There have been close to 5 million people that have immigrated to the United
States from Italy since 1880, while 4 million of these immigrants made the trip between
the years 1880 and 1920.
Since 1920, Italian immigration numbers have decreased each
decade and there has been a significant drop in numbers over the past 30 years.
It has
been reported that the assimilation process for the first Italian immigrants was a lot
slower than immigrants in recent years.
One possible explanation for this is that the
immigrants from the early 20
th
century knew little English and a sustainable American
culture of the time was still formulating.
Many of the Italian immigrants today emigrate
from Italy to the US for skilled labor positions and also have an English background,
differing from the initial immigrants who came for a new life knowing little to no
English.
It is interesting to study the Italian immigrants of today because of how
different both, Italy and America, are today
As the United States population grows everyday the amount of Italian immigrants
decrease.
In 1980, Italians made up for 5.7% (858.900) of the total American population,
while in 2000 this number dropped to 1.6% (630,818).
This is a negative 37.3% growth
rate.
Some other data that might be useful is explaining why the steady decrease may be
found in Italy’s Census.
More jobs may be available in Italy than 30 years ago and this
could be why more Italians are staying in their homeland.
While Italian immigration numbers have exponentially decreased over the century
the median age of the immigrants increased until 1980 then leveled off at around 58 years
old.
This
preview
has intentionally blurred sections.
Sign up to view the full version.

This is the end of the preview.
Sign up
to
access the rest of the document.
- Spring '08
- PeterSacks
- Immigration to the United States, Italian immigrants
-
Click to edit the document details