Wop!: A Documentary History of Anti-Italian Discrimination in the United States

Description

Stereotyping, defamation, and caricaturing have been visited on virtually every ethnic group to enter the U.S.A., thereby confirming a paradox in human relations. A nation that rightly boasts of its welcoming record of newcomers from all over the globe also hosts divisive elements that denigrates new arrivals. This clearly has been the case for Italian immigrants and their issue even before the onset of mass immigration in the late nineteenth century. As the largest nationality group among the "new immigrants" and as the second largest immigrant group on record, Italians have been subject to some of the most blatant, brutal, and course forms of discrimination to affect any peoples. This volume (originally published in 1973) is the first to systematically investigate and record anti-Italian discrimination in the U.S.A. WOP! Contents Preface Introduction I. Anti-Italianism—The Embryonic Stage (Pre-1880) II. The Maturation of Anti-Italianism (1880-1890) III. Xenophobia During the High Tide of Italian Immigration (1890-1914) IV. Roman Catholicism as an Obstacle to Assimilation (1890-1914) V. The Establishment’s Solution to the “Foreign Problem” (1914-1930) VI. Anti-Italianism in the Vortex of Economie and Political Turmoil (1930-1945) VII. The Post-World War II Period— Ongoing Problems Notes Bibliography Acknowledgments