Once again, late 20th and 21st century American brown supremacists like to compare themselves not only to to the early and mid 19th century Irish migration in attempting to "prove" white racism against themselves (which we have seen there are quite a few situational differences, in some cases the brown supremacists are way off the mark), they also like to point to late 19th century Italian migration.
The first Italians to come to America were the exploitative Patroni. First plying their trade in France, from where they were eventually expelled, they would charm away or even buy children from poverty stricken parents of depressed regions of Italy - the idea peddled was that the child had a chance to have a better life.
The Patroni would ship the kids to New York, where they would be dressed in pitiful rags, taught to play a musical instrument, and sent into the streets to beg for money - the worse the weather the better the haul since people felt sorry for them. The organ grinder with the monkey was an outgrowth of exploitation of Italian children by Italians, eventually both practices were outlawed in New York.
About this time, Irish immigration had slowed and the descendants of Irish generally moved up and out, if not all to middle class status the occupations were generally different than their immigrant ancestors, creating a vaccum in New York. The Patroni took advantage of this by adapting and maybe taking some lessons from the Irish.
They developed networks within America and Italy and themselves established businesses in New York such as saloons and grocers, which expanded to becoming banks (which held money but paid no interest, which the bankers would invest or sometimes even abscond with), and means to securely send remittances home. As well, they functioned as middlemen in the procurement and implementation of Italian labor. There were scams perpetrated where Italian job seekers would pay an up front fee to get a job, work for a short while, and be laid off by the patrone - who would collect another up front fee from another group of Italians, work them for a little while, and lay them off to collect from another group. There was skimming and kick backs too. The Italians were exploited by their fellow countrymen, largely because they didn't speak English, maybe didn't want to learn English, and left themselves vulnerable. As well, there were a lot of exploitative "company store" issues concerning patroni and Italian labor.
I am reminded of something I heard of 20th century Mexican agricultural labor contractors and Mexican construction foremen, that some would skim the payroll or demand kickbacks because they were in the payroll chain and non English speaking Mexicans relied on them for work.
The Italians, like some of the earlier Mexicans, generally came without their women and would return to Italy for the winter. For those who decided to stay, the Patroni could act as middlemen brokers for arranging women to come to America to wed Italian men.
The occupations included not only bottom level jobs, but construction, railroad and and agricultural labor. There are reports of complaints that the Americans missed their Irish labor, that Italians didn't work as hard or good as the Irish. On the other hand, Irish and other northern European immigrants were surprised by by the amount of production required in America, they worked a lot harder in America than the old country.
It seems that the largest expression of discrimination concerning Italians came from Irish and their descendants, not the least concerning the varieties of Catholicism. The Irish clergy complained that the Italians were so ignorant concerning the religion that they were incapable of even receiving the sacraments. I believe there was also a complaint about the lack of desire to learn English. A compromise was for the Vatican to send priests of northern Italian origin to America, which the Irish clergy didn't like because of factional differences and local control issues. The Immigrants themselves didn't like the arrangement because largely being southern Italians, they didn't like or trust northern priests. They hid a saint they used in one of their festivals in a saloon because they believed that the priests would appropriate it and charge them for its use.
To Americans, all Italians pretty much sound alike, so they must all be Italians. However, there is a lot of identification with region and locality. Confirming my book understanding, a modern Italian informed me a couple of months ago that northern Italians look down on Sicilians as being ghetto. No matter how much an American with Italian ancestors might claim to be "Italian", that person will be an American to Italians in Italy, the same of any American who claims to be "Irish" within Ireland, as it is with those Americans who claim to be "Mexican".
This reminds me of a difference between northern and southern Mexicans, that northern Mexicans tend to look down on southern Mexicans as bumpkins and southern Mexicans tend not to trust northern Mexicans. One person who grew up in the culture (one parent was northern Mexican, the other southern) and had employed Mexicans over the years informed me some years ago that northerners were more "crafty" or "calculating", the general preference of that person was to hire southern Mexicans.
The Italians became American, just like the Irish and the Germans. However, their migrations ended and it was formerly the role of the schools to bring about assimilation and the concept of participation in the exceptional-ism of America. The schools are now part of the plan to deconstruct America and the flood continues.
Here is an interesting article concerning the abuses of the Patroni, It appears to be transcribed from a government document (the style of language is pre modern) and is described as sourced from "BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bulletin of the Department of Labor by United States Dept. of Labor No. 9 March, 1897 Government Printing Office-Washington D.C. (1897)"
http://www.thehistorybox.com/ny_city...rticle1528.htm
As well, what appears to be a clip from a contemporary article from the New York Times concerning the same:
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive...DD405B8785F0D3