Dr. Cavaioli is a Professor Emeritus, Farmingdale State, SUNY. He received the BA degree in American Civilization from the University of Tennessee, the MA degree in History and Political Science, St. John’s University, New York, and the Ph. D. degree in American History and Political Science, St. John’s University, NY.

He is the Former President of the American Italian Historical Association and past member of its Executive Council. His numerous awards, include: Colonial Dames Society; SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching; Freedoms Foundation George Washington Honor Medal; Immigration History Research Grant at the University of Minnesota; Moody Research Grant at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library; Newberry Library Research Fellow, Chicago; and National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow at the University of Michigan. He is the author of Ten books, four educational filmstrips, and numerous scholarly articles.

From its earliest foundation, and its continuous development, immigration has been the driving force that has characterized the history of the United States. The people movement to American shores remains a phenomenon that no nation can match. Immigration is a two-way process: “immigrants not only become incorporated into a new society, they also transform it. As they have become incorporated into American society, immigrants have made and remade America, and are still making her still.”¹

In contrast, emigration has characterized the history of modern Italy, especially to the United States which is the focus of this essay. In recent years, however, Italian immigration to the United States has been declining, and the composition of these new arrivals has changed. “Citizens of the world, today’s Italian immigrants in America are well-educated, career-driven and focused on preserving their traditions and language.” This unfolding trend differs from what occurred a century ago when Italian immigration to the United States was marked by the poor, the illiterate, the unskilled. The world then witnessed a massive flow of Italians from a heavily-populated society dominated by regional and ruling class interests, and a government that ignored the needs of its people. These Italian immigrants were motivated for the same reasons that characterized all immigrants who have migrated to the American nation: to advance to a better life in a free society protected by a constitution in which the rights of the individual are supreme.²

Undergirding this view is British-born historian Henry Bamford Parkes’ belief that

American historian Frederick Jackson Turner also emphasized the importance of the frontier (environment) in the development of democratic institutions in the United States. The frontier transformed the European into a free American. He stated: “American democracy is fundamentally the outcome of the experience of the American people in dealing with the West.” Thus, the environment, not heredity, shaped the individual.⁴

Today’s immigrants from Italy, though far fewer than those who came here during the high tide of migration, arrive by jet plane, are educated, retain their language, and are proud of their national heritage. Like the earlier immigrants, they regard America as a “meritocracy,” as a land of greater opportunity where cumbersome bureaucracies do not hinder advancement. Moreover, it is argued that today’s Italian immigrants find it difficult to identify with the more than four million who arrived during the period of 1880 to 1920.⁵

¹Silvia Pedraza, “Immigration in America at the Turn of This Century,” Contemporary Sociology, 28 (July 1999): 379.

²Francesca Di Meglio, “The New Italian Immigrants,” Ambassador, 17 (Summer 2005): 18.

For a recent examination of changes within the Italian American population, see William Egelman, “Italian Americans, 1990-2000: Demographic Analysis of National Data,” Italian Americana, XXXIV (Winter 2006): 9-19.

³Betty Boyd Caroli, Italian Repatriation From The United Statees,1900-1914, Staten Island , New York: Center for Migration Studies, 1973, p. 93, as quoted from.

⁴Samuel Eliot Morison, Henry Steele Commager, and William E. Leuchtenburg, The Growth of the American Republic, Vol. II, New York: Oxford University Press, 1980, p. 208, as quoted from.

⁵F. Di Meglio, pp. 18-21.

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