Buried Caesars, and Other Secrets of Italian American Writing

Introduction: Secrets of Italian American Writing

Introduction Secrets of Italian American Writing Italian Americans have two problems, one they acknowledge and the other they keep secret, even from themselves. The problem they acknowledge is the Mafia. They not only acknowledge this problem, but they never stop talking about it. People (I am one of them) who would like official Italian America to spend much more of its money supporting writers and scholars find this obsession with the Mafia frustrating. Its workings are familiar: in a game of blame tag, some Italian Americans make a lot of money on a Mafia movie, and other Italian Americans, especially large Italian American organizations, give the movie free publicity by loudly protesting it. Whether these protesters are insincere or just too angry to stop and think is hard to determine. On the one hand, they certainly mean what they say, and they write eloquent speeches and articles about their position , articles that would be more convincing if they had had any demonstrable effect. But thirty years of protesting The Godfather, often hailed as the greatest movie ever made, did not hamper The Sopranos, often hailed in its turn as the greatest television show ever made. Oscars and Emmys have rained down on the producers, directors, actors, screenwriters, composers, editors, set designers, and just about everyone else who has had anything to do with these productions. Such a result might lead the protesters to wonder if something might be wrong with their tactics or even with the case they are making. That something is their second problem, the one they do not acknowledge. The second problem, the secret problem of Italian Americans, is Italy. This problem is a secret in two ways. First, plenty of Italian Americans have forgotten all about Italy. It has nothing to do with them, they 1 suppose, even if they still keep their Italian names.1 They are Americans pure and simple, and glad of it. Second, many Italian Americans, particularly the ones who protest the Mafia films, do not think of Italy as a problem but as a reason to boast. We painted the Mona Lisa. We discovered America. We invented the opera. But Italy is a problem, and pretending that it is not is the main reason Italian Americans have never been able to dispel the Mafia stereotype. Let us look at how the ways of pretending that Italy is not a problem have confused the issue for Italian Americans. The belief that Italy has nothing to do with Italian Americans. This amounts to a massive act of denial, comparable to a black person’s pretending to be white. Italian is the difference-marker in the expression Italian American; and for a long series of reasons, Italy continues to play a role in giving that expression its meaning as a social and historical fact. A few cases in point: • Anglo-Americans descend from a long history of not liking, wanting, or respecting Italians. During the Protestant Reformation , Italians became synonymous with the evil, double-dealing Catholic Church. In England, the spokesperson for Renaissance Italy was Niccolò Machiavelli, a political thinker so feared, hated, and secretly admired that the English began calling the devil Old Nick in his honor. • Italy, long divided into many states, became a system of subordinate provinces and principalities after the Treaty of CateauCambr ésis in 1559. Dominated afterward for centuries by French, Spanish, and Austrian armies, Italy suffered the contempt that accompanies the condition of a dependency. • The Risorgimento aimed to restore dignity to Italy and to Italians in the world, a worthy task that had only begun—and begun badly—during the years of the great Italian exodus, when millions of people decided that Italy’s good fortunes were too far into the future for them. When they left, the name of Italians in the world was still not what they might have hoped. • All of these factors came into play during the Great Migration to the United States. Millions of Italians poured into U.S. ports, while Nativist Americans looked at them through eyes narrowed by racial and religious bigotry and by the greed and class arrogance of people who were systematically exploiting the 2 BURIED CAESARS Italians as cheap substitutes for slave labor. Italian immigrants suffered discrimination, hatred, and even lynchings.2 • During Prohibition, Italians became the designated guilt-bearers for American hypocrisy about liquor, gambling, and sex, forbidden pleasures that Italian gangsters supplied to...