White on Arrival: Italians, Race, Color, and Power in Chicago, 1890-1945

by Thomas A. Guglielmo

Immigrating to the United States, Italians, like all others arriving on America's shores, were made to fill out a standardized immigration form. In the box for race, they faced two North Italian or South Italian. On the line requesting information on color, they wrote simply "white."
By World War II, the only option they had for race and color questions was "white."
This identification is suggestive of the many ways in which Italians became white on arrival in the United States, as Thomas A. Guglielmo demonstrates in this prize-winning book. While many suffered from racial prejudice and discrimination, they were nonetheless viewed as white, with all the
privileges this color classification bestowed, in the corridors of American power--from judges to journalists, from organized labor to politicians, from race scientists to realtors.
Taking the mass Italian immigration of the late 19th century as his starting point and drawing on dozens of oral histories and a diverse array of primary sources in English and Italian, Guglielmo focuses on how perceptions of Italians' race and color were shaped in one of America's great centers of
immigration and labor, Chicago. His account skillfully weaves together the major events of Chicago immigrant history--the "Chicago Color Riot" of 1919, the rise of Italian organized crime, and the rise of industrial unionism--with national and international events--such as the rise of fascism and
the Italian-Ethiopian War of 1935-36--to present the story of how Italians approached, learned, and lived race. By tracking their evolving position in the city's racial hierarchy, Guglielmo reveals the impact of racial classification--both formal and informal--on immigrants' abilities to acquire
homes and jobs, start families, and gain opportunities in America.
Carefully drawing the distinction between race and color, Guglielmo argues that whiteness proved Italians' most valuable asset for making it in America. Even so, Italians were reluctant to identify themselves explicitly as white until World War II. By separating examples of discrimination against
Italians from the economic and social advantages they accrued from their acceptance as whites, Guglielmo counters the claims of many ethnic Americans that hard work alone enabled their extraordinary success, especially when compared to non-white groups whose upward mobility languished. A compelling
story, White on Arrival contains profound implications for our understanding of race and ethnic acculturation in the United States, as well as twentieth-century immigration, urban, and political history.

Genres: History, American History, Race

Hardcover

First published January 1, 2003

Reviews

[Vincent Lombardo · Rating 1 out of 5]

Too academic and too dense for me. I also am not that interested in Chicago.

[Stella · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book raised lots of interesting questions, but I felt like overall, it was very problematic.

Guglielmo argues that all Europeans were considered "white" from the moment they got to America. Thus, the Italians were not discriminated against because they were some race other than white, they were discriminated against because they were not very good examples of white.

[Hotavio · Rating 4 out of 5]

White on Arrival argues that though Italian immigrants were widely seen as being on the bottom of the racial hierarchy, they still were largely accepted as white. This afforded newcomers opportunities that were not available to African Americans. Italian Americans were relatively slow to accept this as America's preoccupation with color was foreign to them, but upon seeing the benefits of being white, Italian immigrants learned to take advantage of this new status.
Gugliemo's book concentrates on racially charged Chicago. It is divided into pertinent arenas that affect both the Italian and African American "race."

[Soobie has fog in her brain · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read it for a paper I wrote about the represetation of third-generation Italian immigrants in the US and in Australia. Really interesting. But it should have some more maps because for me it was difficult to picture all the different zones in Chicago, where Italians were living.

Good book, though.