On the Trail of the Immigrant

by Edward Alfred Steiner

Like all foreigners, they prefer to be among their own; not so much from a feeling of clannishness, although that is not absent; but because among their own, they are safe from that ridicule which borders on cruelty, and with which the average American treats nearly every stranger not of his complexion or speech.

In passing through Connecticut, where nearly each large town has its Italian colony, I found one lonely Italian asking the conductor whether this was the train for New York. “Which way want you go?” (Usually the American thinks that the foreigner can understand poor English.) All the Italian knew, he repeated: “New York—New York.” The conductor left the puzzled man standing on the platform and the train moved on. I remained with the Italian and saw him three times treated similarly, if not worse, and I concluded that it is not very safe for the Italian to distribute himself too thinly over this continent.

The Italian usually moves into quarters formerly occupied by the Irish or Jews, whose demands have risen with their better earnings, and who have left the congested districts for the uptown or the suburbs. At present it is no doubt true that the Italian is satisfied by these quarters, and that what nobody wants, he is ready to take. So it is that he comes to the edges of the great Ghetto in New York, to Bleecker Street and beyond, and that his trail leads almost into the heart of it. Jewish and Italian push-cart peddlers stand side by side, the Italian barber shop seeks Semitic customers, the smells from the “Genoese Restaurant” blend with those from the “Kosher Kitchen,” and the air is disturbed by the perfumes of garlic and paprika, a combination not half so bad as it smells.

In Chicago, “Little Italy” hovered around a large district condemned to the sheltering of vice, and when good business sense dictated that it be moved to some less conspicuous portion of the town, it was immediately invaded by Italians. Scarcely a day had passed, yet the change made was as complete as it was revolutionary. Large plate windows were broken and pillows were stuck into the aperture to keep out the lake breeze; the broad stairways which had led to destruction were slippery now, but not so dangerous as before; the large parlours were divided and subdivided, while the gay paper was torn from the walls; it looked as though conquerors had come who were bent upon destruction. A happy change was manifest in the streets, for it was full of children, and the innocent face of a child had not been seen in those streets for years.

Housing conditions among the Italians are as bad as can be imagined and the most crowded quarters in our cities are those inhabited by them. Four hundred and ninety-two families in one block is the record, and it is held by New York, on Prince Street, between Mott and Elizabeth Streets; while Philadelphia can boast of having the most unwholesome tenements, where air is a luxury and daylight unknown. In that city thirty families numbering 123 persons, were living in thirty-four rooms.

Of course the landlord who builds these shacks and the community which tolerates them, are equally to blame. Both commit a crime against society, but a good share of the blame must fall upon the Italian himself for being satisfied with such surroundings. He is of course anxious to save money, and a decent dwelling in our large cities is a luxury; so he who at home used the heavens for the roof of his tenement, and the long street for his parlour, is naturally content with but a small shelter for the night.

Considering the conditions under which the Italians live, their quarters are not nearly so bad as one might expect, and when a period of prosperity has come upon the community, when it can look back upon a year or two of consecutive work, they show in common with other foreign quarters, decided improvement.

Rather characteristic is the tenement district of Hartford, Conn., which has gone through all the stages of such districts in other cities, is no better than they, and in many respects worse. There are buildings occupied which would be condemned elsewhere as unfit for human habitation. There are whole blocks which look damp, dingy and dirty; ancient structures, with filth oozing from every pore.

Jews and Italians are the chief inhabitants of this district, although one comes across a stranded American family here and there, the dregs of New England, the most hopeless people in this new city of ancient tenements. The two nationalities live rather close together, and it is a mixture of Russian and Italian dirt, the Italian article being much the cleaner.

Walk through the streets with me and you will readily forget that you are in America. Here Pietro, the shoemaker, on his three-legged stool, mends boots out on the streets; while Lorenzo shaves his customer upon the pavement in front of his shop. Gossiping groups of swarthy neighbours sit together upon the threshhold of their homes, and Bianca, Lorenzo’s wife, is complaining in a loud voice that Pietro, the shoemaker, has called her a hussy. “And he a low-down Sicilian, a good for nothing, has called me, the barber’s wife, a hussy.” She is rousing the ire of her neighbours, and woe to Pietro, for Lorenzo’s wife has a temper.