TOTAL LICENSING
did, what they had done They came based on their needs and brought with new age with new arrivals. Many of these post-war
previously in Italy. They them their knowledge of tailoring, small trade and new arrivals could with justice claim the title refu-
helped their poor and rather than being farmed out by “padrones”, like gee although the large majority came for economic
led their services in Ital- the Italians. they ran small businesses and worked reasons. There was passed a new immigration law
ian. They entered Cath- for their “Landsleit” - people from their extended which decided that the National Origins System
olic education which family and those who came from the same small could not be upheld by a United States that had
had up to then been the town in the old country. Their tailoring knowledge joined the United Nations and needed a Cold War
exclusive province of can also explain their large influence in the needle position of fairness and liberalism in its philosophi-
the German and Irish and garment trades (which they also shared with cal struggle with Soviet communism and its bloc. It
Religious. They also the Italians). made immigration color-blind by admitting 450,000
brought bakeries (Pasticerias), thousand of Italian The by now highly acculturated German-American DPs ( Displaced Persons – a new word - the residue
ristorantes and the art of making Pizza. The “Medi- Jews felt embarrassed by these peculiar, clannish, of the Third Reich), it also broadened the rules for
terranean diet” which brings bountiful varieties of poor, in their hovels. Many of these Eastern Eu- family reunification. Because with the successes of
vegetables and an abundance of fruit to the table is ropean Jews were Socialists, or Zionists when they the Marshall Plan and the creation of the EU, less
now considered one of the healthiest ways of eating. arrived. They had been an underclass whose only and less Europeans wanted to come anyhow, and
The lyrical operas of Verdi and Puccini have given the hopes lie in “a change in life and politics”. Their because the barriers to Asian and Latin immigra-
world hours of listening pleasure and Italy’s sons and enthusiasm for political and union organization did tion had been dropped, and because refugees from
daughters, first, second and on generations have all not sit well with their by now assimilated, well set, these countries could come under refugee quotas,
graced our operatic stages. sophisticated cousins from “uptown” who feared 800,000 Cubans and 400,00 Indo Chinese entered
And, yes, they also transplanted the culture of the that these strange beings would set off a wave of the USA between 1945 and 1980.
“Cosa Nostra” creating a crime and gangster em- anti-Semitism in America. Under different amendments to the law, 140,000
pire in which, incidentally, they often worked to- There was, however a great difference between Chinese had remained in the USA. They were de-
gether with those of the contemporaneously arriving them and other underprivileged immigrants. They scendents of the approximately 125,000 that came
Eastern European Jewish immigrants with whom were educated! As the “people of the book” their when, between 1848 and the passage of the Chi-
they shared the Lower East Side (Lucky Luciano and religion had demanded learning, even if it was in nese Exclusion Act in 1882, many Chinese “sojourn-
Bugsy Siegel). Yiddish and consequently there sprang up a large ers” temporary workers were brought in. This was
Both Italian immigrants and Eastern European culture of Yiddish theater, books, newspapers, even called the “Coolie Trade” by its opponents. It was,
Jews came through Ellis Island and tended to settle radio which lasted for decades. Much of the eth- however, legal immigration! Most of the earlier im-
in New York and other cities of the northern sea- nic expressions of the “bubbes” (grandparents) who migrants had come from Canton in South China and
board. The Eastern European Jews were, for the have mostly passed away, nonetheless seeped into laboring males were certainly prevalent. While they
most part, poor Jews and were described unflatter- the American language and culture. were originally laborers in mining, railroad building,
ingly as “Kikes”. It must be added to their credit that many of those agriculture and manufacturing, they soon founded
Russia in those days included most of Poland and the embarrassed German-American Jews also realized Chinatowns in the big cities. The family associations
Baltics. Russia’s Jews lived in the so-called “Jewish that these ”funny” people needed Americanization and Tongs that had been prominent in Chinatowns
Pale”, a large crescent shaped district that stretched and help and so this immigrant society had what no remained and these Chinatowns were substantially
from the Baltic to the Black Sea but was not very other had had before it. It had people with money closed to outsiders. By 1980 more immigration had
wide. There were almost 7 million Jews living there and influence who cared and thereby speeded up swelled them to an important group of 812,000
under strictly regulated conditions. While most of the needed changes for them. Because many of them and now they had come from everywhere where
them spoke Polish or Russian, their real language also possessed creative talent, there arose a group ethnic Chinese live.
and culture, amongst each other, was Yiddish and of Jewish-American prominent entertainers such as Japanese numbers also grew particularly with the
Hebrew. There was a great deal of prejudice fanned Irving Berlin, Sophie Tucker. Later there came sec- incorporation of Hawaii into the USA. There were
by governments and also many churches against ond generation greats like George Gershwin, Jerome 716,000 in 1980 and Filippinos who were re-
the “Christ Killers”, an infamously derogatory refer- Kern, Fanny Brice and Al Jolson. There were movie warded with statehood for their loyalty to the USA,
ence. After the assassination of Czar Alexander II in pioneers like Louis B. Mayer and Samuel Goldwyn, during WWI1, also received large quotas and by
1881, there were pogroms and increasingly harsh writers like Theodore Dreiser, Sholem Asch. 1980 reached 812,000. By 1990 there were also
laws banned Jews from Moscow, St. Petersburg and
IMMIGRATION HISTORY CONTINUES
819,000 Asian Indians and 798,000 Koreans; La-
Kharkov. In 1906, alone, perhaps 150,000 braved
Just before the outbreak of World War II another
tinos and Mexicans followed soon but we can see
the difficult travel conditions to get to America. They
mini wave arrived – the word “Refugee” entered the
that by 1980 “The Rainbow Coalition” was on its
had to go through Austria-Hungary to get to Ham-
vocabulary. Hitler’s successes brought a fair quan-
way to a good start.
burg and many had no official papers. They trans-
tity of Jews from Germany, Austria and Hungary CHANGING PERCEPTIONS
versed Germany in sealed trains and the Hamburg
– a group to which, to my fortune I belong. They All this happened in the short time frame of two
-Amerika line, the largest shipping line of that day,
had to leave, most often, penniless but were, by and generations and all these ethnic differences and
made an annual profit of 10 million marks housing
large, a highly educated visible group of profession- old prejudices melted. What had started with the
them in supervised camps at the port and trans-
als, intellectuals, artists, business people, economists, English “old settler identity and mentality” had been
shipping them.
educators, medics, etc. Many had to change, learn joined by these new groups to form a new dominant
In 1880 there were only 250,000 Jews in the USA.
language, abandon their professions and adapt. group. Even the long-neglected Afro-Americans are
Besides the few descended from those who came
They also produced, however, such known names blessedly on their way into the dominant society.
during the colonial period, the very large majority
like: Thomas Mann, Albert Einstein, Wolfgang Ko- Many of this now dominant, comfortable, majority
belonged to the, by then, already established German
rngold, Fritz Reiner, Ferenc Molnar, Felix Reinhardt, that had won wars and enjoyed prosperity began to
Jews. While the German Jews were dispersed all over
Henry Kissinger. They and many others all found look askance at these latest next groups.
as we have noted, these later arriving Jews, com-
a home in the USA adding a bit more of European
ing through Ellis Island like the Italian immigrants,
PRESENT TIMES
yeast to the mix.
tended to settle even more than the Italians in New
Again, the clock of history had moved forward and a
GLOBALIZATION OF IMMIGRATION:
York and other cities of the Northeastern seaboard.
flood of Spanish speakers from South of the Ameri-
Suddenly after World War II, began a completely
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