TOTAL LICENSING
The Spanish came to St. Augustine, Florida in there was also the identification with the Catholic confusing mix of peo-
1565 - quite a bit before Jamestown and Plymouth clergy and there were also the municipal jobs where, ples from the then, Aus-
Rock. West of the Mississippi the Spanish and Span- in those days, political connections could help you tro Hungarian Empire,
ish Mexicans settled Texas and California. into the police or fire brigades. which included Hun-
Recapping the above colonial immigration time we The German speakers: Statistically they paral- garians, Poles, Czechs,
must observe that at the end of the 1600s , ninety leled the Irish. Of course there was no German Na- Slovaks, Slovenians and
percent of all settlers in British North America would tion until Bismarck unified Germany under Prussian Serbs, their individual
have been of English descent. leadership but the collapse and defeat of liberalism stories must be omitted
Yet, by 1782 Frenchman, J. Hector St. John could in many German states and the failure of the revolu- for lack of space.
now explain: “the New Man is either a European tions of 1948 brought many. Population growth and Then, towards the end
or the descendent of a European…I could point out modernization and its attendant industrialization of the 19th century came hordes of Mediterraneans
to you a family whose grandfather was an English- persuaded many more Germans into leaving. The led by the most prominent of them all, the Italians,
man, whose wife was Dutch, whose son married a availability of ready transportation from Hamburg followed by Greeks, a few Armenians and Arabs. All
French woman and whose present sons have now made America easy to reach. Whereas the Irish these, in look and culture, were so different to the
four wives of different nations. He is an “American” tended to settle in the large urban centers of the previous mix which, by now, had been reinforced by
who, leaving behind him all his ancient prejudices East, the Germans who had higher levels of skill and the second and third generations in number that
and manners, received new ones from the new education settled all over, particularly in St. Louis, these newcomers met with a great deal of distrust
mode of life he has embraced!” Etc. etc….What a Cincinnati and Milwaukee. Their strength was not and discrimination. Once more, let us concentrate
compliment! But was it true? in factory work but they were found in the service on the Italians.
In contrast a later observer and immigrant from occupations such as bakers, in beer gardens, as ho- Italians: Their trips to the promised land were the
Romania, Marcus Eli Ravage, 1884 – 1965: was tel keepers, domestic workers and also as farmers hardest! A journalist who emigrated from Naples
moved to write: “the alien who comes here is not and in musical societies and choral groups. With in 1906 reported: “how can a steerage passenger
the raw material Americans suppose him to be. He the Germans who were split between Catholics and remember that he is a human being when he first
is not a blank sheet to be written on, as you see Lutherans came also an immigration of German must pick the worms from his food…and eat in his
fit…..He brings with him a deep rooted tradition, Jews. This created a large increase in the small stuffy stinking bunk of a compartment where 150
a system of culture and habits…it is this thing, this Jewish population from colonial times which was men sleep or are seasick?”
entire old world soul of his, that comes into conflict mostly Sephardic (Spanish) and Portuguese Jews. Tickets were cheap and between 1880 and 1920
with America as soon as he has landed”. The New York population of 500 Jews in 1825 grew more than 4.1 million Italians entered the United
Who is right? What happened? We might assume to 40,000 by 1860. States. Before 1900 most emigrating Italians had
that the new concept of cultural ethnicity had be- These German Jews came mostly from South- gone to South America – principally Brazil and Ar-
come popular during the interim and the melting western Germany and had lived in small cities and gentina – but once the rush began, an impoverished
pot had kept on boiling as well. market towns. They were mostly petty traders, cattle Sicilian village might send a small group to check
Now for the moment let’s move ahead to the hey- dealers, tailors and craftsmen that served their Jew- out the situation, and after reports of the truly bet-
day of immigration, the 19
th
Century from 1812 to ish and non-Jewish customers. In Germany they ter lifestyle they might send for their “paisanos” and
1924 when a total of 35,999, 402 arrived, leading could still not enjoy many of the basic civil rights, “paisanas” – wives, parents, children. Never mind,
to a steady presence of foreign-born as a percent- and could only reside in certain places and were that many would end up in crowded unsanitary im-
age of total population. This was a percentage of 13 subject to certain taxes. Arriving in America, they migrant ghettos like New York’s famed Lower East
to 15% of total population and that, of course, did were counted amongst Germans in the statistics. Side and derisively be called “Wops”.
not include American born second generation chil- But because their communities were especially ad- Not all wound up there! They founded the Califor-
dren who grew up in their early years with foreign ept at collecting documents and family histories, we nia Wine industries with the Gallos and Sebastianis.
born parents or in enclaves of foreign born. know that besides settling in New York they also They brought master craftsmen in masonry (Con-
began as itinerant peddlers joining the “Yankee” stantini Brumidi painted the giant frescoes in the
WHO WERE THESE 36 MILLION? Peddler who brought scarce desired luxury goods to U.S. Capitol ceiling). They brought Opera!
The Irish: In the years of 1920 to 1960 the Irish rural America. These traveling salesmen would later While many were uneducated laborers, others were
were never less than 35% of all immigrants. Ireland become retailers and wholesalers, bringing relatives artisans and businessmen. They did not only push
had become the most densely populated country in and establishing branches of their operations, es- the appealing fruit carts through urban streets, but
Europe. pecially in the then underdeveloped South. There they also taught Americans about truck farming.
Earlier, the famous “potato famine”, the British poli- were, for example, Rich’s in Atlanta, Goldwater’s in The Di Giorgio Fruit Corporation owned more than
cies favoring the Protestant Northern Irish with em- Phoenix. A few had come as bankers from Germany 40,000 acres and became S&W, the largest fruit
ployment to the disadvantage of Catholics, creating and became prominent together with their succes- canner and shipper of its day. They started immi-
abject poverty, all contributed to mass immigration to sive children who couldn’t get jobs in American grant banks to send money back to Italy because
the New World. Boston, New York and San Francisco banks anyhow. There were the Schiffs, Warburgs existing banks were not interested and, presto!
became heavily Irish. There was no industry in Ireland and Lehmans. Many were not very religious and Amadeo Pietro Giannini, 1870 – 1949 – who came
and there was not enough land for younger children their secular descendants, often converted in time, from parents who emigrated from Liguria founded
of farmers. “America Fever” became rampant. First or intermarried, and so joined the leveling American the small Bank of Italy in San Francisco. Over time
Immigrants brought brothers, sisters and relatives. Mainstream, thereby escaping their “double trouble” it became the world-wide empire of the Bank of
Because the immigrants possessed no special skills of being both Jews and foreign immigrants. This so- America. The padrones (labor contractors) brought
they would wind up as an immigrant unskilled labor cial discrimination persisted way into the 1940s. I more and more people from the rural mezzogiorno,
force. They dug canals, built bridges and did menial recommend the break-through novel dealing with the South of Italy. They took over the jobs that the
jobs. In the cities they tended to become a working the new generation’s assimilation; “Gentlemen’s rising Irish, insultingly called “Micks” now climbing
proletariat. As they became settled they perfected Agreement”. the opportunity and education escalator, no lon-
the “art of the underdog” to help each other in fam- Scandinavians: Though numerically small, they ger wanted and had left behind. With the Italians
ily and political ties. Irish-Americans invented ethnic drifted to the upper Mid West where climate and came their priests who, uncomfortable with the Irish
politics that “took care of their own”, and of course landscape reminded them of home. Because of the Catholic Hierarchy of the American Catholic Church,
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