Southern European Americans

Southern European Americans are Americans of Southern European ancestry. Southern European American people can usually trace back full or partial heritage to Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Yugoslavia and other nations in Mediterranean Europe.[1] Along with Eastern European Americans and Northwestern European Americans, the category is a subgroup of European Americans.

Background

Southern European Americans have been considered as a distinct cultural and pan-ethnic group in the United States. The group can be broken down further into nation-based subgroups, such as Greek Americans and Italian Americans.

History

Between 1900 and implementation of the 1965 Immigration Act, most immigration into the United States was from Southern and Eastern Europe.[2] Historian Gary Gerstle has noted the lack of protest from Southern European Americans to the Immigration Act of 1924, which effectively ended any further immigration from their ancestral origins.[3] Despite the passing of the Act, opposition at the time, recorded in the Congressional Record, had sought to demonstrate how Southern European immigration had been falling:

Proponents of this measure maintain there are too many southern Europeans in America. Yet for the two years of the present bill's existence the net result between immigration to and emigration from this country indicates there are 4,619 less Greeks here, 5,089 less Portuguese, 13,343 less Spaniards, while the Italians shows a slight increase of 2,207, and Yugoslavians have remained about stationary.[4]

Geographer Donald W. Meinig has proposed that Southern Europeans have at times been politically and culturally oriented in opposition with the Protestant order, or WASP establishment, in the US.[5] Despite this, societal privileges afforded to white Americans gradually became available to them. Representative of this change, the US Census Bureau found that Americans of Southern European heritage (alongside Eastern European Americans) who were born between 1956 and 1965, had practically converged with British Americans in education statistics, and were even slightly outperforming Americans of solely British ancestry in the completion of bachelor's degrees.[6]

In the post-war industrial boom in the US, Southern European Americans moved in significant numbers to places likes Lansing, Michigan, where there was a large General Motors plant.[7] In 1973, Governor of Illinois Dan Walker signed Executive Order Number 9-(1973), with a special provision for funding for both Eastern and Southern European Americans, although it was never fully implemented.[8]

Culture

Family has been described as central to the culture of southern European Americans.[9] This family-based value system may be a contributing factor to Southern European Americans on average co-habiting with parents for longer than other groups, before purchasing a home in the US.[10]

Academic research

In 1989, little research had been conducted regarding the nutritional intake of Americans with heritage from Southern Europe, versus other European Americans.[11]

A 2006 PLOS Genetics study showed that 7 out of 11 tested Southern European Americans, who reported themselves as only of Southern European descent, showed significantly closer clustering of base pairs, when using a genome-wide single-nucleotide polymorphism, in comparison to individuals who disclosed a mixed Southern and Northern European heritage.[1]

Sociolinguist Walt Wolfram has researched a similarity in pronunciation of American English between African Americans and Americans descended from South Europe living in similar regions.[12] A separate study published in the Journal of Sociolinguistics, noted the same parallel distinction.[13] However, the Linguistic Society of America has noted that Southern European American English has shown signs of transitioning into a rhotic dialect.[14]

Discrimination

Americans of Southern European heritage have been subjected to discrimation in the United States. This has included the perception of not meeting a certain criteria of whiteness.[15] The slurs wop and dago has been directed at the group historically.[16][17]

See also

References
  1. Seldin, M. F.; Shigeta, R.; Villoslada, P.; Selmi, C.; Tuomilehto, J.; Silva, G.; Belmont, J. W.; Klareskog, L.; Gregersen, P. K. (2006), Jonathan Pritchard (ed.), "European Population Substructure: Clustering of Northern and Southern Populations", PLOS Genetics, 2 (9): e143, doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.0020143, PMC 1564423, PMID 17044734, In addition, a large fraction of southern European Americans (7 of 11) without other reported European heritage had majority “southern” contribution. Those Americans with self-identified mixed “southern” and “northern” heritage showed a substantial but less impressive “southern” population component (8 of 23 with majority “southern”).
  2. Irmo Marini (2009). "Counseling White Americans". The Professional Counselor's Desk Reference. Springer Publishing. p. 249. ISBN 978-0826171818. Southern and Eastern European Americans. After 1900, and prior to the 1965 Immigration Act, most immigrants to the United States came from southern and eastern European countries.
  3. Gary Gerstle; John Mollenkopf (2001). Introduction to Multicultural Counseling for Helping Professionals. Russell Sage Foundation. ISBN 978-0871543073. lack of protest by eastern and southern European-Americans to Congress's racially discriminatory decision in 1924 to all but end further immigration from their countries of origin
  4. "Volume 65, Part 6". Congressional Record: Proceedings and Debates of the United States Congress. US Congress. April 8, 1924. p. 5899.
  5. Donald W. Meinig (2000). "Reshaping the Nation". The Shaping of America: A Geographical Perspective on 500 Years of History, Volume 3: Transcontinental America, 1850-1915. Yale University Press. p. 291. ISBN 978-0300082906. Michael Novak, speaking especially for Eastern and Southern Europeans in America, attacked the "wealthy, suave, and powerful" Protestant establishment that "sets the tone" and governs "the instruments of education and public life".
  6. Dominic J. Pulera (2006). "A Nation of 100 Million". Sharing the Dream: White Males in a Multicultural America. Continuum International Publishing Group. p. 30. ISBN 978-0826418296. The Census Bureau found that 55.9% of white men born between 1956 and 1965 had attended college and 25.5% of them had completed bachelor's degrees. However, the percentages had virtually converged for two groups in this cohort: men of solely British ancestry (66.3% and 31.8%, respectively) and Southern and Eastern European men (66.4% and 33.8%, respectively). Interestingly, these trends were reflected in the data for women too. While the Southern and Eastern European Americans began to prosper in America, African Americans continued to suffer from discrimination and diminished life chances
  7. Betsy E. Evans; Rika Ito; Jamila Jones; Dennis R. Preston (2004), Change on top of Change: Social and Regional Accommodation to the Northern Cities Chain Shift (PDF), Meertens Institute, p. 65, Local respondents, who remember southern European-Americans coming to the area at the same time and for the same purpose (there is a large General Motors plant in Lansing)
  8. Mary E. Cygan (1998), "Volume 23", Inventing Polonia: Notions of Polish American Identity, 1870–1990, Cambridge University Press, pp. 209–246, Because adequate funding was not supplied, the provision regarding “Eastern and Southern European Americans” was never fully implemented, despite continued lobbying for such funding by several Southern and Eastern European ethnic organizations, such as the Italian Joint Civic Committee.
  9. Graciela L. Orozco (2014). "European Americans in Counseling". Introduction to Multicultural Counseling for Helping Professionals. Routledge. p. 117. ISBN 978-0415540223. The family is of great importantance to many southern European Americans, so much so that the needs of the individual may be considered secondary.
  10. Paola Giuliano (2009). "Differences in Preferences for Home Ownership". In Clair Brown; Barry J. Eichengreen; Michael Reich (eds.). Labor in the Era of Globalization. Cambridge University Press. p. 226. ISBN 978-0521195416. Southern Europeans in the United States and at home would have to wait longer to leave their parental house before buying their own home
  11. Pamela Goyan Kittler; Kathryn P. Sucher (1989). Food and Culture in America: A Nutrition Handbook. Van Nostrand Reinhold. p. 183. ISBN 978-0442283223. Nutritional Status Nutritional Intake Little research has been conducted on the nutritional intake of southern European Americans.
  12. Walt Wolfram (2005). American English: Dialects and Variation. Blackwell Publishing. p. 117. ISBN 978-1405112666. Both African Americans and Southern European Americans tend to pronounce lail as [a], as in tahd for tide
  13. Erik R. Thomas; Jeffrey Reaser (2004), "Volume 8, Issue 1", Delimiting perceptual cues used for the ethnic labeling of African American and European American voices, Journal of Sociolinguistics, pp. 54–87, In the North, additional vocalic features that African Americans share with Southern European Americans, such as glide weakening of /ai/
  14. George Melville Bolling; Bernard Bloch (1957), Language: Journal of the Linguistic Society of America, Linguistic Society of America, They note, however, that while Southern European American English seems to be in transition toward a more rhotic dialect, African American English has remained primarily r-less.
  15. Katherine Jentleson (November 25, 2012). "The Misrecognition of Migrant Mother". Duke University. The work of Anglo Americans, including only token pieces done by Native Americans, African Americans, Southern European Americans and others who didn't pass a certain benchmark of whiteness.
  16. Philip Q. Yang (2000). "Racism". Ethnic Studies: Issues and Approaches. State University of New York Press. p. 146. ISBN 978-0791444801. mick for Irish Americans; wop for Italian or other southern European Americans; and honky for white Americans.
  17. Philip Carabott; Yannis Hamilakis; Eleni Papargyriou, eds. (2015). Camera Graeca: Photographs, Narratives, Materialities (Publications of the Centre for Hellenic Studies, King's College London). Routledge. p. 217. ISBN 978-1472424761. The word 'dago', short for the Spanish first name 'Diego', had acquired a derogatory meaning by mid-nineteenth century and was chiefly used for Italians and Southern Europeans in the US, UK and Australia.
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