Ethnic Groups 2
Italians is my group of choice. The reason for my choice is two-fold. First it is my heritage and I would like to learn more. Second I wanted to see if what I have been told from my elders can actually be found in history books according to them the history books do not give you all the dark secrets of back then. So sit back with a glass of good wine and enjoy the little history lesson you will be embarking on.
The Genoese navigator Cristoforo Colombo, known to us now as Columbus, was only the first of many Italian explorers who would come to shape the Western Hemisphere as we know it today. In 1497, the Venetian Giovanni Caboto, or John Cabot, sailed to Newfoundland and became the first European to see the shores of New England. By 1502, the Florentine explorer Amerigo Vespucci had deduced that these new discoveries were part of one great continent. Within a few years, that continent had been given his name--America.
Most of this generation of Italian immigrants took their first steps on U.S. soil in a place that has now become a legend—Ellis Island. In the 1880s, they numbered 300,000; in the 1890s, 600,000; in the decade after that, more than two million. By 1920, when immigration began to taper off, more than 4 million Italians had come to the United States, and represented more than 10 percent of the nation’s foreign-born population.
What brought about this dramatic surge in immigration? The causes are complex, and each hopeful individual or family no doubt had a unique story. By the late 19th century, the peninsula of Italy had finally been brought under one flag, but the land and the people were by no means unified. Decades of internal strife had left a legacy of violence, social chaos, and widespread povert ...