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?