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Danielle Battisti, Whom We Shall Welcome. Italian Americans and Immigration Reform, 1945-1965

New York, Fordham University Press, 2019
Michela Bertossa
p. 132-134
Référence(s) :

Danielle Battisti, Whom We Shall Welcome. Italian Americans and Immigration Reform, 1945-1965, New York, Fordham University Press, 2019, pp. 352, $ 35.

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1Danielle Battisti’s book focuses on the influence of Italian American communities in the immigration reform campaigns between 1945 and 1965. The author aims to show how the lobbyism of Italian American organizations within American politics, such as the American Committee of Italian Migration (acim) and the Italian Welfare League (iwl) led to the abolition of the National Origins System in 1965. As Battisti reminds us, this immigration system, which was established in 1924 limited immigration of Southern and Eastern Europeans. The nos, the author argues, was based on the «longtime concerns about the religious and cultural traditions of these groups that were thought to undermine the quality of democratic citizenship in the United States» (p. 6). Organizations like the acim and iwl vehemently advocated for a change in the discriminatory policies that had been maintained for half a century through the National Origins System. Battisti’s main argument is that reform groups – although seemingly promoting liberal ideas that aligned with the rhetoric of the Civil Rights movement – prioritized the goal of acquiring «a level of respectability and full membership» comparable to the «old-stock» Americans (p. 4) rather than fully stand in solidarity with racial minorities.

2Battisti’s study offers an analysis of tactics used by Italian American reformers and to promote immigration reforms between 1945 and 1965. The author’s close reading of sources shows that beneath the liberal discourses, there were conservative ideological rationales that drove these campaigns. Whom Shall We Welcome considers many historical and social factors that shaped post-war America, including anti-communist fears, segregation, and Italy-U.S. relations to achieve a convincing narrative.

3The study is an historiographical corrective to the understanding that the National Origins System’s abolition was a result of Cold War foreign policy that aligned with ideological shifts taking place in expanded democracy demands. While agreeing that immigrations reforms were indeed a consequence of these elements, Battisti includes the longstanding and the significant role Italian American organizations played in shifting debates in defeating the National Origins System. By examining how these organizations’ rhetoric and practices were codified in the two decades following wwii, Battisti demonstrates that «many Italian Americans saw the nation’s immigration policies as a critical marker for defining the boundaries of inclusion and exclusion in America for themselves and the others» (p. 9). Despite the many studies that have focused on the period, Battisti adds new knowledge by exploring the views of Italian American organizations. Particularly valuable is the way Battisti’s unpacks the ideological ambivalence of Italian American groups at the time. Their progressive alignment with more liberal and equal rights reforms led to a narrative of marginalized positionality which was common among many white ethnics. Battisti argues that a «racially conservative vision of Americanism» (p. 238) undergirded the reform efforts of Italian American groups as well. This argument gives insight into the limited extent of Italian Americans adoption of Civil Rights rhetoric. Battisti shows that the reform campaigns were narrow in scope and «less concerned with extended equality for all people than with the securing a privileged status for peoples of Italian ethnicity» (p.10).

4The book is organized in seven chapters. The first two chapters explore the role of Italian American organizations in influencing Italy-U.S. relationships during and after the war. Here, Battisti argues that Italian American activists played a key role in allocating U.S. government financial support to Italy to speed up the economic recovery and ensure its political stability. More specifically, Battisti focuses on the language used by these groups and observes how they were consistently aligned with anti-communist propaganda. Chapter three continues the discussion in relation to the Displaced Persons Act of 1948, and how anti-communist argumentations secured the allocations of refugee visas for Italy. Here, Battisti explores in detail the organizational structures, ideological nature, and religious affiliations that helped to assist Italian migrants in the immigration process. In chapter four, Battisti shows how, after the approval of the Refugee Relief Act of 1953, Italian American organizations efficiently assisted the refugees through the entire immigration process and beyond. A very interesting aspect of the argument is the way documentary and journalistic material is incorporated to demonstrate how organizations changed public perception of the newly arrived Italians. For example, in chapters three and four, Battisti shows how the acim deployed its newsletter, the Dispatch, to publish articles and photojournalistic reportages that pained a positive image of the new Italian immigrants as already having been assimilated to American values upon arrival. In terms of gender roles, family structure and consumerism, for instance, the Dispatch promoted images of Italian assimilation. In chapters five and six Battisti returns to the political actors involved in the Refugee Relief Act and its aftermath. She explores how the lack of support for an immigration reform unveils racial assumptions as still determining political decisions among conservative politicians in the 1950s and early 1960s. At the same time, Battisti suggests that the Civil Rights movement and its influence in shifting the political, cultural and social discourses of the country also influenced Italian American organizations’ arguments and strategies used for promoting the abolition of the Nation Origins System. Finally, chapter seven focuses on how Italian American organizations changed during the 1960s, aligning with the principles of civil rights as well as to secular and catholic liberalism. Their use of humanitarian and egalitarian principles in the defense of human dignity and racial equality, as well as the pluralistic construction of Americanism, are among the main arguments used by these associations during the 1960s. Noteworthy is the use of the «immigrant gift» argument used by these organizations in support of the successfully assimilated groups, which reveals «that rather conservative elements of white ethnic politics and white ethnic identity formation, remained present in the movement» (p. 233). The thematic overlap between chapters, and the dense historical detail in each, make it difficult for the reader to follow the main focus of the claims at points. However, this structure supports later chapters which are more heavily theoretical and dependent on the historical detail of earlier points.

5Whom We Shall Welcome treats a complex topic with clarity and a comprehensive analysis Battisti investigates the nature and significance of the Italian American immigration reform campaigns between 1945 and 1965 as well how they maneuvered for reform and adopted racialized language in their campaigns. Ultimately, Battisti successfully merges transnational history with a national narrative of the US. She opens up a critical and fruitful dialogue between the history of the Civil Rights movements and immigration reform that were central to Italian diasporic community. Battisti leaves space too for further analysis for scholars in the field.

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Référence papier

Michela Bertossa, « Danielle Battisti, Whom We Shall Welcome. Italian Americans and Immigration Reform, 1945-1965 »Altreitalie, 64 | 2022, 132-134.

Référence électronique

Michela Bertossa, « Danielle Battisti, Whom We Shall Welcome. Italian Americans and Immigration Reform, 1945-1965 »Altreitalie [En ligne], 64 | Gennaio-giugno 2022, mis en ligne le 01 janvier 2023, consulté le 07 février 2026. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/altreitalie/329 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/altreitalie.329

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Michela Bertossa

Ohio State University

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