Italian Immigration History

   Poverty, overpopulation, hunger, and natural disasters were being spread all over Italy. Families of six to ten were living under houses too small for anyone to live properly; and as if that was not bad enough, violence  and iletracy were at an all time high, with 70% of the population not being able to read or write. The 18th century was not a good time to be living in Italy. So many families, usually very poor ones, said that enough is enough and they packed their bags, put whatever they could fill their pockets with, ( most probably something like ten dollars) and they set out to the new world.

  Now this definately does not mean that the Italians had an easy job getting there, oh no, far from it. During this time ( 1875-1975)  America is where everyone wanted to be and the Italians were no exception; so you can imagine that getting there had its complications. Southern Italians would have to take a boat from Sicily if to have chance to get to the United States. So families would ask for tickets or permission slips and hope they could there before the boat leaves them behind. The family would go through the long Atalntic Ocean and pass through a little island of the name Ellis. All immigrants would be interviewed to see if there was anything suspicious about them, and if there was, they would probably be deported back all the way to Italy.

  Once they reached the United States, the Italians would take all different paths of where they choose to live and how they worked. Most though, would stay around the New York area and take jobs that required alot of manual labor, such as construction. Others in California however, would work as wine brewers and farmers. Living Conditions for these people reminded them alot like the life of their home country, in overcrowed apartments and houses, trying to save as much as possible because, believe it or not, most Italians planned on returning to Italy in the near future. Like other immigrants, Italians would build a community around the people of the same background, this where places like Little Italy were born and still exist to this day.

Your Italian family leaving their homeland, with only 24$

           

     To conclude the Italians have been a part of the U.S. for quite some time now (the that discovered the Americas IS Italian) and although they have not had a very strong presence in the history of this country, they are not accounted for. I mean who has NOT watched the Sopranos?