Italians in Urban America: A Study in Ethnic Adjustment

Nearly four million Italians entered the United States between 1890 and 1920, the period of large-scale Italian immigration to this country.1 Contemporaries expressed deep concern about the influx of this alien horde, composed, many claimed, of criminals, paupers, ig? norant peasants and illegal contract laborers, all congregated in closelypacked colonies where they perpetuated old world traits and com? pounded urban problems.2 Scholars and laymen alike still too often ignore or fail to recognize values and contributions of the immigrant community and its institu? tions. Because it served as a staging area where new arrivals remained until they absorbed new ideas and habits which made possible their adjustment to the alien environment, the ethnic community fulfilled a vitally important function both to the newcomer and to the receiving society. It bridged the gap between rural (old world) traditions and the new urban world, and acquainted each immigrant group, from the Irish and Germans of the 1840s and the Italians and Slavs of the 1890s, to the Puerto Ricans and Negroes of the 1960s, with American urban