**Best news of the week**
On Sunday, Brown University announced that they will drop their fee for low-income applicants. This is a huge step forward for higher education, and one that more and more Universities are pushing towards, despite the federal government's unwillingness to help educate the populace.
See the article at the New York Times.
Monday:
A California utility is launching the first hybrid power system.
See the article at the Associated Press.
Tuesday:
Democrat Jon Ossoff almost got enough votes to win outright in the Primaries in Georgia.
Read the story at the New York Times.
Wednesday:
Former Presidential candidate Cruz is losing in his Texas reelection campaign against a Democratic hopeful, Castro.
Read the story at the Hill.
Thursday:
Canadian government has ruled to keep Net Neutrality, despite US's stance.
Read the story at Blooomberg News.
Friday:
An Indiana University is making a policy of refusing to recruit athletes with a history of sexual violence.
Read the story at Teen Vogue.
Saturday:
You Tube lived up to their promise to fix Restricted mode so that not all GLBT videos would be blocked by it.
Read the article here.
Feel free to link anyone you'd like to this. And if you have any Good News links in the coming week that you'd like to share, feel free to send them my way. I can definitely use more.
American Immigrant Highlights: Italy
Italian Americans are the fourth largest European ethnic group in the US. The first major wave of immigrants came in the 1870s. This increased in the 1880s, and continued until the onset of the first world war. Approximately 84% of Italian Americans immigrated from Sicily and Southern Italy, which were overpopulated agricultural areas with high poverty and poor living conditions. Currently, over 17 million Americans claim Italian ancestry. Though there are Italian Americans spread across the US today, there are several cities with particularly high Italian American populations, including New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Newark, Saint Louis, Syracuse, Providence, Chicago, Cleveland, Milwaukee, Ybor City Florida, Birmingham, San Francisco, and San Diego.
The earliest Italians who came to America were explorers who helped connect Europe to the American continents, including Christopher Columbus and Aermigo Vespucci, who is the man for whom the American Continents were named. Most early immigrants to the US started as laborers in cities, mining camps, and agriculture. They were strongly Catholic, and heavily involved in fraternal organizations and political parties. They took part in both the Revolutionary War and the Civil War, fighting on both sides. After Italian Unification, the Italian government encouraged greater immigration out of the country, which greatly increased the number of immigrants to the US. During World War I, Italian American enlisted in large numbers, and made up about 12% of the American forces that went overseas.
Between World War I and the Immigration Act of 1924, Immigration declined. Despite this, Italian Americans began to really settle into the American lifestyle. It was during this time that they began to have a heavy influence on the US culture, contributing to food tastes, music, and movies, among many other things. World War II caused issues for Italian Americans, though. Because Italy was an Axis power, many other Americans felt they should be confined to keep from harming other Americans. Many were interned in detention camps. More than 600,000 other Italian Americans who had not become citizens were required to carry cards that identified them as resident aliens, and many were forced to move away from the West Coast, causing them to lose homes and businesses that they had there. Despite this, though, Italian Americans served proudly during the war. In 2000, Bill Clinton signed an act that ordered a review by the US Attorney General of how Italians were treated during the Second World War.
During the heaviest part of Italian immigration to the US, Italians suffered from various forms of discrimination. They were refused jobs and housing, and were often victims of violence, particularly in the south. Between 1890 and 1920, the stereotype of the violent Italian criminal was commonplace, which caused them to be targeted for accusation of crimes regardless of facts, and lynching by members of the communities they settled in.
Italian American food is probably the most popular immigrant food in America today. Because of the heavy influences from immigrants, the major Italian foods most Americans are familiar with are based on Southern Italian cooking, which focuses more on pasta, tomato-based sauces, and olive oil. Northern Italians also introduced some foods to the American diet, including risotto, white sauce, and polenta. Though these foods are very popular now, in the early days of Italian immigration to the US, these foods were looked down on by other Americans. Despite this, Italian food was one of the earliest foods to be canned for mass sale in grocery stores. Chef Boyardee's sauce was so popular that he had opened a factory to can his sauce in 1928. It was soldiers returning from World War II who really began to popularize Italian foods. Having lived on the foods in the areas they were stationed, they began to seek them out, and Italian food was readily and easily available. By the 50s, Italian food was quickly becoming part of the American diet, and the rise of the teenager made one food in particular popular: Pizza. Nowadays anyone can grab a slice from a restaurant nearby. Or simply pick up a phone and order a whole pizza to go or even to be delivered.
Notable Italian Americans:
- Joseph Barbera, animator, director & producer, co-founder of Hanna-Barbera
- Frank Frazetta, fantasy and sci-fi artist
- Carmine Infantino, comic book artist and editor
- Walter Lantz, animator, created Woody Woodpecker
- Bob Montana, comic strip artist, creator of Archie and his pals
- John Romita Sr, comic book artist, known for the Amazing Spider Man
- Gerard Way, frontman of My Chemical Romance
- Giada De Laurentiis, tv chef
- Mario Batali, tv chef, Iron Chef
- Tom Colicchio, tv chef, judge on Top Chef
- Samuel Alito, Supreme Court Associate Justice
- Vincent Bugliosi, prosecuted Charles Manson, expert on the Kennedy assassinations
- Antonin Scalia, Supreme Court Associate Justice
- John Sirica, judge famous for presiding over the Watergate hearings
- Walter Schirra, one of the original seven astronauts chosen for the Mercury Project
- Andrew Cuomo, governor of New York
- Mario Cuomo, former governor of New York
- William Paca, signer of the Declaration of Independence, governor of Maryland
- Enrico Fermi, physicist
- Emilio Segre, Nobel Prize winning physicist
- John Fusco, writer and screenwriter of movies such as Young Guns, Hidalgo, and Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron
- Camille Paglia, critic
- Mario Puzo, writer & screenwriter of the Godfather
- RA Salvatore, science fiction & fantasy writer
- Geraldine Ferraro, first woman to be nominated for Vice President by a major political party
- Nancy Pelosi, first woman in US history to be the Speaker of the US House of Representatives
- Oleg Cassini, fashion designer
- Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Association of America
- Yogi Berra, baseball player and manager
- Joe DiMaggio, baseball player, in the Baseball Hall of Fame
- Charles Atlas, bodybuilder
- Lou Ferrigno, bodybuilder
- Jake LaMotta, boxer
- Brian Boitano, figure skater
- Vince Lombardi, coach of the Green Bay Packers
- Dan Marino, quarterback for the Miami Dolphins, in the Hall of Fame
- Joe Montana, quarterback
- Phil Mickelson, pro golfer
- Mary Lou Retton, Olympic gold medalist in gymnastics
- The Andretti family, known for their race car drivers
- Ariana Grande, singer
- Hayden Christensen, actor
- Chris Evans, actor
- Lady Gaga, singer
- Rooney Mara, actress
- Christina Ricci, actress
- Bradley Cooper, actor
- Leonardo DiCaprio, actor
- Kate Hudson, actress
- Alyssa Milano, actress
- Zachary Quinto, actor
- Jon Bon Jovi, singer
- Nicholas Cage, actor
- Jon Favreau, actor & director
- Norman Reedus, actor
- Brooke Shields, actress
- Gwen Stefani, singer
- Quentin Terantino, director
- Stanley Tucci, actor
- Vincent D'Onofrio, actor
- Anjelica Huston, actress
- Cyndi Lauper, singer
- Jay Leno, comedian, actor, former host of the Tonight Show
- Madonna, singer & actress
- Joe Piscopo, actor & comedian
- Isabella Rossellini, actress
- Gary Sinise, actor
- John Travolta, actor
- Robert De Niro, actor
- Penny Marshall, actress, director & producer
- Gary Marshall, director & producer
- Liza Minnelli, actress & singer
- Bruce Springsteen, singer
- Bobby Darin, actor & singer
- Dom DeLuise, comedian & actor
- Frank Langella, actor
- Dean Martin, singer
- Frank Sinatra, singer
This is by no means a complete list. For more interesting Italian Americans, look at this list on Wikipedia.
Sources
Italian Americans
Italian American Cuisine
How America Became Italian
A Brief History of Italian Food in America
How Italian Cuisine Became as American as Apple Pie
No comments:
Post a Comment