Today, Italy is celebrated worldwide for its rich culture, food, fashion, and history. Being Italian is often considered “cool,” and many Italian-Americans take pride in their heritage. However, this wasn’t always the case. For much of the late 19th and 20th centuries, Italian immigrants and their descendants faced widespread discrimination in the United States as well as the rest of the world. From being labeled criminals and anarchists to being targeted by lynch mobs and wartime restrictions, Italians struggled to be accepted in American society.
This history of anti-Italianism pushed many Italian-Americans to suppress their heritage in favor of assimilation. Speaking Italian, maintaining cultural traditions, and even having an Italian-sounding name could be seen as a disadvantage. But today, the tides have turned. More Italian-Americans are reclaiming their roots, reconnecting with their ancestral homeland, and embracing the very identity their parents and grandparents once had to downplay.
Sam Maranto, who recently obtained his Italian citizenship, represents this shift. “My father, when he was growing up, did everything he could to de-emphasize his Italian roots and be very American,” Maranto said. “Now, what was once a mark of suspicion became a source of pride. What he had to suppress, I was able to reclaim. And in doing so, I became not just an American with Italian roots, but fully Italian in the eyes of the law, and more importantly, in my own heart”. His story is part of a broader movement of Italian-Americans rediscovering their heritage, a testament to how perceptions of Italian identity in the U.S. have evolved.
Italian immigration to the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was driven by necessity. Many Italians, particularly those from the impoverished southern regions, saw America as a land of opportunity where they could escape economic hardship and political instability. However, the promise of a better life often collided with harsh realities. Instead of being welcomed, Italian immigrants faced hostility, discrimination, and even violence. Their language, customs, and Catholic faith made them targets of suspicion, and their willingness to take low-paying jobs placed them in direct competition with other working-class groups.
While Italians gradually built thriving communities in cities across the U.S., they also encountered significant barriers to acceptance. Anti-Italian sentiment was widespread, and for decades, they were viewed as outsiders—racially, culturally, and politically.
Between 1880 and 1920, more than four million Italians immigrated to the United States, making them one of the largest immigrant groups of the time. The vast majority came from Southern Italy and Sicily, regions suffering from extreme poverty, lack of infrastructure, and an unstable political climate following Italian unification. Upon their arrival in the country, Italians were relegated to low-paying, dangerous jobs in construction, mining, and factory work while enduring severe discrimination. In this way, they quickly became an essential labor force in America’s rapidly industrializing cities, but their presence was met with resentment. Native-born Americans, particularly in the working class, viewed Italians as job stealers who drove down wages and disrupted the social order. And the fact that they were Catholic in a majority-Protestant country only heightened distrust.
Because of this distrust, Italian immigrants tended to cluster in ethnic enclaves in cities like New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and New Orleans, forming tight-knit communities to preserve their language, traditions, and religion. However, these neighborhoods, while offering familiarity and support, also reinforced the idea that Italians were unwilling or simply unable to assimilate into American society. Moreover, unlike earlier waves of Irish and German immigrants, who had established strong Catholic institutions to help ease their transition, Italians often arrived without priests, schools, or social organizations. This forced isolation further fueled negative perceptions and left many Italians vulnerable to exploitation by landlords, employers, and local politicians.
So, despite their contributions to the American workforce and economy, Italians were seen as racially and culturally inferior, often categorized as not fully white in early 20th-century racial hierarchies. It was this perceived otherness that made them frequent targets of discrimination, both socially and institutionally.
The strong hostility toward Italian immigrants often turned violent and, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Italians became one of the most lynched ethnic groups in American history. The most infamous case was the 1891 mass lynching in New Orleans, where eleven Italian men were murdered by a mob after being falsely accused of assassinating the city’s police chief. They had already been acquitted in court, but anti-Italian hysteria led the enraged crowd to storm the jail, dragging them out and lynching them in broad daylight.
What’s worse, future president Theodore Roosevelt later referred to the event as "a rather good thing," reflecting the widespread indifference toward violence against Italians. And John M. Parker, who would become Governor of Louisiana, described Italians as "just a little worse than the Negro, being if anything filthier in their habits, lawless, and treacherous." These remarks only reflected the racialized view of Italians as an inferior and criminally inclined group.
Beyond New Orleans, more than 20 documented lynchings of Italian immigrants occurred across the U.S., particularly in the South where Italians were frequently accused of crimes without evidence, often portrayed as bandits or mafia members even when they were ordinary workers and shopkeepers.
The portrayal of Italians in popular media also played a role in justifying discrimination and fueling anti-Italian sentiment. In fact, political cartoons in newspapers like Judge and Life depicted Italians as rats, anarchists, or criminals invading American cities. More specifically, one infamous cartoon published in 1903 showed Italian immigrants as rats spreading the “diseases” of mafia, socialism, and anarchy as they climbed onto an American shore. These depictions thus reinforced public fears that Italians were inherently untrustworthy and dangerous.
Because of this, many Italians found themselves trapped between two extremes. If they were poor laborers, they were labeled as dirty, uneducated peasants; if they were successful entrepreneurs, they were suspected of organized crime connections. This damaging stereotype of Italians as criminals would persist for decades, solidified by Prohibition-era bootlegging and later reinforced by Hollywood’s obsession with mafia films.
As Italy aligned itself with Nazi Germany during World War II, suspicion toward Italian-Americans escalated to new heights. By the early 1940s, indeed, over 600,000 Italian immigrants in the United States—many of whom had lived there for decades—were classified as “enemy aliens.”
This designation came with severe restrictions. Curfews were imposed, movement was monitored, and thousands lost their jobs due to their Italian heritage. The government confiscated property, shut down Italian-language newspapers, and in some cases, forced entire families to relocate. And while Japanese Americans were placed in internment camps on a much larger scale, hundreds of Italians were also detained, including prominent community leaders, teachers, and businessmen.
The irony of these actions was that Italian-Americans had already begun proving their loyalty to the U.S. by serving in the military. Nearly 1.5 million Italian-Americans fought in World War II, yet many of their families back home were still treated as potential threats.
Sam Maranto’s father, who served in the U.S. Navy, was among those caught in this wave of paranoia. “It was not uncommon in the 30s, the 40s, and the 50s, specifically to single out Italians,” Maranto explained, citing fears tied to the Red Scare, anarchism, and Catholic allegiance to the Pope. “And in some cases—though it was ultimately ruled illegal by the courts—Italian-Americans were asked to swear an additional oath, one similar to the oath of naturalization, where they renounced any allegiance to a foreign country or power.”
Even famous Italian-Americans were not exempt from scrutiny. Baseball legend Joe DiMaggio’s father—a longtime San Francisco fisherman—had his boat seized by the U.S. government because of his Italian citizenship. He was banned from traveling beyond a five-mile radius of his home. And many other Italian fishermen in California were similarly restricted, losing their only source of livelihood.
By 1944, as the war turned against Italy’s fascist government and Italian-American soldiers proved their dedication, many restrictions were lifted. However, the damage had been done. Entire communities had been displaced, businesses had closed, and countless Italian immigrants had been forced to downplay their heritage even further to avoid suspicion.
Although the worst of the discrimination faded after the war, the stigma of being “too Italian” lingered. Many second-generation Italian-Americans responded by embracing full assimilation, abandoning the language, customs, and even their surnames to blend in. The perception that Italians needed to prove their loyalty persisted, shaping how the community navigated American society for years to come.
By the mid-20th century, Italian-Americans had endured decades of discrimination, suspicion, and forced assimilation. They had been lynched, labeled as anarchists, treated as enemy aliens, and pressured to abandon their heritage. Yet, despite these struggles, they had also made significant strides in carving out a place for themselves in American society.
After World War II, the landscape for Italian-Americans began to change. The economic boom of the 1950s provided new opportunities, allowing many Italians to move out of working-class neighborhoods and into the middle class. With greater financial stability, Italian-Americans were no longer seen as an underclass competing for low-wage jobs, reducing some of the resentment they had long faced.
At the same time, prominent Italian-Americans began gaining visibility in mainstream culture. From politics to sports to entertainment, Italians moved into influential roles, shifting public perception. The election of Fiorello La Guardia as mayor of New York City, the dominance of Joe DiMaggio in baseball, and the rise of Frank Sinatra in music and cinema all helped legitimize Italians as an integral part of American life.
However, while acceptance was growing, stereotypes still persisted, particularly the image of the Italian gangster.
Even as Italian-Americans were becoming more integrated into society, the rise of Hollywood portrayals of organized crime ensured that Italians were still closely associated with the Mafia in the public imagination.
During our interview, Sam Maranto reflected on this contradiction. “One of the most popular movies in the United States in the 70s was The Godfather, and it was an Italian mafia movie,” he said. “But even though it was about a crime family, it was really a romanticized ideal of Italian-Americans and Italian culture.”
And while films like The Godfather and later Goodfellas and The Sopranos highlighted aspects of Italian-American tradition such as family, loyalty, and resilience, they also reinforced the idea that Italians were inherently tied to crime. The fact that real-life mob figures like Al Capone had dominated headlines for decades only fueled the perception that criminality was a core part of Italian identity.
For many Italian-Americans, this stereotype was deeply frustrating. They had fought hard to be recognized for their contributions in business, law, politics, and science, yet their representation in pop culture continued to be dominated by images of gangsters and violence.
Despite these lingering stereotypes, the postwar period also marked a turning point in how Italians viewed themselves. The next generation of Italian-Americans, the children and grandchildren of immigrants, began to embrace their heritage with pride, rather than seeing it as something to downplay or hide.
As civil rights movements reshaped American culture, ethnic pride movements also gained momentum. Italians, who had once worked so hard to assimilate and “fit in”, now began celebrating their culture more openly. Italian-American organizations flourished, and festivals, cultural centers, and heritage groups worked to preserve Italian traditions that had once been at risk of being erased.
By the late 20th century, Italian-Americans had fully integrated into American society, achieving success in politics, business, entertainment, and beyond. And while the Mafia stereotype still lingered in popular culture, the broader perception of Italians had shifted from suspicion to admiration—a stark contrast to the hostility their ancestors had faced.
The story of Italian-Americans is one of struggle, resilience, and transformation. From the moment they arrived in the late 19th century, Italians faced deep-seated prejudice, branded as criminals, anarchists, and outsiders. They endured lynchings, discrimination in the workplace, political persecution, and wartime suspicion, all while working tirelessly to build better lives for themselves and future generations.
Yet, despite these obstacles, they persevered. Over time, through hard work, cultural adaptation, and determination, Italian-Americans fought for—and earned—their place in American society. They moved from the margins to the mainstream, contributing to every facet of American life while reshaping the nation’s understanding of what it means to be Italian in America.
Still, the scars of anti-Italianism linger. The pressure to assimilate led many to suppress their cultural identity for decades, choosing to downplay their heritage in order to avoid discrimination. Family names were changed, languages were lost, and traditions were set aside in an effort to blend in. But as time passed, later generations began to reclaim what was once hidden—reviving Italian language, traditions, and connections to their ancestral homeland with a sense of pride rather than fear.
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