Lilian Brandt, "A Transplanted Birthright: The Development of the Second Generation of the Italians in an American Environment," Charities v. XII, no. 18 (May, 1904); 494-499.

[Editor’s note: Footnotes have been modified for clarity in presentation.]

"Dear and most gracious Signora A-," wrote Giulio, aged twelve, to his teacher in an industrial school when she asked for letters containing certain information. "My father has been two years in America, and he follows the trade of carpenter, and…he would like to make of me an honest, industrious boy, with, at the same time, a trade better than his, and he sends me to school so that when I am grown I may be an educated man and useful to others.

"Later I wish to make machines for factories, and thus to have better wages than others.

"Having nothing more to say I kiss my hand to you and assure you that I am

Your

"GIULIO"

This letter is typical. Its grace and courtesy, and the ambition it reveals, are characteristic of the Italian children in America. The first two qualities are an inheritance that has come down to them through the centuries; the third is developed, or at least given a chance for expression, by American conditions.

Italian children, whether born in Italy or here, find America much to their taste. They are prompt to adapt themselves to the freedom of the new country and use all the facilities at their disposal for rising to a higher economic level than their parents. Modification of their names is one of the familiar external evidences of a disposition to become truly American, as it is also an example of the American tendency to make all things conform to our own ways. The transformation of Vincenzo Campobello to Jim Campbell, the general dropping of vowels and consequent condensation, are inevitable, and are but a repetition of the changes that occurred when Goth and Roman began to live together or when the Normans settled in England. But because the American element which furnishes standards for the Italians is usually of Irish origin, and because the Italian is actuated by a deeper motive than mere convenience, the names of Patrick O'Neill and Mike Mahoney are frequently borne by olive-skinned Sicilian boys; and the soft-eyed Luicia, not yet a year from Naples, may be heard to say, "Faith an, I won't then!" with the true Celtic inflection, thus bearing unconscious testimony to the assimilating properties of the older and better established elements of the population. The boy or girl is seldom willing to go back to Italy. Mr. Davenport, in his letters to the Brooklyn Eagle, has described the misfits arising from the return of New York City public school products to an Italian village. In their enthusiasm for America, the children too often develop a tendency to despise the ways of their fathers and lose their love of Italy and their pride in being Italians. Too often, also, their sudden plunge into unaccustomed freedom has, as is ever the case, its evil results. The removal of the old restraints, whether of tradition or of law, before the self-governing power has been developed,

is apt to produce an intoxication which makes the transition period trying to all concerned. In the case of the Italians, it is especially trying to the parents, in American tenement neighborhoods, who are completely at a loss as to how to deal with their children when they are mischievous or unruly.

They are almost equally disturbed at assertions of independence which are, to American minds, quite legitimate. They wish to keep the children, and particularly the girls, close at home, and think them "wild" if they show any desire to get out of the crowded rooms and onto the street. Mothers do not want their daughters to go to evening schools. "Why should she learn to write?" asked one of them, "she'd only write to her 'fellas.'" The impossibility, under the conditions of [end page 492] New York life, of bringing up children according to traditional ideas of what is proper, is responsible for a large part of the eagerness with which Italian parents seek to patronize institutions for children.

The institution to them is not only a collegio, where good instruction is thoughtfully provided by an interested public, but it is also too often a place where the child will be kept off the streets, broken of his "wild" ways, and properly cared for until be arrives at an age of self-support.

The most striking manifestation of the American spirit is perhaps, found in the economic aspirations of the children. They are rarely content to remain at their fathers' level. The ambition which in Italy would have been kept dormant by social traditions is roused in America by the all-pervasive and generally effective idea of "getting ahead." It is the exception if the son of the immigrant who "works at shovel" or "goes with the hod" grows up to use the same tool. If the son of a bootblack chooses that profession, it is generally found that, while his father carried a kit, his idea is to advance at least to the dignity of a chair, which represents a certain amount of capital invested and a comparatively stable business. Another common instance of advancement by this evolutionary process is from fruit-peddling with a push-cart even a basket, to the proprietorship of a corner stand. Children going out from the higher grades of the public schools generally hope for clerical positions; failing that, they choose factory positions.

The four Italian schools of the Children's Aid Society in New York represent probably the poorest part of the Italian population of the city--the part with the least natural opportunity. The older children in these schools were asked, a few weeks ago, to write letters to their teachers, telling them what they would like to "be" when they grew up. As a result of this, the writer has authentic records of the economic ideals of 143 Italian children between the ages of nine and fourteen. Some of them have been in America only a few months; all are from families in which the struggle for daily existence is not uniformly successful. The fathers of these children are tailors, hod-carriers, laborers, street-cleaners, boot-blacks, shoemakers, stone-cutters, peddlers, bricklayers, carpenters, rag-pickers, macaroni and candy makers, and bar-cleaners, with [end page 495] single representatives of such better-paid occupations as butcher, grocer, policeman and postman.

Of the 143 children, sixty-six are boys and seventy-seven girls. Four of the boys were undecided about the career they would choose and one pathetically confided, "My papa used to work in a laundry…He does not work for a long time because he is sick. When I can work I will do any work I can get because I have to help mamma because papa is sick.

Among the sixty-one, ten of the younger boys elect to follow their fathers' calling. In two cases the father's occupation is not indicated in any way. The other forty-nine are all looking forward to something which seems to them higher. Four, whose fathers are a hod-carrier, a tailor, a bricklayer, and a macaroni maker, would be doctors, one adding confidently: "And I will learn very hard, for I like to be a good doctor, and I will make a lot of money, and I will come to be a rich man, and I will give my mother some money to buy a machine." Two, son of a street-cleaner and son of a tailor, propose to be lawyers. One wants to be a "music man and play mandolin and all the new songs, and play guitar"; another will be an artist; another, the heir of a day-laborer, says "I am going to write books and people will say I am a smart man." One, whose father "goes all over with a street piano," hopes to "write in an office, write down numbers and count them up and write names." To "write in a bank" is the goal of another. A shoemaker's son aspires to be a "printer man, to printer the papers to sell--the Journal, the Sun, the World, the Telegram, the Globe, the Mail and Express, and lots of other papers, and our Italian Bolletino della Sera, that's the best work that I could do."

A fourteen-year-old, whose home is one of the most insanitary tenements of the city, and whose father is a peddler writes, "If fortune favors me I shall continue my studies." The occupations of tailor, carpenter, bookkeeper, engineer, butcher, messenger, druggist, elevator-runner, truck-driver and store-keeper all have votaries. Seven of the boys indicate definitely that their choice is determined by the desire to "make a lot of money." A few, however, are actuated rather by pure love of glory or adventure; these are looking forward to being a policeman, a fireman (who will "blow out the fire") or even a soldier. Several show that they esteem respect and appreciation beyond gain, for they mean "to be called smart." An interesting declaration is this: "My father is a grocery, and I am going to be a farmer." Perhaps the most dramatic choice is that of twelve-year-old Luigi. His father is a coat presser, but Luigi spurns the colorless, hateful drudgery of the tailor shop, and will have a life of interest and excitement for he "would like to be a horso racing."

The seventy-seven girls show less variety and less individuality. The Italian girl, even more than the average girl, expects to be occupied, and at an earlier age than the average girl, with the care of her own household. Whatever her expectations, however, every girl indicates some one occupation as her choice. Forty-seven wish to be dressmakers and thirteen give their teachers the sincerest testimony of admiration by choosing that profession. Several of the would-be teachers explain that they will teach the children to sew, and one justifies her choice by the comment, "And then I will do as I please." Two would like to work in a tobacco shop, two in a tobacco shop, two would be hairdressers, two milliners, two "grocer girls." "My father shines," wrote one of these, "but I want to be a grocer girl." Another "would like to be a sister of the church," and the rest are attracted by the occupations of nurse, box-maker, "news-carrier," typewriter, cash girl, and "joiner"--whatever that last designation may imply.

On the whole, the work chosen by the girls is less indicative of ambition than of another prominent characteristic of the Italian children-their aptitude for handicraft. In book learning the general estimate of their teachers is that they are bright and quick when interested, but restless and lacking in continued application. [end page 496] Similarly, they are not always the greatest credit to their settlement friends, judged by the standard of regularity of attendance; for, as one head-worker expresses it, "a gang of Italian boys may start for the settlement in time for their club, with every expectation of being there, but be diverted on the way and not show up."

In manual training, however, drawing, and whatever requires skilled fingers and artistic sense, they are easily leaders. It is not for nothing that they have lived for centuries in the land of beauty. Italy gives her children an instinctive knowledge of the beautiful in color and contour, which they unconsciously apply to practical affairs and which we others spend hours, and years, of effort to acquire. The attractive arrangement of fruit stands, the picturesque gayety of the Italian quarters in our cities, the groups of pilgrims from those far-away quarters who may be seen in the art galleries of Boston and New York on any "free" Sunday afternoon: these are familiar evidences of a racial characteristic which should be recognized as a distinct contribution to American life.

The girls in the evening schools of the Children's Aid Society-for some parents can be persuaded to countenance their daughters' attendance-are especially interested in tissue paper work, embroidery, and crocheting, and they work hard and show much ingenuity in making pretty things for their homes.

A teacher of drawing in the public schools of a New Jersey town which has a large Italian population, has found the Italian children far more talented, on the average, than the others. The first day that her classes were given brushes and paints, she noticed that the Italian children held the brushes correctly and handled them as if they bad been using them for years, and that they scrupulously confined the paint they applied to the drawn outline, while the little Germans and Americans splashed cheerfully beyond the lines and seemed to find a paint brush as unfamiliar to their hands as Charle- [end page 497] magne's pen was to his. The teacher was surprised to find, also, when she gave a lesson on the principles of composition in pictures--a lesson generally very difficult of comprehension--that the Italian pupils seemed to have an instinctive appreciation of what the others were obliged to accept on faith, and that they applied the rules with unerring judgment. These general observations seem more significant than individual instances of talent, since, as a small German girl objected when this teacher was commending the work of Antonio and Giuseppe and Tommaso, "But teacher, Max Schneider can draw too." Individual instances are, however, of interest, and might be cited indefinitely-the boy who filled a book with views of the school building and many architectural details; the one who, when the attitude of a little girl posed by the teacher for the class to draw did not seem to him, from. his desk, wholly pleasing, deliberately walked up to the model and changed her position to suit him better; and the one who spent his evenings at the settlement in painting daffodils while his comrades reveled in exciting games.

The art sense of the Italians is one of the most valuable contributions they bring to their new country, because it is one of the qualities which we most conspicuously lack. At present, however, this contribution is largely wasted or misused.

It is misused when the parents, by reason of that most commendable trait, so often associated with the land of their adoption-the ambition to make money and "get on"-exploit their children while they are yet children. Italian boys and girls in institutions are demanded again by their parents as soon as they reach the legal working age, and are put to work at whatever offers. Tiny children are so deft with their fingers that they are kept working every day after school hours and at night at artificial flowers or feather-curling, or some similar occupation engaged in by their mothers at home.

The parents are responsible for a part of the waste, as well as for the exploitation, of their children's artistic ability. As for themselves and their own gifts, the struggle for a living makes choice impossible. But even when a opportunity offers for the proper education of a gifted child, the parents too rarely resist the temptation of an immediate advantage.

Another factor which contributes to the waste of these special gifts is the race prejudice which every new element in our population has had to encounter, from the day when the Indians saw, with dissatisfaction, the invasion of the first white men. There is in New York city a factory where ornamental brass and iron work of unusual beauty is done. The superintendent welcomes Italians, but his German foreman will have none of them. One young man, who did remarkably artistic work, was complained of again and again by the foreman, but no definite charges were made. He insisted on the boy's dismissal. Finally the superintendent said, "Well, what is your objection to Rocco? Did you. Ever see him do anything wrong?" "O! no," replied the foreman, "he's too smart for that; but nobody could be as smart as that Rocco is and be all right."

Public school teachers do much, by calling to the attention of the older children the superior points of their Italian classmates to break down these barriers of prejudice and disdain. The drawing teacher quoted above was recently given somewhat disconcerting evidence that her efforts in this direction had borne fruit. The town, it should be said by way of preface, is one in which the contemptuous appellation of Dago is supplanted by the equally contemptuous Ginney. The teacher one day placed before the children a toy animal for them to draw and asked if any one knew its name. A little Irish girl, with all the courtesy at her command, vouchsafed: "I know that out in the park they call it an Italian pig."

The chief responsibility for the waste of this aptitude for artistic handicraft possessed by the Italians rests not on the parent's avarice nor on race prejudice, but on the American educational system and our failure to appreciate the value of what we are throwing away. The whole tendency of the public school is to divert the children from manual work [end page 498] of any sort to clerical pursuits, and there is comparatively little instruction in a marketable kind of handiwork in the classes and clubs carried on by private enterprise to supplement the public school education. Manual training, as generally taught, is valuable rather as training the fingers and senses, furnishing entertainment, and suggesting possibilities of improving the home, than as supplying any education which would help toward earning a living. The explanation of this is to be found in the fact that there is practically no demand for hand work. Our age has little regard for beauty if it costs more, as it generally does, than ugliness. We must first, if we are to accept and use to our own advantage the gifts which the Italians come bringing, educate ourselves into an appreciation of those gifts. When that is done there will be a market for the things they can do better than we, and the provision for trade education will quickly follow.

The dismay with which we ordinarily contemplate any modification of "the American type" suggests that we are losing that sense of humor which we flatter ourselves is a conspicuous American characteristic. For surely an unprejudiced scrutiny of the American type does not establish the conviction that there is nothing further to be desired. There are points at which we are susceptible of improvement; there are qualities, of which we have now only a faint trace, for whose possession we should be justified in making some sacrifice. The Italians have a delight in simple pleasures, an appreciation for other things than mere financial success, a sense of beauty, a natural kindliness and social grace, which would be not wholly unendurable additions to our predominant traits. It rests with us whether we shall recognize these qualities, foster them, and assimilate them, or, by persistently ignoring and despising them, stamp them as undesirable, un-American, and mould the Italian immigrant in our own image. [page 499]