STEFANO MIELE
That one should come to America for the sole purpose of making money, as the author of the following selection frankly states he did, may seem an unworthy motive; but, after all, it is not essentially different from the impulse that causes the country-bred American boy to seek the larger cities for what he thinks will be greater financial opportunities. Motives, in the final analysis, must be judged in large part by their issues and results.This young Italian, ambitious to become a lawyer and finding it impossible in Italy to get employment with an opportunity to study, decided to try his luck in America, where he was willing to “shovel coal,” “wash dishes,” or “do anything to get up.” In a little more than five years after landing at Ellis Island he was admitted to the New York bar.The following selection is reprinted from his article, “America as a Place to Make Money,” published in the issue ofThe World’s Workfor December, 1920.
That one should come to America for the sole purpose of making money, as the author of the following selection frankly states he did, may seem an unworthy motive; but, after all, it is not essentially different from the impulse that causes the country-bred American boy to seek the larger cities for what he thinks will be greater financial opportunities. Motives, in the final analysis, must be judged in large part by their issues and results.
This young Italian, ambitious to become a lawyer and finding it impossible in Italy to get employment with an opportunity to study, decided to try his luck in America, where he was willing to “shovel coal,” “wash dishes,” or “do anything to get up.” In a little more than five years after landing at Ellis Island he was admitted to the New York bar.
The following selection is reprinted from his article, “America as a Place to Make Money,” published in the issue ofThe World’s Workfor December, 1920.
I was about twenty years old when I first thought of going to America. But it is not so easy to leave one’s native land: it was not until three years later that I said good-by to my father and mother and our neighbors. I did not think for a moment that it was for the last time—I was only going to America to make money and then return to Baiano and the old folks.
My father gave me a little money so that I could buy a second-class ticket. But I was young; I was starting on my first big adventure; and—in Naples my money went, this way, that way—I came in the steerage. It was no great hardship. My fellow-passengers were Italians, most of them laborers, men used to hard work. They were very happy—laughing, singing, playing—full of dreams, ambitions.
Then came Ellis Island!
Every one crowded—discomfort—lice—dirt—harshness—the officers shouting “Come here,” “Go there,” as though they were driving animals. And then the uncertain period of detention—sometimes a week, sometimes two, three, or even four weeks—it is as though a man were in prison. Ellis Island does not give the immigrant a good first lesson in Americanization.
America wants the immigrant as a worker; but does it make any effort to direct him, to distribute him to the places where workers are needed? No; it leaves the immigrant to go here, there, any place. If the immigrant were a horse instead of a human being, America would be more careful of him; if it loses a horse, it feels it loses something; if it loses an immigrant, it feels it loses nothing. At any rate, that is the way it seems to the immigrant; and it strengthens his natural disposition to settle among people of his own race.
A man needs to be a fighter to come to America without friends. I was more fortunate than many: I had a brother in America. He worked in a private bank. He met mewhen I landed and took me to his home in Brooklyn. I looked for a job for about a month. I tried to get work on the Italian newspapers; I tried to get work in a law office. Finally a friend took me to a Jewish law office, and I was employed—I was to get 25 per cent. of the fees from any clients that I brought in. I stayed there two months and got $5. Three months after I arrived in New York I was given the kind of a place that I had looked for in vain in my native land—one that would enable me to support myself and study my chosen profession. I was given a place on an Italian religious newspaper. I worked from eight in the morning to six in the evening, and attended the night course of the New York Law School.
It was about August when I landed in America, and already there was election talk. (It was the year McClellan ran for Mayor.) I met some of the Italian-American politicians. It is said that I have a gift for oratory. The politicians asked what would be my price to talk in the Italian sections of the city. I said that I did not want anything. I made speeches for McClellan, and I have made speeches in every campaign since.
That was one of the first things that struck me in America—that every one working in politics was working for his own pocket. Another thing that also amazed me was that most of the men elected to an office, in which they are supposed to deliberate and legislate, were in reality only figureheads taking orders from some one else. They had no independence, no individuality. Another discovery was that the Italians with most political influence were men of low morality, of low type. Then I discovered the reason: the politicians needed repeaters and guerillas, and that was why “the boss had to be seen” through a saloon- or dive-keeper.
A thing that seemed very strange was the way the American newspapers magnified crime in Italian districts, how they made sensational stories out of what were really little happenings, how they gave the Italians as a people a character for criminality and violence. No less strange was the way the Italian newspapers answered the American press. They wereboth building up a barrier of prejudice. If I were to judge America through the American newspapers, I would not have become an American citizen; or if I could know America only through the Italian-American newspapers, I would say that the Americans are our enemies.
It must be frankly admitted, however, that there is a change in the second generation, a change that is too frequently not for the better. As I have said, the majority of Italian immigrants come from the rural districts of Italy, and, because there is no policy of distribution, most of them settle in the big cities. They are not prepared to meet the situation presented in a big industrial centre. They think to apply the same principle in bringing up children that had been applied in the little village or on the farm in Italy. They let the children run loose. And in the streets of the crowded tenement districts the children see graft, pocketpicking, street-walking, easy money here, easy money there; they see the chance to make money without working. The remedy is to be found in distributing the newly arrived immigrants.
Most of what I have said has been of the faults of America. I have spoken of them because they are things that hold back Americanization.
America has been good to me. I have prospered here as I could not have prospered in Italy. I came to make money and return; I have made money and stayed. A little more than five years after I had landed at Ellis Island I was admitted to the New York bar. I have already had greater success than I dreamed, when I left Italy, that I should have. And I look forward to still greater success. For me, America has proved itself, and promises to continue to prove itself, the land of opportunity, but I have not forgotten Italy—it is foolish to tell any Italian to forget Italy. I say Italy; but for me, as for the others, Italy is the little village where I was raised—the little hills, the little church, the little garden, the little celebrations. I am forty years old, but Christmas and Easter never come around but what I want to return to Baiano. In my mind I become alittle child again. But I know enough to realize that I see all those scenes from a distance and with the eye of childhood.
But even if I wanted to return to Italy, my children would not let me. America is their country. My father is dead. I have brought my mother here. When an Italian brings his parents to America, he is here to stay.
America is a wonderful nation. But we make a mistake if we assume that the Anglo-Saxon is the perfect human being. He has splendid qualities, but he also has faults. The same thing is true of the Latins. The Anglo-Saxon is pre-eminently a business man, an executive, an organizer, energetic, dogged. But in the Anglo-Saxon’s civilization the Latin finds a lack of the things that go to make life worth living. I remember the returned Italians, the “Americans,” that I used to see at Baiano: they had made money in America and were prosperous and independent, but they had also lost something—a certain light-heartedness, a joy in the little things—the old jests no longer made them laugh. The Latin has the artistic, the emotional temperament, a gift for making little things put sunshine into life, a gift for the social graces. If the Latin could get the qualities that the Anglo-Saxon has, and give to the Anglo-Saxon those that he lacks,—if all the nationalities that make up America could participate in this give-and-take process,—then we would have a real Americanization.