ABSTRACT
In the large and sophisticated literature on ethnic consciousness and Americanization among European immigrants, very little is known about how Italians thought about race or about how they came to see themselves and their interests as white. What we know about the period between 1880 and 1920 is largely anecdotal. This chapter looks at this supposed absence of racial discourse among Italian immigrants. The history of the Italian immigrant left in America, particularly the anarchist sectors of that movement, challenges this view. The first and second generation of Italian immigrant radicals developed a discourse that was deeply critical of the American racial hierarchy, one that the Justice Department came to view as criminal. The chapter participates in the recovery of the racial discourse to argue that the activism of Italian immigrant anarchists problematizes our understanding of the racialization process during the period from 1880 to 1920.
