Are Italians White?: How Race is Made in America [Paperback]

You can't tell a book by its cover. When I first saw this book with the picture of an immigrant family and the Red-White and Green covert art, I assumed this was another type of book then it turned out to be. Instead, I found incredible collection of essays that explores how Italian immigrants and their descendants dealt with an American racist society. The articles range from the historical to the contemporary, and cover early immigration, the World War II era, white flight, Italian violence, even Italian radicals, music and poetry!

We all know that Italians were never considered fully white in America but this book talks about how Italians dealt with America's views of race. I learned a lot from this book like how Italians were not only discriminated in America because they were olive skinned foreigners from southern Italy but were also discriminated in Italy before they left by northern Italians. But even despite the prejudice in America, the federal government always considered Italians "white", and that's what counted. So Italians were able to benefit in ways that blacks, Hispanics, and Asians couldn't like in housing, jobs, the right to vote, marry who you want, own property, and become a citizen. It made a big difference. This book helped me to understand my Italian heritage and my family's history and also how we did get help from government even though my uncles always complain about welfare cheats. They should read this book!

The book has articles about Italian Americans anarchist and socialists who fought for a better society. And there was a great article about Philadelphia's mayor Rizzo - that guy was brutal. What a horror. I would have hated to be black in Philly when he was mayor.

There's a lot of other good stuff. I was amazed by the whole section of the book about black Italian Americans. That really opened my eyes.

I'm assuming that this book is going to start a lot of conversation among Italian Americans and that's a good thing!

In Are Italians White, Jennifer Guglielmo and Salvatore Salerno edit a collection of essays that vary in interest, relevance, and overall content. For a student of Italian American history, in light of what has been out there for many years now (particularly the work of Robert Orsi, George Pozzetta, Donna Gabaccia, etc.) the results achieved by Guglielmo and Salerno are average at best. To be sure, there are some great moments: Vincenza Scarpaci's essay on Italian immigrants in rural Louisiana, Caroline Waldron Merithew's essay on the Spring Valley Race Riot of 1895, Gerald Meyer's essay about a 1945 incident in New York City, as well as a few others. These are seminal pieces that ALL students of American history should know and understand. Some of the other stuff, particularly the essays contained in the final section, "Toward a Black Italian Imaginary" seem to scrape the bottom of the barrel in terms of inspiration, skill, and relevance. Overall, however, its greatest disappointment is that it buys completely into the flawed premises established by whiteness studies pioneers such as David Roediger (who writes the afterward) and as a result it barely skims the surface of Italian American history, agreeing on a set of conclusions even if the evidence does not suggest them. Ultimately, for an Italian American, it is therefore an unsatisfying read; for other readers, the lack of context may make it fall completely flat.

There are several critical flaws in this book. First, it never really clearly defines the racial terms it throws around. It simply begs the question throughout. Just looking at the other reviews here (taken with a grain of salt, of course), there are people who seem to think that race is defined in genetic terms or in social terms or in some agreed upon physical terms; there are those (among the Amazon reviewers) that are offended at the mere suggestion that such a question could be raised about Italians, and those who pump their fists in the air, and say, of course Italians aren't white.

This begging of the question is a fundamental flaw in so-called whiteness studies in general. Race has been understood in many ways in the United States, though two primary ways stand out: legally and socially. In the legal sense, the government defines White as anyone whose ancestors come from Europe, North Africa, or the Middle East. Socially, however, race is very much in the eye of the beholder: who looks white; who looks black; etc. Socially race in America has also historically been cast in terms of language, customs, culture, etc.

The text never really parses out these varying definitions. The one except might be Thomas Guglielmo's essay, in which he accepts the strict legal definition, and by extension naturalization laws. Yet, he does not even seem to have a good sense of the legal definition when he states that Middle Easterners faced barriers to naturalization, which is not, as rule, true. They were legally white and granted citizenship. He also fails to consider that many immigrants from Latin America, as well, were white and faced no barrier to citizenship (though it seems that whiteness scholars are too timid to discuss Latin Americans and Middle Easterners). Nor does he seem to understand that the myth of hard work which he ascribes to Italian American ethos is actually a sentiment shared by many immigrants vis a vis the native-born population.

Along with Roediger, these scholars make the mistake of not discussing the experiences of Italian Americans alongside other immigrant ethnic groups with whom they share much in common: Mexicans, Chinese, Syrians, Lebanese, Puerto Ricans, etc. A critical flaw of whiteness studies is that it fails to incorporate many of those groups, despite the overwhelming similarity of their experiences, shared neighborhood geographies, shared physical features, etc. It allows itself to get bogged down in only investigating groups directly from Europe.

The biggest flaw, however, is that it leaves Italian Americans without a usable history. Rather unfortunately, this book blindly follows the mandates of Roediger and other lily-white scholars who use the experiences of Italians and other southern or eastern Europeans in this country to make a political point. These scholars don't care about the actual lived experiences of their subject matter, don't respect them in the least bit, but rather use them to draw false conclusions. Like Roediger, Guglielmo and Salerno essentially say: Italian Americans were considered non-white by the average American, were paid less than white workers, were discriminated against in federal immigration policy, and received poor treatment as a matter of course, etc. - all provable fact - but all that happened 80 or 100 years ago and it no longer matters. How unsatisfying is that?

At the end of the day, perhaps it all is of no consequence. Aside from a few critical ethnic pockets in the northeast, the average "Italian America" is four or five generations removed (Richard Alba has already declared that we no longer exist), and much like Ms. Guglielmo: only part Italian, growing up divorced from Italian culture, language, ritual, and far beyond the ethnic neighborhood. Can we even consider people who are Italian in name or ancestry only alongside with people who actually live an Italian American experience on a daily basis?

I bought this book online (not for the current price -$135-that would be nuts!!) because the title intrigued me and it had gotten good reviews. BIG MISTAKE.

First of all, the book does not even consider whether Italians are "white" or not. The book is a series of unenlightening essays that basically just say "Yes, Italians are white and they should feel guilty for it". The only group that Italians are compared to (or I should say "against") in this book are African-Americans. They are the deciding factor in this book as to whether Italians are "white" or not. There is no comparison between Italians and other Mediterranean groups in this book. And no comparison between Italian-Americans and "Latinos" (specifically Mexican-Americans - a group with which the Italian-Americans have a very similar history to in this country regarding their experiences, jobs taken, low wages, discrimination, language differences, even ethnic slurs (ie. "greaser", "greaseball", etc.)). One author (Jennifer Guglielmo) mentions that her Sicilian-American friend grew up in East Los Angeles and because of his dark complexion, he "...often passed for Latino..." So you would THINK that she would start drawing parallels, but NO. How disappointing!

I once had a teacher who taught Government in college. He happened to be of Mexican-American background. He and I had many interesting and thought-provoking conversations after class, often about the experiences of Mexican-Americans and those of Italian-Americans in the late 1800s and early 1900s. We both agreed that there were many similarities. It wasn't until after I finished the class when, to my surprise, I saw him on a program on PBS and found out that he was involved heavily in the Chicano movement of the 1970s with Cesar Chavez(quite the honor!).

But this book has absolutely NOTHING on the relationship between Italian-Americans and other non-African-American ethnic groups in this country such as Mexican-Americans. Instead, they [Italian-Americans] and their experiences in this country must always be compared against African-Americans and their history in this country in this book. EVERY CHAPTER - Italian-Americans vs. African-Americans, Italian-Americans vs. African-Americans, and so on... As if African-Americans are the only other ethnic group in this country besides "whites".

I should mention that their is one other brief mention of another ethnic group (by Guglielmo again)- Puerto Ricans. However, she lists Puerto Ricans as "people of color". Isn't that a big assumption? Isn't that generalizing a bit? What about Puerto Ricans of pure European descent, particularly those of pure Spanish descent? If they are "people of color", then why not people of Italian ancestry, too? Perhaps she should delve into this a bit. But of course, she does not. It reminds me of this one time that I saw Geraldo Rivera on the Tonight Show. During the interview, Geraldo referred to himself as a "person of color". I had to laugh. For those of you who don't know, Geraldo Rivera is of Jewish and Puerto Rican descent. Apparently, he felt that just because he is of Puerto Rican descent, that makes him a "person of color". Pardon me, but if Geraldo (and other "Hispanics" with similar coloring and features as he) is a "person of color", then maybe we should refer to an Italian-American like actor Vincent Pastore as "African-American". (laughs)

Anyway, to go on, their is no discussion in this book of the differing histories between Sicily and mainland Italy. There is no discussion of the variety of physical appearances that Italians can have (especially the diversity of looks in Sicily). For example, there are Sicilians that look stereotypically northern European (light hair, eyes, skin, etc.). There are Sicilians that look stereotypically Roman. There are Sicilians that look stereotypically Greek. And yes, there are even Sicilians that look stereotypically Arab. And of course, there are many Sicilians that look like they could have a mix of two or three or more of those ancestries. I have even seen Sicilians that looked like they were of American-Indian ancestry. In fact, "Iron Eyes Cody", the man who was the "crying Indian" in the famous "Keep America Beautiful" ad of the early 1970s, was actually not of any American-Indian ancestry at all. He was of Sicilian-American descent. He was born Espera De Corti, the son of Sicilian immigrants Francesca Salpietra and Antonio De Corti. But, of course, no mention of this at all in this carelessly-put-together book.

In addition, Italian-Americans would sometimes be used to play Indians in old Westerns. And many Italian-Americans have played "Latinos" in movies and television shows, such as Nick Turturro, who often plays characters that are Mexican or Puerto Rican.

Ironically, often-times non-Italians are used to portray Italians in movies and television shows. Henry Winkler (aka "The Fonze"), Rhea Perlman ("Carla Tortelli" from "Cheers"), Dan Hedaya ("Nick Tortelli"), James Caan ("Sonny Corleone" from "The Godfather"), Marlon Brando ("Don Vito Corleone" from "The Godfather"), Peter Falk ("Columbo"), Jason Alexander ("George Costanza" from "Seinfeld"), and Jerry Stiller ("Frank Costanza") have all played well-known-and-loved "Italians". There's just one thing: NONE of them are of Italian descent. In fact, interestingly, all of the actors mentioned above, with the exception of Marlon Brando, are of Jewish-American background. And the list goes on. Yet not one mention of this interesting aspect of Italian-American media portrayals in the book "Are Italians White"?

There is no mention of the infamous "Chief Henessey Trial", in which 11 Sicilian-Americans were lynched (the largest recorded mass-lynching in United States history), after the acquittal of several Sicilian immigrants alleged to be involved in the murder of New Orleans police Chief David Henessey in the year 1891.

Nor is their mention of Edith Labue, a woman of Sicilian descent from Alabama, who in 1921, was convicted of "miscegenation" with a black man named Jim Rollins (see Rollins vs. State, 1922). However, the judge ruled that the couple was not-guilty because, he reasoned, "...that no evidence suggested that Sicilians were white under law".

One would think that things such as this would be important to mention and to delve into in a book entitled "Are Italians White?". BUT NO. NOT ONE MENTION.

In short, the book "Are Italians White?" is not only hastily, carelessly, and sloppily put-together, but it also leaves A LOT out.

If you're looking for a good book on the Italian-American experience, this one is NOT it. Try "La Storia: Five Centuries of the Italian-American Experience" as a start instead. And avoid this book altogether.

The only thing of any value in this book is one of the quotes listed at the very beginning, which is by Amoja Three Rivers: "White people have not always been 'White', nor will they always be 'White'. It is a political alliance. Things will change."

I gave this book 1 star, but if I could, I would give it 0 stars.

P.S. Jaime L. Martina, a "small number of Arabs" in Sicily? Are you kidding me? Under Arab rule, the population of Palermo was over 200,000 (a lot for that time). The city was said to have rivaled other great Muslim cities at the time, such as Córdoba and Baghdad. The entire island's population doubled under Arab rule. A "small number of Arabs"?! Get your facts straight.

Secondly, the reason for "darker complexions" in Sicily is not due to "high sun exposure". It's GENETICS. The fact of the matter is that Rome and most other parts of Italy (barring the Alpine region) have the same climate and get the same amount of sun as Sicily.

Going by your logic, shouldn't the native people of the Andes have lighter skin than the people of southern France, since southern France has a warmer climate and gets more sun? So much for your bunk theory. Here's a little tip: Read up on Sicilian history.