Made Men: the Whitening of Italian-Americans 1950-1975 ______
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MADE MEN: THE WHITENING OF ITALIAN-AMERICANS 1950-1975 ____________________________________ A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of California State University, Fullerton ____________________________________ In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts in History ____________________________________ By Amanda Bisesi Thesis Committee Approval: Robert McLain, Department of History, Chair Steven Smith, Departments of History and Psychology Susie Woo, Department of American Studies Spring, 2017 ABSTRACT This study argues that in the decades following the end of the Second World War, Italian-Americans achieved the status of “whiteness” in the United States due to the increasing popularity and romanticization of Italians in American pop culture. Through analyzing the growth in popularity of Italian celebrities in the 1950-60s, and the cultural impact of The Godfather films in the 1970s, the shifting image and whitening of Italians in the American mind can be seen clearly and understood. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................... ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ............................................................................................. iv 1. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................... 1 2. CELEBRITY AND WHITENESS ....................................................................... 12 3. THE GODFATHER IN THE AMERICAN MIND .............................................. 23 4. CONCLUSION ..................................................................................................... 38 BIBLIOGRAPHY .......................................................................................................... 40 iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my committee members, Dr. McLain, Dr. Smith, and Dr. Woo for their guidance on this project and throughout my time as an undergraduate and graduate student. Thank you to all of my History and American Studies professors at CSUF, you have all inspired me and taught me so much over the years. Thank you to Trevor McKnight for your love, encouragement, advice, and help with proofreading and editing. Thank you to my family, friends, and my parents Jim and Jacqueline for their endless love and support. iv 1 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION The treatment of Italians, and their image in the mind of Americans, changed dramatically in the twentieth century, from Italians, particularly those from the south, being heavily discriminated against to eventually being generally accepted as part of the white race.1 This study argues that in the decades following the end of the Second World War, Italian-Americans achieved the status of “whiteness” in the United States due to the increasing popularity and romanticization of Italians in American pop culture. Through analyzing the growth in popularity of Italian celebrities in the 1950-60s, and the cultural impact of The Godfather films in the 1970s, one can clearly discern the shifting image and whitening of Italians in the American mind. The American relationship with Italy is a complicated one, and has changed dramatically over the last century. Italy was, and still is to this day, a frequent travel 1 Italy had one of the largest mass migrations in world history, particularly in reference to southern Italians. Southern Italians were typically considered to be the working class and rural workers of the nation while the northern Italians were seen as wealthier and higher class. Northern and southern division in Italy still runs deep even to this day. Southern Italians were treated poorly politically, socially, and financially and left Italy to seek a better, more stable life in America. After Italy's unification in 1861, southern Italians hoped the country’s unification would lead to significant economic and political improvement, but they were sorely dismayed. The new government was made up mainly of northern Italians and they had little sympathy for the impoverished south. Taxes increased, food prices rose, and many were denied voting privileges. This government would actually treat the southern Italians worse than the governments of the former divided Italy ever did. Non-land owning Italians lived at the mercy of landowners. This new government, known as the Mezzogiorno, furthered the already deep cultural divide between northern and southern Italy. Southerners made up 2/5 of the Italian population and the extensive racism and oppression of the southern population added to the extensive list of factors that led to their departure to the United States. (Source: George De Stefano, An Offer We Can't Refuse: The Mafia in the Mind of America (New York: Faber and Faber, Inc, 2006), 19-20.) 2 destination for Americans. Americans were fascinated with Italian art, food, and culture. The first Italians to come into America were typically northerners that were often "artists, artisans, tradesmen, teachers, and political refugees."2 Americans and Italians traveled between the two nations frequently without issue. In 1880, over 40,000 Italians lived in the United States, and for the next decade two thousand Americans visited Florence every year, and 30,000 Americans visited Rome.3 American writers and artists frequented Italy as a source of inspiration. They saw Italy as a romantic and cultural experience, and Italy was for many Americans "a source of social and cultural capital, a land of romance and the picturesque, and a site/symbol of self-definition."4 However, American fascination with Italy tended to be stuck in the past rather than focusing on the reality of the modern day. Joseph P. Cosco's work Imagining Italians sums this ideal up best: For many Americans, the interest in Italy focused on the country’s glorious past, its cultural and social refinements, and the pastoral Italian landscape with its picturesque ruins and rustic peasants. Their Italy was the Italy of art and romance, an idealized, heroic Italy. For many Americans visiting Italy, “the whole country was like a stage, while the Italians seemed to them like actors playing parts in some poetic drama.5 Travel writing in America peaked between 1880 and 1914, and Italy was often the most talked about and most praised of all nations written about in these works. Poetry, historical novels, guidebooks, and a wide variety of other literature was written on the romanticized nation. 2 Joseph P. Cosco, Imagining Italians: The Clash of Romance & Race in American Perceptions, 1880-1910 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003), 5. 3 Cosco, 5. 4 Ibid, 6. 5 Ibid. 3 However, not all American accounts of Italy were positive. Parts of Italy that these writers visited were dirty and disorderly, and poverty was prevalent in many areas of the nation. When focusing on the Italian citizens themselves rather than the romantic culture of the nation as a whole, Americans had less positive things to say. They based their ideas off of stereotypes and saw the Italian people as "dishonest, mendacious, immoral, lazy, dirty, degraded, sensual, theatrical, and childlike."6 Bayard Taylor, a popular travel writer in the 1840s, wrote nothing but praise for the nation of Italy overall, but wrote scathing negative accounts of the Italian people themselves. It was typically the lower classes that these writers criticized, but stereotypes ran deep. When the Italians that they took issue with started coming into America, their "Italomania" quickly turned into "Italophobia."7 From 1891-1900, 655,644 Italians came into the United States, and an additional 2,045,877 came the following decade, the majority coming from southern Italy.8 Such immigration had never been seen before. America’s immediate reception was far from warm. One news source in 1890, the New Orleans Times-Democrat, stated that: The Germans, the Irish, and others, migrate to this country, adopt its customs, acquire its language, master its institutions, and identify themselves with its destiny. The Italians, never. They remain isolated from the rest of any community in which they happen to dwell. They seldom learn to speak our tongue, they have no respect for our laws or our form of government, they are always foreigners.9 6 Cosco, 7. 7 Ibid, 8. 8 Salvatore John LaGumina, Wop!: A Documentary History of Anti-Italian Discrimination in the United States (Toronto: Guernica, 1973), 72. 9 Ibid, 74. 4 The dark hair, dark skin, and dark eyes of southern Italians were already major disadvantages for them coming into America at the turn of the century, but their poor, rural upbringing also led them to having similarities with African-Americans in the type of work they were willing to do. They worked for little pay in physically demanding jobs, and this led to the further stigmatization of southern Italians, marking them as "black by local custom."10 For southern Italians, they were caught in an in-between status of race. Some of them were hired to replace African American workers, but "the perception by white Americans that southern Italian immigrants were racially "between" white and black, or in fact a third race, caused concern."11 Many southern Italians did not come into the country with pre-existing racism against African Americans, so essentially, they blatantly ignored the implicit social and racial codes that existed in most of the United States upon their arrival. Most of them had no particular feelings at all about African Americans or any other racial minorities, and any