US History: Spiconardi

1. The Immigration Question: How should American respond to immigration in late 19th/early 20th century? US History: Spiconardi

2. Starter What is your single favorite thing to eat? Be specific. Don’t just say candy or Italian food. Name a specific dish.

3. Contributions • Italians • Culinary (pasta, pizza, etc.) • Masonry • Stonework on many of New York’s buildings & The Kensico Dam.

4. Contributions • Jews • Yiddish Theater • Bagels • Seamstresses & tailors in NYC’s Garment District

5. Contributions • Poles • Polka music • Along with Italians, Slavs, Hungarians, and Mexicans, Poles increased America’s Catholic population • Worked the coal mines of Pennsylvania

6. Assimilation Who do you think had the hardest and easiest time assimilating? • Assimilation the process in which a minority culture becomes part of the dominant culture • How did immigrants assimilate? • Citizenship classes • Dressed American • Changed Diet/cook ethnic food with American ingredients • Attempted to speak English • Fourth of July = Il Forte Gelato

7. Nativism • Nativism  Belief that immigration was soiling the superior native-born American Protestant values and culture • Nativists tried to lobby for legislation to restrict immigration • Oddly, it was the descendants of old immigrants that were often among the nativists protesting the arrival of new immigrants

8. Pluralism • Pluralism When a smaller cultural group within a larger culturally dominant group society maintains unique cultural traits and those cultural traits are considered worth having in the dominant cultural group. • Sometimes referred to as the salad bowl theory • Each part of the salad is identifiable, but creates a new, larger whole.

9. Is there American Culture?