Julia Pandolfi

1/12/18

Research Paper

Sokoloff

Italians in the early nineteen hundreds needed to break their vicious cycle

of war, illness, and poverty. Poverty was a main reason for immigration to the

United States because they could not support their families. The fear of war was

also a large reason to move to the United States. Italians needed to find a more

successful life in the United States.

Poverty urges people to migrate in order to improve their quality of life.

During the early to mid nineteen hundreds in Italy, the state was impoverished

because of the First World War and the Second World War soon to come. Many

young Italians, including Angelo Quaini, were looking for a way to leave Italy.

He was a goat herder and could not see a future in the job. Angelo and many other

Italians wanted to get out of Italy before the starvation and poverty became too

out of hand (Pandolfi). Italy was so poor that they needed to turn to other

countries to help feed their famished people. “The present plan is for the United

States and Great Britain to provide a minimum subsistence for the people of Italy

for at least one year,” states Allen Raymond of the ​Saturday Evening Post​.

Raymond goes on to say how, “Another difficulty is that the wages of the

working people of Naples and Rome have failed to keep pace through the war

with the rise in food prices”. Italians fled Italy before the start of World War II to
escape the deprivation that was yet to come. Another danger of living in poverty

was the vast amounts of illnesses. Some Italians could not afford to pay for

treatments and died from diseases that could easily be treated. Angela Quaini,

Angelo’s wife, contracted tuberculosis from the unsanitary air in Italy. The illness

had gotten so deadly that she had to be sent away to the Alps for fresh air.

Luckily, Angelo made enough money to pay for her treatment and she recovered.

Other Italians, however, were not as lucky and many of them died from the

disease. Italians also heard of much better and more profitable lives in the United

States. Nazzareno Pandolfi had a brother, Mario, who lived in Buffalo, NY. Mario

told Nazzareno of all the amazing opportunities in the United States and how the

pay was much better, too (Pandolfi). As Alexandra Molnar explains, “​The idea of

immigrating to America was attractive because of the higher wages American

workers received”. Molnar also states how the, “situation of many Italian farmers,

a 19th century agricultural crisis in Italy led to falling grain prices and loss of

markets for fruit and wine”. She also explains how, “disease, phylloxera,

destroyed grape vines used to produce wine”. It was obvious to both Nazzareno

and Angelo that the United States had, “abundant land, high wages, lower taxes,

and interestingly enough, no military draft” (Molnar and Pandolfi). The lack of a

military draft was especially attractive to young Italians because of the draft that

was soon to come in Italy.

Southern Italians were viewed as the pariahs of Italy and Venusta Cirilli’s

family new that they had to leave. Venusta was a twin when she was born in 1909
in Italy. Her twin, however, did not survive because their wet-nurse was not

healthy enough to feed both of them. As Elizabeth Wiskemann states in her article

for the ​Foreign Affairs​, “It is not true that the Italians of the south are dirty or

lazy, and still less is it true that they are stupid; but roughly half of them are

illiterate, and their health is miserable”. Members of the Cirilli family were not

wealthy or exceedingly literate. They lived as farmers in southern Italy, however,

they found it extremely difficult to support their large family (there were a little

over fifty of them) (Pandolfi). “Those who work on the land are lucky if they are

employed for six months in the year. They depend upon the seasons. In such

industry as there is, the work is seasonal also,” Wiskemann states in her article. If

the Cirilli’s did not have a profitable growing season, they would go without food

during the off season. After the death of Venusta’s twin sister, the Cirilli family

decided that they wanted a better life for their future generations. When Venusta

was a young girl, all fifty plus family members immigrated to the United States.

They moved to Mississippi and continued farming (Pandolfi). Taking care of

one’s family is immensely important in Italian culture, even if it means moving

them to another country.

War insites fear into citizens, makes them feel unsafe, and causes them to

flee their country. In the years leading up to World War I, young Italian men were

fearful that they’d be taken away from their families and drafted into the war.

They had heard of young men being drafted into the army, and never hearing

from them again. Angelo Quaini was one of the young Italian youths terrified of
being drafted. William E. Lingelbach from ​Vital Speeches of the Day​ shares what

Mussolini said about the African country Abyssinia (known now as modern-day

Ethiopia) at a conference in Rome, the year 1935, “I have to have Abyssinia. You

can call it a protectorate or a mandate under the League of Nations. Call it what

you will, but I must have Abyssinia”. Mussolini was willing to do whatever it

took to take over Abyssinia. He was a power hungry dictator who claims he

wanted the best for Italy, but truly he was only in it for his own greed. Italians

were fearful of what was going to happen to them if they went down to Africa to

seize the country.

Bess Demaree of the ​Saturday Evening Post​ recalls a friend telling him,

“that in mid-August Italians were exclaiming loudly In public places that ‘those

two madmen’—meaning Hitler and Mussolini— ‘are dragging us into war’”. The

Italian people were fearful that Mussolini was going to join forces with Hitler and

drag them into another war. Many Italians fled their home country because of this,

including Angelo Quaini. Angelo left Italy in time to not be drafted, but he had

come in contact with a girl who lived in Italy, that he loved very much. He would

travel back and forth to Italy for many years, only staying for a short time each

visit with Angela (he was afraid that he’d be drafted). Eventually, Angelo married

Angela. Shortly after their wedding, Angelo left Italy for fear of being drafted into

the army. A few years later, Angela finally made it to the United States with their

three year old daughter, Agnes. Nazzareno Pandolfi was another young Italian

scared of being drafted into the army. He had heard of people being taken in the
middle of the night from their homes, never to see their families again.

Nazzareno’s parents urged him to move to the United States so he would not be

put into the Italian army (Pandolfi).

Migration is most often issued by unhealthy and unsafe circumstances. In

the early to mid nineteen hundreds, many Italians immigrated to the United States

in search of a better life. During the years before World War II, the farms were

not producing much crop and the people were not well nourished. Jobs that were

available, such as goat herding, were not profitable enough to support a growing

family and many young Italian men were fearful that they would be drafted into

the army.