Discrimination and Identity Construction: The Case of Italian Immigrants and their Offspring in the USA

摘要

This paper applies the concept of ethnicity as a social and cultural construction to the experience of Italian Americans in the USA. It shows that the newcomers who arrived from the Italian peninsula in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries revealed a localistic sense of belonging as a consequence of the belated political unification of their native country. It also highlights that the immigrants and their offspring developed an identity based on their common national ancestry in the interwar years, primarily under the pressures of group defensiveness against anti-Italian prejudice, intolerance and discrimination. Their progeny eventually redefined its attachment in racial terms by joining forces with members of other minorities of European extractions who perceived African Americans’ assertiveness in the decades after the Second World War as reverse discrimination against whites.View full textDownload full textKeywordsDiscrimination, Ethnicity, Identity Construction, Italian Americans, Italian Immigrants, Nineteenth Century, Prejudice, Twentieth Century, USA, WhitenessRelated var addthis_config = { ui_cobrand: "Taylor & Francis Online", services_compact: "citeulike,netvibes,twitter,technorati,delicious,linkedin,facebook,stumbleupon,digg,google,more", pubid: "ra-4dff56cd6bb1830b" }; Add to shortlist Link Permalink http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07256868.2011.565739