The immediate focus of life in America for Italian men was securing a jobba. Usually employed in the most brutal forms of physical labor, their work was often seasonal, meaning many suffered through long periods of unemployment, especially in the winter months. Jobs were found through local Italian agencies, through recruiting that often took place at local saloons, and it usually involved the dubious assistance of a padrone, or Italian contractor for jobs. With Chicago a burgeoning labor market for railroad, mining, and construction work, many Italians landing in New York City were lured west to Chicago by the promise of work there.

Whether utilized by employers of construction crews or railroad workers, the padrone reliably furnished a cadre of workers, often by means of lies and false promises, to labor for low wages under the worst of conditions. His corrupt role was exhibited in the exorbitant fee, or bossatura, he charged workers for their jobs and transportation costs, deducted from their wages. At labor camps, the padrone also ran the local commissary where workers were forced to trade, even purchase their tools, at highly inflated prices.

Italian workers were confined to the most menial and physically demanding jobs-laying railroad tracks, digging subway tunnels, doing construction. "Pick and shovel work" was seen as a typically Italian undertaking. Italian men shunned stockyard work, and they were underrepresented in local factories, with the exception of the Pullman Car Works and McCormick Reaper. Middle-class Italians sought to enhance the dignity and status of their ethnicity, to place distance between themselves and the cafoni, or "stupid ones," their derogatory term for the laboring poor. To this end they founded civic organizations, worked in benevolent societies, and made themselves visible as the sponsors of feste honoring their patron saints.

Italian-American men caught the attention of the American nation during World War I, as they contributed the highest percentage of any ethnic group to U.S. fighting forces. To many it seemed a vindication of their status as American citizens, while the sight of Italian-Americans in uniform reassured native-born Americans that Italians had come successfully through the process of Americanization.