![]() Efforts at developing internal unity and at building coalitions with other ethnic groups have not offset their numerical weakness. Being part of the complex interaction and outnumbered by the Irish, Poles, Blacks, and Hispanics, Italian aspirations for power and prestige have often been thwarted. ![]() 4 But it has never been claimed that Chicago had enough Italians to be one of the largest Italian cities of the world. 3 Chicago’s Black population is second only to that of New York City at one time or another it has been the largest Lithuanian city, the second largest Polish city, the second largest Bohemian and Ukrainian city, and the third largest Swedish, Irish, and Jewish city in the world. Later, African American from the South, Mexicans, Asians, and a steady stream of others added their presence to the city, making it today the home of sizable colonies of over eighty different nationalities. In the early twentieth century, Italians, Russian Jews, and Poles found a place in Chicago. In the mid-nineteenth century it was the mecca for German and Irish migration. 2 The original Italian immigrants of the peasant class were also imbued with a campanilismo (loyalty to hometown clans) and almost certainly brought with them a cultural bias against political participation.Īs a rail center, an industrial center, and America’s fastest-growing major city, Chicago offered opportunities for immigrants from all nations. One writer has gone so far as to describe the South Italian culture as being so exclusively family centered (amoral familism) as to discourage the development of trust in government, the education system, and voluntary associations. The culture they brought with them, while not quite the culture of the Roman Empire or the Italian Renaissance, was richly textured, agrarian, peasant, Catholic, and family-oriented. Others became part of intricate chains of migration that re-established villages and towns in Chicago’s neighborhoods and suburbs. ![]() 1 Most of them were young men, birds of passage, who intended to work for a season or two and return to their families. This wave of unskilled southern immigrants came to the United States between 18. Most Chicago Italians, however, trace their ancestry – with some important and notable exceptions – to the central and southern parts of Italy and to the poor and illiterate country folk displaced by the land and economic policies of an uncaring government. Up until about 1880, the group consisted of a handful of enterprising Genoese fruitsellers, restaurateurs, and merchants with a sprinkling of Lucchese plasterworkers establishing themselves in the central city and the near North Side. Italians have been in Chicago since the 1850s. Any explanation will, no doubt, tell us as much about the American political environment as it will about the Italian American political community. Do we assess political success by counting the number of Italian-named people in elective office? Is it the behind-the-scenes power brokers who really count? Other considerations include patronage jobs, symbolic issues, and real issues like neighborhood redevelopment. ![]() The very measure and definition of political power also come into play. It is the purpose of this personal essay to sketch a narrative of political events in the city and state that can suggest an analysis and explanation for the comparative political weakness of Italian Americans in Chicago and Illinois. After living in the state for a century, that’s all that the population of half a million Italian Americans has gotten out of Illinois.Įxaggerated and oversimplified? Of course, but this stark record is reason enough to give us pause to learn the rest of the story. And only one of them (as of this writing), Jerry Cosentino, has ever been elected to statewide office as Treasurer in 19. In fact, only two Italian-named persons have ever been nominated for statewide office by a major party. There have been no Cook County Board Presidents with Italian names. No Italian American has ever been a serious contender for Mayor of Chicago or Governor of Illinois. Together our world-wide network of Italians has discovered America!īut, alas, the news that I have to report of dramatic political success in Chicago and Illinois politics is meager. Whether it be the exalted Governor of New York or the more humble Mayor of Chicago Heights, the fact that the American electorate has chosen as a leader someone with an Italian name, validates us all. Italian hospitality welcomes all «returning» emigrant descendants, but it welcomes none so extravagantly as Italian American elected officials. Italian pride swells at the success of its emigrants around the world.
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