ENRICO C. SARTORIO
“The Social and Religious Life of Italians in America,” by Enrico C. Sartorio, is written from the viewpoint of one who came as a foreigner to America when he was already a young man. It aims to show how a foreigner really feels. In the words of Dean George Hodges, who writes the Introduction to the book, it “is a timely revelation of the width and depth of a racial gulf which must first be bridged and then filled. His suggestions as to the accomplishing of this necessary work are definite and practical inferences from his own successful experience.”Mr. Sartorio studied at the Cambridge Episcopal Theological School and has since been successfully engaged in pastoral work in the city of Boston.
“The Social and Religious Life of Italians in America,” by Enrico C. Sartorio, is written from the viewpoint of one who came as a foreigner to America when he was already a young man. It aims to show how a foreigner really feels. In the words of Dean George Hodges, who writes the Introduction to the book, it “is a timely revelation of the width and depth of a racial gulf which must first be bridged and then filled. His suggestions as to the accomplishing of this necessary work are definite and practical inferences from his own successful experience.”
Mr. Sartorio studied at the Cambridge Episcopal Theological School and has since been successfully engaged in pastoral work in the city of Boston.
Among certain people there still exists the old prejudice that there must be something the matter with a foreigner. Exclusiveness on one side, loneliness on the other, do not help to interpret American life in the right spirit to the foreigner. If educated Italians thus do not know the real America, you can easily imagine what the immigrant’s conception of America may be. My barber, who has been in this country twenty-eight years, was dumbfounded when I told him the other day that six people out of seven in America are Protestant. The poor fellow had gone about for twenty-eight years tipping his hat to every church, thinking that they were all Roman Catholic churches. I have found over and over again Italian couples living together in the belief that they were husband and wife, because they misunderstood American law. They had been told that in America a civil marriage was as valid as a religious one, so they went to the City Hall, and by going through the process of answering questions in taking out the marriage license, they thought they had been married and went happily home to live together as husband and wife. An Italian tried to explain to me the meaning of Thanksgiving Day. “You see,” he said, “the word explains itself, ‘Tacchins-giving Day’”; “tacchin” meaning turkey in Italian, it was, according to this man, the day on which Americans gave away turkeys.
And what opportunity has an immigrant to know this country when he sees America only at its worst? Through the gum-chewing girls whom he meets in factories, through the hard-drinking and hard-swearing “boss” who orders him about, through the dubious type of youth whom he meets at the saloon and in the dance hall, through the descriptions given in Italian newspapers and by cheap orators he comes to know America. Add to that poor wages, quarters in the slums, policemen, car conductors and ushers who laugh at him when he asks for information, “bosses” who claim a feefor securing him a job, and the sweet names of “Dago” and “Guinea” by which the supposed American thinks himself entitled to call him, and you can imagine what a delightful feeling the average Italian has toward this country.
Where does the fault lie? In prejudice and indifference, and in the spirit of patronage. Americans who judge by appearances, who have not travelled in Italy or studied modern Italian life, scornfully turn away from the Italian immigrant because he is not as clean-shaven or as well-kempt as the American workingman. Other Americans do not concern themselves with foreigners. They have a vague knowledge that there is somewhere, in some God-forsaken corner of the city, a foreign population, and that is all. Still others take a sentimental view of the matter; they have somewhat the feeling that existed in the bosom of an Irishwoman, a neighbor of mine. On Saturday night,—she was always affectionate on that special night,—she would wipe her eyes and say, “Thim poor Eyetalians.” This kind of person means well, but generally has zeal without knowledge.
A lady of refinement, born in a leading city of Italy, married to an Italian Protestant minister who is now at the head of an important religious movement in Italy, one day received the following letter:—
“Dear Madam:“We are going to have a bazaar for the benefit of Italians. Please come to help us,dressed in the national costume that you used to wear in Italy.”
“Dear Madam:
“We are going to have a bazaar for the benefit of Italians. Please come to help us,dressed in the national costume that you used to wear in Italy.”
A son of a leading lawyer of Naples came to this country and was soon holding a fine position and making a good living. He met at church an American lady, who told him that she would be very glad to see him the next day at her house. At the appointed hour our young gentleman went there and handed his card to the servant. “Oh, yes,” she said, “the lady gave me something for you,” and she thrust into his hand a dilapidated suitcase and a note. The note read:—
“Dear Sir:“I have been called away suddenly, but my maid will give you the article which I intended to present to you in asking you to call. As I no longer have use for this suitcase, perhaps it would serve you on your next trip to Italy.“Trusting to see you at church next Sunday,“Sincerely yours,—— ——.”
“Dear Sir:
“I have been called away suddenly, but my maid will give you the article which I intended to present to you in asking you to call. As I no longer have use for this suitcase, perhaps it would serve you on your next trip to Italy.
“Trusting to see you at church next Sunday,
“Sincerely yours,—— ——.”
On another occasion an Italian minister was sent to a new field. A few days after he had settled down he had a telephone call from the wife of a minister of the town, who invited him to call at her house. At the appointed hour he went and was met by the servant, who gave him a newspaper bundle. The young man protested, saying that he had come to call in response to an invitation. The servant went upstairs, but came back, saying there was no mistake, that the lady wished that given to him. On reaching home he found that the contents consisted of cast-off clothing for his children. He bought a handsome edition of an Italian book for children, translated into English, and sent it with his regards to the patronizing lady.
There should be, in the large foreign colonies, organized lectures, clubs, stereopticon lectures, distribution of information, both in Italian and in English, to explain and to instruct in regard to American history, laws, institutions, and ideals. There should be free courses on a university extension plan for Italian professional men, with a view to preparing them to expound to their people in the right way the principles and standards of American life. A regular and carefully carried out campaign should be started in the Italian newspapers, with well-written articles by leading men on the subject of American life; and a careful censorship of Italian newspapers should be established to challenge every article that is unduly depreciatory of America.
Churches should be centres where American volunteers of the best kind can in deed and word represent their country to the foreigner. Churches furnish a good means to bring about Americanization. Italians are apt to move from place to place, and those who become attached to Evangelical churches, besides the good which they eventually get in their own churches, are also brought into contact with American congregations, who by their example initiate them into the ways of American life.
A campaign to enlighten the immigrant as to his duties towards his new country should be started on a somewhat different basis from those already tried. The immigrant is often made to feel how great the material advantage is for him in becoming an American citizen, and thus is trained to enter into American public and political life in a mercenary spirit. When I applied for citizenship papers, I received this letter from the Bureau of Naturalization, Washington, D.C.:—
“Dear Sir:“You have just filed your petition for naturalization to become a citizen of the United States, and becauseof this the United States Bureau of Naturalization is sending this letter to you, as it desires to show you how you can become an American citizen. It also wants to help you to get a better position that pays you more money for your work. In order to help you better yourself it has sent your name to the public schools in your city, and the superintendent of those schools has promised to teach you the things which you should know to help you to get a better position. If you will go to the public school building nearest where you live the teacher will tell you what nights you can go to school and the best school for you to go to. You will not be put in a class with boys and girls, but with grown people. It will not cost you anything for the teaching which you will receive in the school, and it will help you get a better job and also make you able to pass the examination in court when you come to get your citizen’s papers.“You should call at the schoolhouse as soon as you receive this letter so that you may start to learn and be able to get a better job as soon as possible.“Very truly yours,N. N.”
“Dear Sir:
“You have just filed your petition for naturalization to become a citizen of the United States, and becauseof this the United States Bureau of Naturalization is sending this letter to you, as it desires to show you how you can become an American citizen. It also wants to help you to get a better position that pays you more money for your work. In order to help you better yourself it has sent your name to the public schools in your city, and the superintendent of those schools has promised to teach you the things which you should know to help you to get a better position. If you will go to the public school building nearest where you live the teacher will tell you what nights you can go to school and the best school for you to go to. You will not be put in a class with boys and girls, but with grown people. It will not cost you anything for the teaching which you will receive in the school, and it will help you get a better job and also make you able to pass the examination in court when you come to get your citizen’s papers.
“You should call at the schoolhouse as soon as you receive this letter so that you may start to learn and be able to get a better job as soon as possible.
“Very truly yours,N. N.”
As you see, four times there occurs in this letter the exhortation to become a citizen and to learn the English language in order to get “a better job.” The letter contains not a single appeal to higher motives nor a reference to the duties and responsibilities of American citizenship, yet it is sent to every foreigner who applies for citizenship. I think a letter of this kind is demoralizing. I wonder whether America is better off for exhorting foreigners to become citizens from such motives, or whether it would not be more desirable to instruct immigrants carefully on the altruistic side as to the duty of sharing the responsibilities of American life.
It may be worth mentioning that thirty years of residence in the city of Rome is required of any man, even of Italian birth, in order to become a Roman citizen.
Human nature, fortunately, is always longing for an appeal to its best side. I accompanied a friend when the Americancitizenship was granted to him. The judge, a man with a fine, clean-cut face, turned toward the candidates—there were about a hundred in the room—and told the story of the Pilgrim Fathers who, although starved and in great distress, refused the opportunity of going back to England, where religious and political freedom was denied them. The words were to me an inspiration, and in glancing around I saw the faces of those present light up and show signs of emotion. Big Irishmen, heavy-faced Slavs, small, dried-up Jews, dark Italians, small-headed Greeks, I could see in the eyes of them all the light of men who were seeing a vision. The appeal to the best there is in man should be the leading thought in educating immigrants to a desire for American citizenship.