Italian Immigrants, Whiteness, and Race: A Regional Perspective

This article intends to reassess Thomas Guglielmo’s “white on arrival” thesis, according to which Italian immigrants’ whiteness was not challenged in the United States and, therefore, the newcomers and their progeny never suffered from restrictions as for naturalization, marriage, property ownership, selection of the place of residence, and access to material resources that, conversely, were long denied to African Americans and other-than-white people. By offering a few comparative glimpses about the perception of Italian Americans’ color in the northern, southern, and western sections of the United States, vis-à-vis not only blacks but also Asians and Hispanics, the piece argues that Guglielmo’s hypothesis, based on the specific case of the Chicago experience, cannot be generalized. Specifically, it contrasts Italian Americans’ belated image as Caucasians in the North and the South with their early positioning among whites in the West. It, consequently, concludes that the acknowledgment of Italian Americans’ whiteness depended not only on time but also on geography.