Description
Book SynopsisIn A Great Conspiracy against Our Race, Peter Vellon explores how Italian immigrants, a once undesirable and swarthy race, assimilated into dominant white culture through the influential national and radical Italian language press in New York City. Racial history has always been the thorn in America's side, with a swath of injusticesslavery, lynching, segregation, and many other illsperpetrated against black people. This very history is complicated by, and also dependent on, what constitutes a white person in this country. Many of the European immigrant groups now considered white also had to struggle with their own racial identities. Examining the press as a cultural production of the Italian immigrant community, this book investigates how this immigrant press constructed race, class, and identity from 1886 through 1920. Their frequent coverage of racially charged events of the time, as well as other topics such as capitalism and religion, reveals how these papers constructed a racial
Trade ReviewPowerfully affirms the centrality of race to immigration history and contributes to a better understanding of how societal pressures and internal desires to & fit in shape immigrants responses to their host country. The story of Italian Americans in particular illustrates & the tremendous cost of an assimilation process that inculcates the values of white over black, reminding us of the powerful legacy of race hatred and prejudice that still haunts American society today. * Journal of American History *
[] Vellon has written a book that compels attention of anyone interested in immigrant identity formation and the politics of race in the United States. * Italian American Review *
Full of nuance, finely attuned to transnational influences, and attentive to change over time, Vellons work is a noteworthy contribution to understanding how immigrants fit into, learned, and used the U.S. racial system. -- David Roediger,University of Kansas
The enormous amount of research Vellon has performed in the archives of Italian (American) mainstream and radical newspapers is inestimable. . . . Vellon unearths rhetoric about race and Italian immigration that truly advances the fields of Italian American history and whiteness studies. . . . The book is poised to function as a vital contribution to ethnic history and will become an important resource for upcoming scholars. -- Mary Jo Bona,Stony Brook University
The subject of Peter Vellons work, the construction of race and racial difference in the late 19th century and early 20th century Italian American mainstream and radical press in New York City, is fertile ground for exploration, given the ways in which Italian immigrants and their descendants have interacted with non-whites and particularly African Americans over the last century and more. Vellon scrutinizes articles on race and on various racial populations in the United States from a wide range of these newspapers, most of which have never been translated, and he breaks new ground discerning Italian immigrants attitudes towards Native Americans and Asian immigrants. Vellons book is an important and meaningful contribution to existing scholarship on Italian immigrants, on immigrants generally, and on the construction of race and race relations in the United States. -- Michael Topp,The University of Texas at El Paso
Peter Vellon offers a convincing narrative of the road to whiteness articulated by the Italian American press, and reveals how the definition of whiteness has been critical to American culture, in this case, through the Italian American experience. * Journal of American Ethnic History *
[A] concise yet thoroughly researched book. . . . An important contribution to Italian American studies specifically and immigrant and racial history in general. * Choice *
Table of ContentsContents Acknowledgments vii Introduction 1 1. The Italian Language Press and the Creation of an Italian Racial Identity 15 2. The Italian Language Press and Africa 37 3. Native Americans, Asians, and Italian Americans: Constructions of a Multilayered Racial Consciousness 57 4. The Education of Italian Americans in Matters of Color 79 5. Defending Italian American Civility, Asserting Whiteness 105 Epilogue 129 Notes 135 Index 163 About the Author 172
