A Great Conspiracy against Our Race : : Italian Immigrant Newspapers and the Construction of Whiteness in the Early 20th Century / / Peter G. Vellon.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter New York University Press Complete eBook-Package 2014-2015
• VerfasserIn: Vellon, Peter G.,
• Place / Publishing House: New York, NY : : New York University Press, , [2014]; ©2014
• Year of Publication: 2014
• Language: English
• Series: Culture, Labor, History ; 5
• Physical Description: 1 online resource

Racial history has always been the thorn in America’s side, with a swath of injustices-slavery, lynching, segregation, and many other ills-perpetrated against black people. This very history is complicated by, and also dependent on, what constitutes a white person in this country. Many of the European immigrant groups now considered white also had to struggle with their own racial identities. In A Great Conspiracy against Our Race, Peter Vellon explores how Italian immigrants, a once undesirable and “swarthy” race, assimilated into dominant white culture through the influential national and radical Italian language press in New York City. Examining the press as a cultural production of the Italian immigrant community, this book investigates how this immigrant press constructed race, class, and identity from 1886 through 1920. Their frequent coverage of racially charged events of the time, as well as other topics such as capitalism and religion, reveals how these papers constructed a racial identity as Italian, American, and white. A Great Conspiracy against Our Race vividly illustrates how the immigrant press was a site where socially constructed categories of race, color, civilization, and identity were reworked, created, contested, and negotiated. Vellon also uncovers how Italian immigrants filtered societal pressures and redefined the parameters of whiteness, constructing their own identity. This work is an important contribution to not only Italian American history, but America’s history of immigration and race.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. The Italian language press and the creation of an Italian racial identity -- 2. The Italian language press and Africa -- 3. Native Americans, Asians, and Italian Americans: constructions of a multilayered racial consciousness -- 4. The education of Italian Americans in matters of color -- 5. Defending Italian American civility, asserting whiteness -- Epilogue -- Notes -- Index -- About the author