Lesson 15:Lesson 15:Immigration in FilmImmigration in Film

Professor Aaron Baker

Previous LecturePrevious Lecture

• Mexican History, Society and Cinema

• Como Agua Para Chocolate (1992)

• Amores Perros (2000)

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Today’s LessonToday’s Lesson

• Immigration and Ethnicity

• Irish Immigration in Gangs of New York (2002)

• Italian Immigration in Nuovomondo (The Golden Door, 2006)

Part I: Immigration and EthnicityPart I: Immigration and Ethnicity

The Immigration ExperienceThe Immigration Experience

• Meg Greenfield: “Immigrant Mystique”

• Interest in Family History

• “WASP yearning for an ethnically defined and differentiated identity.” Friedman, p.11

African American Civil Rights African American Civil Rights MovementMovement

• “Black is Beautiful”

• Encouraged Ethnic Pride

• Symbols, Cultural Events

MulticulturalismMulticulturalism

• Not Assimilation, Melting Pot Metaphor

• Hyphenated Identity:– Irish-American– Italian-American– German-American

• Pride, Uniqueness, Perspective

U.S. Becoming More DiverseU.S. Becoming More Diverse

• New Waves of Immigration

• Latin America, Asia

• Minorities Becoming Majorities

EthnicEthnic

• Originally “Pagan”

• Cultural, National, Political Outsider

• Social Subgroup within Larger Culture

Hollywood MoviesHollywood Movies

• Have Insisted on Cultural Uniformity

• The American Dream

• Acknowledged Cultural Difference

• Assert Need to Become American

E.g. E.g. Gentleman’s AgreementGentleman’s Agreement

• 1947

• Academy Award

• Reporter investigates Anti-Semitism

• Finds we’re all alike underneath

• Melting Pot

• Americanness

Early Film Aimed at ImmigrantsEarly Film Aimed at Immigrants

• Urban Working Class Audience

• Entertainment

• “Manners and customs of . . . new environment” Friedman, p.27

Immigrant MogulsImmigrant Moguls

• Studio Heads Denied Ethnic, Immigrant Roots

• Neal Gabler: “Utter and absolute rejection of their pasts and . . . a ferocious, even pathological, embrace of America.” Friedman, p.29

Part II: The Irish inPart II: The Irish inGangs of New York Gangs of New York (2002)(2002)

1919thth Century Irish Catholics: Century Irish Catholics: No RightsNo Rights

-No vote

-No public office

-No university

-No professions

-No possessions of

value

-No inheritanceFrom Punch

ExodusExodus

Noel Ignatiev:

Irish Catholics left in

19th century for U.S.

to find—– More rights,

opportunities– Often found

hostility from Native Born in U.S.

Who Were the Natives?

• Born here

• Often just one step up socially, economically

• Ignatiev: oppressed to oppressor

• Saw Irish as an “inferior race”– as viewed Blacks

• Michael Omi, Howard Winant: 19th century ethnicity still equated w/race

“He Used to Be Irish”

• Gangs of New York (2002)

• Please pause lecture to watch clip.

Daniel Day Lewis in Gangs of New York

Psychological/Economic Motives

• Anti Lincoln, Anti Irish Immigration; Why?– Resent Civil War to end slavery of African

Americans – Resent draft to fight. How War in their interest?– “Lincoln will make all white men slaves.”– Shang (Stephan Graham) “Trying to say I’m no

better than a N word?”– What meant by “He used to be an Irishman”– Shang learned how to appear white, by

claiming privilege, oppressing those below them.

Boss Tweed

• Head of Tammany Hall

• Controlled New York City Government

1860s-1870s

• Convicted of stealing $100 million in taxpayers money

Black and Irish Unity

• Initially worked, lived together

• White Negros, Smoked Irish

• Dan O’Connell 1841:

-Called on Irish to join

Abolitionists -Overthrow slavery

Civil War 1861-1865

• About ending slavery?

• About money—like all wars

• Northern industrialists versus Southern landowners

• Ending slavery undercut Southern economy, South’s ability to fight

New York Draft Riots: 1863

• Historian Eric Foner:– 4 days– Mob mostly Irish immigrants

• “Assaulted symbols of the new order being created by the war, wealthy Republicans, . . . The city’s black population.”

Forced Conscription

• Irish being forced into military (or pay $300), “Why don’t factory owners fight for own interests?”

• Who targeted in riots shown in Gangs?

• Rich in New York

• Also working class African Americans

• Working-class Irish move from oppressed to oppressors

Whiteness

• Irish rioters attacking Blacks adopting the identity of whiteness

• Fighting power that controls them so can assert similar control

• Express belief you are superior, have right to oppress non whites

Part III: The ItaliansPart III: The ItaliansNuovomondo Nuovomondo (2006)(2006)

Humbert Nelli

• Historian of Italian Immigration

• 5 million people emigrated from Italy to U.S.

• 4 million between 1880-1914

What Factors Drove Them?

Too Many People, Not Enough Land

• Overpopulation in Southern Italy– Nelli: “Overpopulation constituted a

fundamental and chronic problem.” p.19

• Lack Good Land to Farm– Most Good Land in North– Immigrants from South (Mezzogiorno)

• Lack of Ownership by Peasant Farmers

Il Mezzogiorno

80% of immigrants came from Southern Italy.

Nelli:

• “Nearly all the land was purchased by large landowners or by speculators instead of by peasants, who could not afford the high purchase prices.” p.20

• Southern peasants also didn’t have money for mechanization, fertilizers

• So agricultural production low, resulting in poverty

Nuovomondo (The Golden Door)Nuovomondo (The Golden Door)

How Shows Difficult Life in Southern Italy (Sicily)?

Hard Life

• Sicily

• Rocky, Mountainous Land

• Not Fertile

Crude Housing

• Nelli’s description of housing for Sicilian peasants:

“Only one room, often windowless, or lighted only by the door. . .The floor is of worn stone, the walls are rudely plastered and the only heat in winter comes from the small charcoal brazier, that is used in preparing food.” p.21

Nelli: More Limitations onItalian Peasants

• Paid Taxes, But Little Help from Italian Govt.; p.23

• Natural Disasters: Drought, Pests, Earthquakes, Volcanoes; p.24

• Besides Inequality of Land Ownership, Longstanding Caste System

• Little Upward Mobility; p.25

Three Ways for Better Life

• Priesthood• Mafia offered support

to people in place of govt.– “Extra legal and

parallel form of government” p.27

• Leave; Emigration (U.S., Latin America)

What Did the Italian Govt. Think of so Many Leaving?

• Safety valve

• “It looked upon massive emigration as the easiest and most convenient means of relieving potentially disruptive socio-economic and political pressures in the South.” p.29-30

Went Where?

• Many Italian emigrants went to Latin America (Brazil, Argentina—where Nuovomondo filmed)

• Why Nelli send more Italians to U.S.?

-Cheaper passage

-Better jobs

Those That Left

• Ambituous, Hard Working• Those who departed came, according to the

American Consul in Palermo, Philip Carroll, from “the more frugal, thrifty and energetic” members of Southern society. p.32

• Poorest couldn’t afford passage

Passage Difficult

• Steam ship• 2-3 Weeks• Tough conditions: Nelli: “Beds were double or

tripled-tiered affairs with iron frameworks that supported burlap covered bags of straw, grass . . . which served as mattresses. . . . few vessels provided enough space for steerage passengers to sit down at a table for their meals.” p.35

Ellis Island

• Like those see in Nuovomondo, 97% came through NYC. p.47

• Ellis Island Processing Facility

Testing

• Scenes at Ellis Island show how the new immigrants, including Italian--– Tested for disease, but also for intellectual

abilities– Omi and Winant state that up to 1920 the idea

was prominent in American society that immigrants like Italians were genetically inferior

• Please pause to see testing in The Golden Door.

Carina Chocano, LA Times

• Golden Door shows:– “The white-coated, modern barbarism at

Ellis Island . . . families were separated and immigrants denied entry. . . . scientists labored to prove the supposed genetic inferiority of Jews, Italians, Russians, Hungarians and other ethnic groups and passed their research along to Congress, resulting in quotas for immigrants from different countries.”

Carina Chocano, LA Times (Continued)

• “A marvel of modern efficiency and a young nation's naïve confidence in its ability to scientifically shape its destiny by denying its humanism, the Ellis Island of The Golden Door is light years away from the hardscrabble island where Salvatore was born. But the narrow view of the world that they both provide is remarkably the same.”

Discussion Question:Discussion Question:

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Do you see certain similarities in how Irish and Italian immigration is shown in these two films and contemporary immigration in the U.S.?

End of Lecture 15End of Lecture 15

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