THE ITALIAN AND THE SETTLEMENT
Said an American afterward: “It was not a man who spoke but a bewildered people.” The speaker was Vittoria Racca, professor of political economy at the University of Rome, and his audience was a gathering of settlement workers in New York to whom he endeavored to interpret the protests of the Italian immigrant usually heard only as a grumbling in dialect. Professor Racca has a two years’ leave of absence in which to study the opportunities for his fellow country men and women in America and the efforts that are being made in their behalf. He purposes to write a book on the subject when he returns.
The speaker described the Italian parent in this country calling his children to his knee and crying in tragic amazement: “These are not like the children we had in Italy.” Whence, he asked, came this strange brood and how was it hatched out under the parents’ wings? With his explanation was bound up sane advice for many of his listeners.
More stress, said Professor Racca, should be laid on the building up of human personality by settlements. The buildings should not be so fine that the Italians do not feel at home. He went on:—
“The settlements should try to learn something about Italian customs, habits, employments, amusements, traditions—they should feel the spirit of the Italians and see things from the Italian’s point of view. For example, one headworker was discouraged because she had introduced basketry into a club of Italians and they did not like the work. It would be a good thing for a headworker in such a case to find out what parents do in Italy, and in that way she might easily find some handwork which Italians would like to do. The Italian mother should be enlightened as to what the settlement is doing, so that she may understand why her daughter is out after dark, which is quite against Italian custom. If these suggestions were followed, the settlement would be the center for the whole neighborhood, and not only for the boys and girls.”
Turning to what the Italian might gain from the land of his adoption, Professor Racca said:
“It would be a good thing if the young Italian could acquire something of the strong will of the American and could retain something of the geniality and taste of his Italian parents. As it is, fathers of boys who go to settlements make most extraordinary comments showing that they do not at all understand what is being done at the settlements. For instance, one says he is so sorry that the boys spend their evenings with those bad women there.
“The new life of the immigrant is sometimes a tragedy. They must adjust themselves to a totally different kind of economic life. Wages are seemingly high, but the cost of living is high also. It would be much easier for the immigrants if, on their arrival, they had to fight Indians than for them as now to combat the complexed social and economic conditions of a strange land. Amusements here are different. In Italy after work all meet in ‘the coffee house of misery,’ where there is little to eat or to drink, but where there is a flow of geniality and conversation. Here everybody stays by himself, and all wear beautiful hats and dresses, which hide the poverty of their lives. They are here ashamed to show their lack of success. They are exploited by employers, by employment agencies, by neighbors, by the Black Hand, by the police—by everybody with whom they have to do. They always get the worst of the law. If it is enforced, it is enforced against them. If it is for their protection, it is not enforced. The immigrant Italians feel that they are despised, which they often are, and so they congregate in villages, which makes matters worse, and they learn American conditions more slowly.
“Here the children learn much in the schools and in the settlements, but much more in the streets. In the schools they learn that the United Stales is the greatest nation in the world, and on the streets they learn that Italy is a despicable nation. So they think that everything Italian is to be thrown away. There is no family life, so the children acquire awful habits.”
Not in the school or settlement, but at home, said Professor Racca, we learn not to steal and lie. In Italy and Russia the home, he said, is the center of the intellectual and moral life. Therefore the responsibility is America’s if in America these homes crumble and the morals of the children crumble with them. To prevent family disruption the adults as well as the children must be adjusted to the new environment. This adjustment is to be made, he declared, through the right kind of settlement. And this is what a social settlement should be:
“It should be a small institution for all the poor, not merely for the children. At its head should be one boss—a man. He should be married or a widower, and have varied experience. He should not be a minister, for if he is of the same religion as the people he would duplicate the work of their minister, and if he proselytizes, the people will run away. He should not be a professor, because he sees through narrow academic spectacles, and he should not be an amateur who goes into the work for a few years. He ought to be a practical sociologist, not necessarily acquainted with the theories, but he should know the facts. He should be a psychologist. He should know America thoroughly. If he is working for Italians he should have lived at least two years in Italy in the very provinces from which immigrants come. He should know dialect. He should not think that he can learn to know the Italian and his traditions by “doing Italy”—by visiting museums, art collections and churches. He should work in a narrow field and should take the place of the priests in Italy.
“He should visit every person every day, and in this way really be their friend, father and brother. He should be connected with all their organizations, so that the settlement could be the bridge between the organizations and the workers. If he thus knows everybody, the bad elements would dread this headworker. He would know that certain men were not working, and he would know that if they were nevertheless getting a living they are probably blackmailing. He must know individuals so well that he can handle each in his own way; one through an appeal to pride, another through a command, and so on.”
Some headworkers, he said, are out of town several days a week. Social workers should not be “out” so much at lectures and parties. They should be at the disposal of the people of the neighborhood at every moment of the day and night. Educational work can be done better through chats than through lectures. “No one’s system of life is ever changed because he has heard a lecture,” he said. A headworker once made an appointment with him, he said, to explain to him what her settlement did and to take him around. Her telephone called her away every few minutes, and he had to content himself with reading a folder on the settlement’s work.
Another mistake, said Professor Racca, was to let Italians speak at the settlement. “Southern Italians speak marvelously before they are born,” he said; “though what they say may mean nothing. They always speak against America and praise the old country. And when poor people hear these hollow words they think this speaker worthy to be their leader.”
Professor Racca in his address expressed the opinion that volunteer workers should be avoided because they usually have little preparation and the settlements cannot command them as well as if they were paid. Not many girls, he thought, should do social work for young men, because young men, of southern races especially, although they have respect for women, “do not have enough respect to accept a woman as their leader as confidentially as they would a man.” For work with women and children he was of opinion there should be a woman as headworker. “She should be married and of mature age, so that she may have had varied experience. If possible, she should also be a nurse.”