The Radicalization of Italian-Americans

It is interesting to consider what is happening psychologically to the Italian-American community these days. When the Italians first came over to this country, starting en masse about 1890, they were treated as the latest in a wave of European “niggers” to emigrate from their homeland. The Irish had undergone the same experience about 1850, but by this time they had largely established themselves as “respectable” scions of the community, fleshing out the police ranks of Boston and New York and achieving power through the political wards of both cities. The editorialists of the mid-nineteenth century referred to the “Irish situation” in much the same language that has been used to describe the “restless minorities” of today.

By the beginning of the 1900’s the onus of stigmatization had been lifted from the Irish who were finally able to wallow in the luxury of their newly-achieved status of solid citizen. Their turn had come to patronize this new legion of invaders, this rather darkish claque of grape-stomping peasant folk who came in droves gibbering away in a foreign language. It was a novel change to be able to weild the cold knife of established power after they, themselves, had suffered the same humiliation at the hands of those who came before them. It is a sad commentary on the nature of the human race that no group, once having established itself, has ever turned a helping hand toward the next wave of immigrants. The cry, “We had to work for it so why shouldn’t they?” is an often heard cliche in many middle-class Irish and Italian households throughout the country.

Some forty or fifty years later, roughly by the end of the Second World War, Italian-Americans enjoyed for the first time the taste of middle-class respectability. They had sent their sons off to law school or the construction trades, and the strength of this double whammy punch, the close family tie-in between the politicians and the building trades, is being uncovered now in ripe detail. The organic structure of the Addonizio nepotocracy in Newark, New Jersey, was not unique; it was only a single design in a large-scale pattern. He was the first important operator to be caught in recent years, and unless the power of other family operations is so great and so far reaching, many of this nature will soon be unveiled. Virtually every sizable community in the northeast, particularly northern New Jersey and lower Westchester County, could stand a thorough overhauling. Whether this will be done or not depends largely on how many of those conducting the investigation will be embarrassed by too close a scrutiny.

It is somewhat ironic that most of those who are intricately involved in this familial stranglehold on urban politics––the contractors; the heads of engineering firms; the dispensers of contracts to select construction companies; the municipal lawyers who are supposed to represent the interests of the taxpayer in the expenditure of public revenue––have been among the most passionate supporters of the Law ’n’ Order mystique. Many a string-pulling building contractor has been the first to call for stringent police measures to save the community from “un-American” forms of “crime”: political dissent; smoking marijuana; long hair and love beads; general disrespect for authority. This is to be expected considering how much the corporate-political power merchants have to lose in any re-ordering of the system.¹

With the re-stigmatization of the Italian-Americans due to the bad press given Addonizio and the activities of the Mafia, a curious thing is taking place.² These newly-arrived establishmentarians, this latest wave of European “niggers” who shucked off their niggerhood and climbed up to the world of manicured lawns and plastic slipcovers, these latest to inherit the title of solid citizen who pride themselves on having “fought for the flag in World War II” and who like to brag (as Mario Procaccino did) that not one of their hationality has ever been convicted as an American traitor (and he wonders why he lost the Jewish vote)––these just-made-it scions of the middle-class Americana are suddenly being treated as “niggers” again. Psychologically, this has served to induce a state of near-hysterical schizophrenia. They had just begun to savor the fruits of victory, to wave their American flags proudly and paper their cars with “America, Love it or Leave it!” stickers, and they suddenly find themselves in danger of losing the right to wear their hard hats. Having found their voice as card-carrying members of the Silent Majority, they discover themselves on the outside looking in.

In his perceptive article, “Italian-Americans Challange Balance of Power,” appearing in the July 14, 1970 issue of Liberated Guardian, Leonard Liggio makes the following observation:

In the case of the Italian-Americans, the necessity for radical organizing is a significant indication of the failure of the American Left. Most Italian-Americans who arrived in the United States before . . . World War I were radicals. They were a major factor in radical trade union organizing and were one of the major pillars of the Socialist Party. However, their allegiance to radical politics was weakened by the activities of the Communist Party and social democratic groups who sought to marshall radicals as auxiliaries of the New Deal and the Democratic Party. The American Labor Party was one example of that manipulation, and the present political ambivalence of Italian-Americans between liberalism and conservatiam is a product of that failure of the American Left. However difficult, it will take radical organizing among such groups to regain the impetus which was lost. . .

The political issues involved in the re-stigmatization of Italian-Americans are clearly outlined in Liggio’s article. Before evaluating the long-range prospects of a new radical awareness emanating from the Italian-American community, it is well worth taking a look at another important development involving Italian-Americans in New York City.

The New York Times of August 11, 1970 contains an article by-lined by Murray Schumach which begins as follows:

From these few blocks in Corona, Queens, some 80 young men went off
to World War II. Half of them were killed. The insurance money paid off mortgages on many of the homes in which they were born and in which their parents still live.

These blocks, roughly from Martense to Christie Avenues, and along 101st
and 102nd Streets, make up perhaps one of the few crime-free oases left in the city. Some of the 138 families in the 69 homes of brick, shingle and frame do not even bother to lock doors.

But now these law-abiding people are embattled. Along the streets that
bloom with Rose of Sharon are signs reading: “Lindsay abolished Italian community” and “Lindsay uproots Italian community.”

The article describes how residents of this community are fighting to save their homes from being bulldozed in order to erect a high school and athletic field on the site. What renders this issue even more outrageous than the usual destruction of dwelling places for the construction of public institutions is the fact that, adjoining the property, is the Rego-Forest Country Club, itself situated on public land. The members of this country club are, for the most part, residents of high-priced, upper-middle-class apartment buildings in the nearby area. These people constitute a sizable segment of Lindsay’s overall political base and he is loathe to tinker with the life-style of his most ardent supporters. Consequently, he has elected to confiscate the homes of people who might be expected to vote for one of his opponents in the next election.

The renewed insecurity of the middle-class Italian-American is poignantly represented in an exchange between a housewife hanging her wash on her clothesline and a bikini-clad member of the country club. As the young lady stared at the wash through the wire-mesh fence surrounding the club and facing the woman’s backyard, the housewife looked up and asked,

“Is it white enough for you, honey?”

This incisive query reveals a great deal about the schizophrenic condition described earlier. That same housewife would scream for the gestapo if a family a half-shade darker than herself tried to buy a house on her street. At the same time, reflecting a new “niggerized” status of her own, she sarcastically wonders if her wash is white enough for the people next door.

What makes the entire situation even more intriguing is the fact that two community planning boards were against the selection of this community for demolition, as were the area’s Assemblyman, State Senator and Congressional Representative. In addition to the private country club on public land, a nearby public park and a run-down industrial site have also been suggested as alternatives. Mayor Lindsay, guided by the devious considerations which motivate most politicians, may have succeeded in radicalizing a solidly entrenched cornerstone of the liberal-conservative establishment.

What does all this mean for the future political role of Italian-Americans in our society? The worst that can happen is that they will be co-opted back into supporting the system by a few political concessions, with their lawyer-politician sons playing middle-man between themselves and the State. This is always an imminent danger with any powerful group that has been alienated from the majority. Then, too, it is probably too much to hope for that they will ever completely forget their old racial prejudices and form a united front with blacks, chicanos and other struggling minorities to attack the basic structure of established authority.

But there is also the possibility that a fundamental political truism will be driven home: nobody has it made even when he “has it made.” A de-personalized political structure such as ours depends on scapegoats for its very survival. As long as the powers-that-be can point to an element in society—the hippies, the blacks, the Jews, the commies, the “un-Americans,” now the Italian-Americans—they can convince the majority that all is well if only we can “separate these rotten apples from our midst.”3 The Jews learned this lesson well from long and bitter experience. So have the blacks, American Indians and chicanos.

If Italian-Americans can also understand that everyone is potentially a “nigger” in a politically-centralized, heavily bureaucratized society, there is at least some small chance that they will voluntarily surrender their hard hats and join the cause of liberty.

Footnotes

1. One of the more amusing aspects of this syndrome is the claim that Mafia-controlled neighborhoods are the safest places to live. Mafiosi are careful to conduct their various enterprises outside the neighborhood since they want their own kids to grow up in a “decent environment.”
2. Whether it is fair or not to scapegoat the Mafia as the source of “crime” in this country is beside the point. Many underground activities such as prostitution, loansharking, gambling, even drug-peddling are voluntary and ought not to be outlawed. At worst, the syndicates are to be faulted for seeking monopolistic privileges for their operations by paying off the politicians. In this regard they are no worse than the oil industry, the defense companies, the textile industry, and other “legitimate” corporations which also buy a monopoly from the State. What is of concern is the publicity given to Italian-Americans involved in political chicanery. The psychological impact generated by this and by the portrayal of Italian-Americans as “Mafiosi” is of paramount importance in this discussion.
3. A phrase used by Vice President Agnew which deserves to be emblazoned in the heavens as a constant reminder that no one ever “has it made,” and any group can be singled out next for scapegoating whenever it becomes politically expedient.

Jerome Tuccille, author of Radical Libertarianism and It Usually Starts With Ayn Rand, and a frequent contributor to Libertarian Forum.