Submitted by: Submitted by brittriggleman
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Category: Spirituality
Date Submitted: 12/09/2010 08:10 PM
Brittany Riggleman
August 22, 2010
Axia Program ETH/125
Assignment: Ethnic Groups and Discrimination
Ethnicity can be a very sensitive subject to many of people, I personally classify as an Italian American. Italian Americans reported equaling 5.8% of the nation’s population in the year 200 with a total of 16 million. Gardaphe, F. (2010). Many Italian Americans lived in New York when they came here; my grandma and great grandma both lived in New York for several years many of years ago.
With any new ethnic group you are going to encounter many of different reactions when you are first brought into the new environment, Italian Americans often received a lot of discrimination and racial comments when they were in their work environments. It was very hard for them to find jobs and places to live because they were looked down upon for being different, because many had problems speaking clearly Gardaphe, F. (2010). In 1924 the Immigration Quota was passed which completely restricted the Immigration of all Italians into the United States, in 1965 this was dropped which allowed the Italian’s to come to the United States again Gardaphe, F. (2010).
Considering the fact that the Italian Americans had such a tough timing trying to find work such as was stated above by Gardaphe, the dual labor market was very much involved. The fact that just because they were not “American” they were not given the good jobs they were given the secondary jobs that did not pay as much, many of times it was because they had an accent and many Americans had a hard time understanding them. Environmental Justice was not exactly an issue, may of Italian Americans first went to New York which was very clean, many of them had a hard time trying to find a place to live but they were not purposely given dirty places to live in.
Affirmative action is something that is implemented a lot in the work place today but was never taken seriously when it was first decided upon. Not being able to...