a New Italian American Fascism 79 Spreading Fascism 86 The Written Word: Newspaper Editors go to Work for Fascism 86 The Spoken Word: Commerce engages with Italianità 103 Film: Organizations Spread Propaganda 122 Chapter Three: 132 Marrying the Fascist Cause: Italian Americans Embrace Italianità, 1935-1936 Italianization: Language Instruction for the Second Generation 136 The Ethiopian War: Italy, America, and International Politics 156 Chapter Four: 188 The Italian American Vote Characteristics of Ethnic Politics: Germans, Jews, and Italians 191 Foreign Born Issues: Immigration Reform, Relief, Recognition 210 Immigration Reform 215 Relief and Reemployment 218 Recognition 221 The Platform of Italianità: Status in America and Abroad 224 Symbols and Rhetoric 224 Organizers and Organizations 230 Italy and America, 1936 Election 234 Italy and America, 1940 Election 237 i Chapter Five: 246 Good Americans, Good Italians, 1940-1948 Un-American Activities: The McCormack-Dickstein Committee of 1934 251 Un-American Activities: The Dies Committee of 1938 257 The Committee’s Effect 263 America at War 273 The Year of Anxiety: December 8, 1941 to October 12, 1942 280 Italy’s Victory is America’s Victory, 1942-1943 287 “A Vote for Dewey is a Vote for Italy” 1943-1944 298 Letters to Italy 308 Conclusion 318 Bibliography 328 ii List of Tables and Charts Chart 1 Foreign Language Students in New York City, 1932-1936 144 Chart 2 Italian Red Cross Donation Amounts 163 Chart 3 Italian Red Cross Donor Numbers 164 Chart 4 Change in Ethnic Groups over Time: Italian and German 193 Americans, 1910-1950 Table 1 Percent Italians Voting Democratic for President in Six 213 Cities, 1924-1944 Chart 5 Roosevelt Percentage Vote in New York City, by 213 Ethnicity, 1932-1940 iii List of Abbreviations ACS, MCP Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Ministero di Cultura Popolare (Central Archive of the State, Ministry of Popular Culture) ASMAE Archivio Storico del Ministero degli Affari Esteri (Historic Archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs) DAS Dante Alighieri Society FLNA Fascist League of North America HSP Historical Society of Pennsylvania IHRC Immigration History Research Center NARA National Archives and Records Administration OSS, FNB Office of Strategic Services, Foreign Nationalities Branch iv Acknowledgements More than once I have heard the process of writing a dissertation compared to running a marathon: both include long stretches of loneliness and require the determination to keep going even when you can’t see the finish line. But a marathon also depends on the support of countless others along every step of the way. The success of this dissertation is due to the encouragement of my metaphorical coaches, spectators, sponsors, and training partners. I would not have begun this dissertation if not for my Bryn Mawr College professor Madhavi Kale, who cemented my passion for history by sending me into the archives for a research paper my first semester of college. Four years later, when I handed her my finished senior thesis I told her I did not quite feel finished writing about immigration. She told me I would go to graduate school and get a Ph.D. and here I am. At Columbia, I found myself again under the mentorship of thoughtful faculty who believed in my abilities and my potential. My advisor, Mae Ngai, provided steadfast support that taught me to trust my own process and not fear failure. My independence and confidence as a scholar are due to her training. Rebecca Kobrin encouraged me to seek opportunities outside of my research so I could do and say more as a historian than the confines of a dissertation allows. Eric Foner, Nara Milanich, and Josè Moya generously continued mentoring me long after our class time together ended. Karl Jacoby led a dissertation workshop with the Center for Study of Race and Ethnicity that dramatically shaped the first two chapters of my dissertation. Casey Blake and the Center for American Studies not only provided me with research grants but also nurtured a community of scholars who spoke earnestly across disciplines about their shared goals. Throughout graduate school my colleagues at Columbia bravely fought New York’s isolating influences to form real communities of intellectuals and friends. I have especially v benefitted from the critical support of Suzanne Kahn who not only inspired me as a paragon of discipline and hard work, but also talked me through my many writing problems while we ran together in Central Park. Debra Glasberg, Maria John, Sarah Cook, and Jeffrey Wayno formed a dissertation support group that provided good friendship and careful editing of my writing from my first grant application through the last pages of my dissertation. My
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