US HISTORY: SPICONARDI
The Immigration Question: How should American respond
to immigration in late 19th/early 20th century?
Starter
What is your single favorite thing to eat? Be specific. Don’t just say candy or Italian food. Name a specific dish.
Contributions
Italians Culinary (pasta, pizza, etc.) Masonry
Stonework on many of New York’s buildings & The Kensico Dam.
Contributions
Jews Yiddish Theater Bagels Seamstresses & tailors in NYC’s Garment District
Contributions
Poles Polka music Along with Italians, Slavs, Hungarians, and
Mexicans, Poles increased America’s Catholic population
Worked the coal mines of Pennsylvania
Assimilation
Assimilation the process in which a minority culture becomes part of the dominant culture
How did immigrants assimilate? Citizenship classes Dressed American Changed Diet/cook ethnic
food with American ingredients
Attempted to speak English Fourth of July = Il Forte
Gelato
Who do you think had the hardest and easiest time assimilating?
Nativism
Nativism Belief that immigration was soiling the superior native-born American Protestant values and culture
Nativists tried to lobby for legislation to restrict immigration Oddly, it was the
descendants of old immigrants that were often among the nativists protesting the arrival of new immigrants
Pluralism
Pluralism When a smaller cultural group within a larger culturally dominant group society maintains unique cultural traits and those cultural traits are considered worth having in the dominant cultural group. Sometimes referred to as the salad bowl theory
Each part of the salad is identifiable, but creates a new, larger whole.
Is there American Culture?