ITALIAN IMMIGRANTS IN AMERICA ARE AGAINST

EDUCATION FOR THEIR CHILDREN

I was researching the history of Italian immigration to the United States in Italian sources when I ran into a very interesting book, Gli americani nella vita moderna osservati da un italiano by Alberto Pecorini.[1] I remember that I first read it in 1911 when it was published by Fratelli Treves,[2] the leading Italian publishing house of that era. Back then I wrote a very favorable review and I probably corresponded directly with the author. The book is about fifty years old and I am afraid it won’t last much longer as it was printed on wood-pulp paper and the pages crumble as one leafs through them. In these kinds of books the decay begins at the edge of the pages then spreads to the printed part and soon only dust is left. Pecorini’s work is not a literary masterpiece and it is not a great loss that nobody will be able to read it fifty years hence. However, it is a very interesting eyewitness account, probably the most relevant text after the volume by journalist Dario Papa[3] which, in my opinion, was the first remarkable travel reportage from America by an educated and cultivated Italian not from consular ranks.

In those days Pecorini was well known in the Italian press community in America. It would take a picaresque writer to depict with appropriately colorful adjectives the condition of the other pigmy-like descendants of Pietro Sbarbato’s [sic] Le Forche Caudine.[4] Pecorini deserves credit for being, or, better said, for trying to be a reformer in the community of Italian journalists in America, which was composed of a motley crew of mostly kooks, adventurers, crazy geniuses, blackmailers, weird-and-excitable exploited artists, some subversives, some nationalists, some anarchists, some half-doctors and some total failures. Regardless, they all were always eager to get into fights both with the pen and often with their fists to defend their ideals and attack those of others; always over the top and beyond the pale; with a tone of superiority that vastly exceeded the influence and the importance of the newspapers they were working for.

There are no archives of the close-minded press that mushroomed for decades until quality writers and editors arrived from Italy, such as Luigi Barzini Sr. and Italo Carlo Falbo.[5] More serious publications emerged when, finally, true professionals brought with them the highest standards Italy could offer.

With regard to Pecorini, I heard two different version of his life. I wanted to check which one was true. I thus wrote to a relative of his and to one of his friends in Argentina where he died. Unfortunately, neither one answered my letters. It seems that Pecorini’s mother was from Austria and his father was an Italian Jew. He came to America with a recommendation by Luigi Luzzatti,[6] studied theology at the Divinity School of Springfield, Massachusetts, and, according to one account, converted to Protestantism. Some sources claim that he sold the periodical Il Cittadino[7] to the businessman Alberto Tarchiani,[8] but I could not verify the correctness of this information. (Incidentally, I remember that when I was editor of La Voce[9] I corresponded with Tarchiani.)

Pecorini’s book is one of about two dozen serious accounts and reportages on America written by Italian visitors and travelers. In this case we are presented with observations and analyses based on real research. It is not clear how deeply Pecorini dug, but for sure at least he tried. My impression is that he combined research with direct knowledge of people and places, complemented by personal interpretations based on his biases and a general conceptual framework. That’s a lot if one considers the times. In hindsight, we now know that there are methodological approximations in the interpretative framework of the statistics he reports (he gives no sources for them.) The book was written after the economic crisis of 1907[10] which was as serious as that of 1930.[11] His conclusions surprisingly contain very sound theories. The ideas may not be original, but, for sure, Pecorini was smart enough to choose the right ones. Here are some passages worthy of quoting:

 There is no other country in the world with a potential for continuous and abundant prosperity as great as that of the United States, for it is endowed with unparalleled natural resources, advantageous geographical position and vastness of territory. But it is necessary for the economic life to be regulated: it must stop being so tumultuous and without control. So far the United States has been similar to a person who, instead of eating regular meals three times a day, prefers to binge all at once and spend the rest of the day taking care of indigestion.

How many times have I heard this very same concept in the years after the 1930s depression? A hundred times? A thousand times?

One chapter is devoted to the conditions of Italian immigrants. It is a very sober and truthful summary that can shed light on some peculiar phenomena still present today even in communities of Italian descent that have been fully integrated into American life.

Ninety percent of the typical Italian colony in a large city is composed of laborers and their families. Fifty percent are illiterate and a third is comprised of newly arrived individuals who depend on contractors or middlemen to survive. One way or another, these people are systematically exploited by those they depend on. The remaining ten percent is made of individuals whose only interest is making money as fast as possible: small business people whose commercial activity is primarily the import of foodstuff for the paesani from their regions of origin in Italy; some bankers; travel and shipping agents and notaries public most of whom so irresponsible and unscrupulous they would sign anything for money. The so-called community leaders could not be bothered with the social and moral improvement of the masses. They want to make money any way they can and spend the remaining time partying and dining. If the thirst for gold in Americans is a sad spectacle, among Italians it is totally revolting.

Today the situation is different for the better. However, the consequences of those beginnings are still felt. For instance, one of the least known aspects of Italian immigration was the opposition, or at least the indifference, of Italian parents to education for their children. The individuals who went to school and now constitute the middle class of professionals, doctors, lawyers, judges, senators and representatives don’t owe their education to involved parents. Indeed, they owe it to American laws that made it mandatory for children to attend school (recently the age has been raised to sixteen) while making it illegal for them to work. Dario Papa was the first to notice it, and Pecorini confirms it:

An Italian boy who arrives in the United States at twelve or thirteen years of age goes to work with his parents instead of going to school, violating the provisions of the law. Very often parents lie about the real age of their children so that they can start working immediately, often in industrial plants, in dirty and unhealthy environments. The only things a child learns about Italy is the horrendous dialect spoken at home; the obscene words he picks up in the neighborhood streets; and the primitive reasoning and thoughts of his illiterate parents. He never sees an Italian book because nobody in his home can read. And then, when he grows up smart and educated he develops a sense of repulsion for everything Italian.

Pecorini didn’t realize that the hostility by peasants from southern Italy toward education also existed in Italy. This was one of the causes (though not the main one) of illiteracy. Southern peasants had been afflicted by such poverty; by such need to get out of the brutal conditions of life; that their immediate instinct was to focus only and exclusively on making money. In America they ran into the American thirst for money that results from collective excitement and dynamism—the kind of excitement that extends to spending all the money earned or to invest it in risky adventures. This mentality merged with the hunger for money (which was hunger for bread) of Italian peasants with the significant difference that the first priority of Italian immigrants was to build a house for their families. Education was never considered a way out of poverty. The antipathy toward education can be seen in the fact that, especially in the older generations, the Italians who did go to school choose professional careers, such as medical and legal, that would lead to the exploitation of their clients. Very few of them chose careers in the sciences, which in those days promised only moral and idealistic rewards. Jewish immigrants, in comparison, made different choices. These observations came to mind while I was reflecting on a recent play, written by an Italian American policeman, titled The Opening of a Window. The author, Gene Radanò,[12] took as subject the story of a smart boy, from an immigrant Italian family, whose father did not want him to get an education. I found the root of this mentality in old books about immigration. Sometimes, it pays to look back to find the origins of things that are coming to the surface in our time.

New York, October 29, 1961