L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, MARCH 10, 2022 www.italoamericano.org 14 L'Italo-Americano A m o n g t h e f e a - t u r e s o f P r o f . K e n n e t h S c a m b r a y ' s new book, Ital- ian Immigration in the American West, 1870- 1940, that stand out are the episodes he relates coming d i r e c t l y f r o m h i s F a m i l y P a p e r s . T h e s e a r e b y n o means gratuitous or filio- pietistic boastings about his o w n i m m i g r a n t f a m i l y . Rather, they are integral to his overall thesis, especially regarding two major themes: first, that though early Italian immigrants displayed prima- ry loyalty to their co-villagers r a t h e r t h a n t o I t a l i a n s o r I t a l y , t h e y e v e n t u a l l y , i n America, began to see the virtues and benefits of affiliat- ing with that larger whole. Second—and this was espe- cially true in the West—many immigrants were initially reluctant to adopt American attitudes about racial dividing lines, mainly because they themselves had been the tar- gets of racism, both in an Italy that saw them as tainted by proximity to Africa, and in America. As a result, they were quite willing to frater- nize with both African Ameri- cans and Native Americans in t h e i r n e w c o u n t r y . T h e episodes Scambray employs to demonstrate this both con- cern his grandfather, Vin- cenzo Schembri (the origi- n a l f a m i l y n a m e b e c a m e 'Scambray' in America). In the first, he relates how Vin- cenzo, having emigrated from his Sicilian village of Bivona to Brazos, Texas to work as a farm hand, married a woman who had settled across the river with her paesani from Poggioreale. Scambray notes that "This 'bi-cultural' union w o u l d h a v e b e e n n e x t t o impossible in Sicily" (42). The point is made: already, in America, the mixing of ori- gins by Italian immigrants, here only from one Sicilian village to the next, has begun. The second episode is even m o r e p o i g n a n t . V i n c e n z o Schembri, like many Sicilians in the South, saw no reason to shun the African Americans with whom he worked, and routinely invited them to his home. This soon aroused the wrath of local Ku Klux Klan members in Bryan, TX for w h o m t h i s w a s h e r e s y . I t prompted a visit from three members of the Bryan com- munity "to inform him that h e h a d t o s t o p a l l o w i n g African Americans to enter the front door of his house and to stop allowing them to e a t a t t h e f a m i l y d i n n e r table." Scambray goes on to relate how Sicilians, used to such unfair treatment in Italy, often responded: Vincenzo relented, but n o t t o t a l l y … h e c e a s e d a l l o w i n g h i s A f r i c a n American friends to enter the front door of the fami- ly's small house. However, h e c o n t i n u e d t o h o s t A f r i c a n A m e r i c a n s o u t back at the family table next to the barn where the family more often than not t o o k i t s e v e n i n g m e a l s (Scambray Family Papers) (48). T h e u s e o f h i s f a m i l y archives in this way gives added weight to the episode and sears the point into the reader's mind: that this kind o f m u t e d r e s i s t a n c e t o American racism on the part of Italian immigrants was a common occurrence. But Scambray doesn't limit h i s t e x t t o o n l y p e r s o n a l knowledge. He has combed the literature for every bit of scholarly evidence to make his update of the research on Italians in the West and what made their settlement unique likely to become a standard reference text. He references not only the standard works, such as Andrew Rolle's 1968 c l a s s i c , T h e I m m i g r a n t Upraised, but a host of other full-length studies and essays a n d c e n s u s r e p o r t s t h a t define his field. This gives the necessary weight to his study that should satisfy even the most meticulous scholars, as well as more general readers. Scambray departs from Rolle in a number of ways, but perhaps his most signifi- cant is in what he covers as "the West." Rolle considers all states west of the Mississippi R i v e r h i s " W e s t . " T h i s includes states normally con- sidered mid-western states, s u c h a s K a n s a s a n d Minnesota. Scambray does not. He does include all of Texas, even though much of the state is actually east of the 100 th meridian, but he then stays with strictly western states, from Arizona and New Mexico to Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, and Idaho, then M o n t a n a , A l a s k a a n d Washington, finally moving o n t o f a r - w e s t s t a t e s l i k e N e v a d a , O r e g o n a n d California. He groups these, in order, into sections titled Southwest, Midsection of the West, North of the West, and Far West. While some of this grouping may seem arbitrary, it provides a convenient orga- nizational framework to what might otherwise be a cumber- some survey. The book then treats each state individually. For each o n e , S c a m b r a y t r e a t s t h e themes he has pinpointed as h a v i n g g i v e n t h e w e s t e r n i m m i g r a n t h i s p a r t i c u l a r advantage. The major themes he explores for each are gen- erally the same: how priests, often Jesuits, were the pio- neer settlers, establishing missions and schools that typically turned into colleges, and paved the way for immi- grants to feel somewhat at home in an otherwise unset- tled and unsettling world. He then explores in detail the jobs always crying for labor- e r s — t h e w e s t e r n m i n e s , forests, farms, and fishing zones that offered the immi- grant wages well above what he or she needed for simple survival. This leads to one of Scambray's major arguments. Where the narrative of east- ern immigrants is often one of being trapped in low-wage jobs and harsh conditions, Scambray points out for each state how the daily wage for workers in the labor-starved W e s t w a s h i g h e n o u g h t o allow the immigrant to quick- ly amass enough capital to quit his dangerous entry job and become a "free laborer." This, in turn, allowed him to pool resources with others, usually family members, and often start enclave business- es, such as a saloon or a gro- c e r y . S u c h i n d e p e n d e n c e made him a real part of a community, rather than an outsider. The advantage of being a free laborer was coupled with o n e o t h e r m a j o r b o o n f o r i m m i g r a n t s t o t h e W e s t : cheap land. Scambray repeats this theme again and again. The immigrant who was able to save from his wages in a coal mine, for example, was then able to turn the accrued capital into land—land which c o u l d b e f a r m e d . H e w a s thereupon able to grow much of his own food and eventual- l y b e c o m e a l a n d o w n e r , something almost impossible in the Italy of his birth. Many f a r m e r s i n C a l i f o r n i a ' s Central Valley, and in other states in the West, thus found t h a t t h e y c o u l d b e g i n t o amass farmland in productive w a y s , a n d t o i n t r o d u c e American buyers to fruits and vegetables not initially part of the local cuisine. And most significantly, to focus on the raising of wine grapes to turn much of California and other states into premier wine-pro- ducing areas. This focus on success does not blind Scambray to the darker side of his immigrant narrative. He in fact makes much of the differences in the ways Native Americans and A f r i c a n A m e r i c a n s w e r e treated, compared to newly- arriving immigrants. These two groups, often competing for the same labor-intensive jobs, were denied the advan- t a g e s g i v e n t o I t a l i a n - Americans, who, for the most part, were considered white or semi-white. This meant they did not endure the same handicaps as Blacks, usually denied the right to own land. Asian-Americans, too, were denied that right by law. So the point, Scambray empha- sizes, is that the "struggle" of I t a l i a n s e t t l e r s w a s m a d e demonstrably easier by their conditional racial acceptance. But this was complicated and sometimes compromised by the above-mentioned tenden- cy of Italian immigrants to f r a t e r n i z e w i t h p e o p l e o f color. One stirring example cited b y S c a m b r a y o c c u r r e d i n northern California near the town of Ukiah. There, Italian immigrants worked the same "day labor" jobs, often on farms or in sawmills, as the Pomo Indians. Regarding Indians as co-workers and neighbors, immigrants saw no reason why they should not serve Indians wine at t h e i r s a l o o n s , o r a t t e n d dances and celebrations on I n d i a n r a n c h e r i a s . L o c a l authorities looked upon such fraternizing as suspicious at best, and as violations of the l a w a t w o r s t . W h e n s o m e I t a l i a n i m m i g r a n t s e v e n intermarried with Indians, t h e s u s p i c i o n g r e w t h a t Italians were foreign anar- chists seeking to overturn the social order. It was only when enterprising Italian farmers turned unproductive land i n t o p r o f i t a b l e f a r m s a n d g r a p e - g r o w i n g a r e a s t h a t local sentiment towards them slowly changed. Nonetheless, S c a m b r a y q u a l i f i e s h i s account of the Italians' suc- cess with the central acknowl- edgment that not only were Native Americans and Blacks denied the same success, but that the very lands which were so cheaply available to the immigrants were literally s t o l e n f r o m t h e N a t i v e Americans with whom they were forbidden to associate. Scambray also makes it a point to treat the crucial role played by women. Each chap- ter directs the reader to the typical role of Italian women in America in running not just the household, but many of the enclave businesses like saloons, and especially the boarding houses that were so crucial to male immigrants. Without the unpaid labor of women, many of these busi- nesses would have failed. With them, they added to the growing prosperity of Italian immigrants in the West. Finally, Scambray is care- ful to bring the story of each settlement up to date by mod- ifying the standard immi- grant story of assimilation with what has become a cur- rent tendency: that later-gen- eration Italian Americans, contrary to predictions about v a n i s h i n g e t h n i c i t y , h a v e returned, in recent years, to a renewed interest in the "old c o u n t r y . " T h i s h a s m a d e them, in the current jargon, "transnationals," with their a l l e g i a n c e s p l i t b e t w e e n America and Italy. But since they are much more confi- dent of their full acceptance and status in America, they do not have to worry, as the immigrant generation did, about how this interest in and love for the old country is p e r c e i v e d . T h e y m a y n o t know the precise term for their bi-focal identity, but they are quite comfortable with it, nonetheless. There is much more in this wide-ranging study, par- ticularly its delineating of individual stories of success and/or failure, but that may not be necessary here to con- clude that Prof. Scambray's study, with its breadth of cov- erage, with its exhaustive ref- erence to the most current lit- erature, is likely to become the standard work on Italian immigration to the West. Lawrence DiStasi Italian Immigration in the American West, 1870-1940 By Kenneth Scambray, Univ. of Nevada Press: 2021 LAWRENCE DI STASI LIFE PEOPLE MOVIES MUSIC BOOKS

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