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... f those who lived in ghettos such as these had little or no contact with non-Italian Americans. Men who lived in mining camps were used to not having proper facilities in which to bathe, and so many did not wash for months at a time. The unsanitary conditions made disease common and the death rate high among Italians. Poor nutrition and the unhealthy conditions made illnesses like tuberculosis and influenza spread rapidly through the crowded areas.
As their knowledge of the English language developed, the Italians rose up the social status ladder. This knowledge benefited Italians by allowing them to move away from the slum areas and into more sanitary and fitting conditions. The most positive way that this knowledge aided Italians was by helping them to get better paying jobs. Many Italians found jobs as doctors, lawyers, or intellectuals. And following that, Italian-Americans began to spring up in political offices. "The first major Italian American political figure was Fiorello H.
LaGuardia, who became first a congressman and then the legendary mayor of New York for more that a decade" (Sowell 166). The Italians adjusted to the American way of life very quickly and they were also able to face harsh obstacles, such as finding work, a place to live and overcoming prejudices, in order to move up on the social stepladder. Besides these adjustments, there is still one topic about Italian immigrants seldom heard. This topic is how the Italians had positive effects on cities and the American way of life. One such effect was the Italian settlement in Indiana, especially in the city of Indianapolis. The very first Italian that came to Indiana arrived about 150 years before Indianapolis existed as a village (Divita 8).
The first Italian in Indiana was Enrico Tonti. Tonti, a modest and humble Italian born near Naples, traveled in 1679 around the northwest part of what was to be modern-day Indiana. Tonti was following Robert Cavalier de LaSalle, the French explorer who was the first European to visit the state. The two men made camp and spent the night near what is today South Bend and although the two did very little while in Indiana, it should be noted that Tonti was the first Italian to set foot in Indiana.
A century later, the Italians settled in Vincennes, which was the first permanent European settlement in Indiana (Divita 8). The best known of these Italians was, perhaps, Piedmontese Francesco Vigo. Vigo is known for giving George Rogers Clark the information and money that later aided him in capturing a fort from the British in Vincennes during the late 1770 s. Vigo is also said to have made Indiana "American", and his contribution was memorialized when the county containing present-day Terre Haute was named for him (Divita 8). Other notable Italians in Indiana include Mother Mary Magdalen Bentivoglio, who founded the Poor Clare convent in Evansville in 1897, and Father Januari us M. D'Arco, who was a pastor at Liberty in Union County for 20 years and was also the first Italian-born diocesan priest in Indiana.
Italians had been settling in Indianapolis years before the Civil War. According to Professor James J. Divita of Marian College, many of the Italians came to Indianapolis because of the economic opportunities that the state had to offer. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, many major railroad lines intersected in Indianapolis and continued on throughout America in all directions. These railroads were ideal for the transportation of goods and materials, and while looking at a map, the Italians thought Indiana looked like the crossroads of America.
These two factors led many Italians to come to Indianapolis to work as confectioners, or merchants of produce. The Italian confectioners operated stands at busy intersections like Illinois and Washington streets in downtown Indianapolis. The Italians also operated stands at the City Market and around the old Marion County Courthouse. Today, these areas are occupied by the Marion County Jail and by parking lots. The Italian confectioners "reputedly introduced the banana to the city, which earned several of them the nickname 'the banana kings'" (Divita encyclopedia). The selling of bananas and other produce has been an Italian tradition in Indianapolis for over a hundred years (Indiana's Italian Immigrants video).
Today, many of the Italian confectioner's descendants still dominate the city's produce industry. Unlike the slums and ghettos of Italian immigrants in major cities, the "Little Italy's" of Indianapolis were significantly more sanitary. A wonderful example of this was the "Little Italy" located on the south side of Indianapolis. Today, lovely houses, warmhearted and neighborly people, and the famed Holy Rosary Parish populate this area. However, about ninety years ago, this area was home to Indiana's largest Italian population (Divita encyclopedia). The Italian immigrants who settled the area were called Sicilians, who emigrated from the little island off the coast of Italy called Sicily.
Sicilians, who were known for their strong religious beliefs, gained authorization in 1909 from Bishop Francis Silas Chatard to organize an Italian national Catholic parish. Immediately following the authorization, Father Marino Priori opened Holy Rosary Parish (HRP), not just to the Sicilians, but to all Italians in Indianapolis (Divita 15). Many Italian traditions, that are still practiced today, came from the founding of HRP. One of these traditions is the Italian Street Festival, which HRP holds annually around the end of June. The festival is a celebration of Italian food, life and culture. On the Saturday of the festival, a religious procession is held in which a statue of the Blessed Mother is carried through "Little Italy. " The procession is then followed by a mass held in the beautiful church of Holy Rosary (Indiana's Italian Immigrants video).
The century old neighborhoods of the early Italians in Indianapolis and all across America still stand today, due mostly because of family traditions, which are very important to the Italians of yesteryear and call for family to live very close to one another. The Italian immigrants faced harsh lives in order to attain their status in today's society. "Many Italians speak of harsh times when they came to America by boat, but the descendents of those immigrants are happy to be a part of the land of the free, and are proud of the efforts their ancestors made" (Indiana's Italian Immigrants video). In the end, one can see that in order to keep the traditions of America's heritage alive, people must pass down the stories and truths of the immigrants struggle to live in America.
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