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BOOK REVIEW: Good Americans: Italian and Jewish Immigrants During the First World War By Christopher M. Sterba Oxford University Press, 2003. 288 pp. In Good Americans: Italian and Jewish Immigrants During the First World War, Christopher Sterba explores not only the contributions of Italian and Jewish immigrants during World War I but also how the war accelerated the assimilation process for these two distinct cultural groups. To measure the effect of the war on these immigrant populations, Sterba studies the experiences of the Italians of New Haven, Connecticut, and the Jews of New York City. Far from being a dry academic study, Good Americans is interesting and engaging due in large part to the author's ability to weave the stories of these first immigrants throughout the book. Sterba does an excellent job of both comparing and contrasting the experiences of the Italians of New Haven and the Jews of New York, offering a complex analysis of World War I and the assimilation process of both groups. Of particular interest to readers of this newspaper are the experiences of the Italian-Americans from Connecticut. In the early part of the 20th century, the Italians of New Haven formed a distinct colonia within the larger city. The Italian residents had built their colonia independently from the rest of the city and it formed a separate neighborhood in which the new immigrants would remain isolated from the rest of the New Haven community. The colonia had everything the new immigrants and their children could want: "religious institutions, mutual aid societies, newspapers, and ethnic businesses." Because they had formed an independent community, they rarely had a reason to interact with the federal government much beyond the post office. Also hindering their assimilation into the larger society, the immigrants faced discrimination and prejudice that prevented them from moving into positions of power within the city. However, as Sterba notes, these new immigrants "now viewed their residence in New Haven as permanent" and were ready "to move to the next stage of their settlement, from standing largely outside of the mainstream American public arena to asserting a major role in [American] politics and society." World War I provided this opportunity. The war effort required many more soldiers than were enrolled in the American armed services in 1917, so major recruitment efforts took place both at the local and national levels. The New Haven Italians responded to this effort by forming the "Italian Machine Gun Company," which was part of the Second Connecticut Infantry Regiment. The whole Italian-American community of New Haven - its leaders and its press - supported the recruitment effort. Their recruitment efforts "eliminated any public criticism that Italians were not deeply committed to the war effort." When the Italian-American men reached basic training, they were faced with discrimination and exclusion as they joined the all-New England Twenty-sixth Division. The Twenty-sixth Division had a proud "Yankee" tradition and did little to recognize or deal with the diversity in its unit. Sterba writes, "To a marked degree their experiences in the army replicated the segregated culture and society they had known in New Haven." However, as the Italian members joined the war and were merged into a new company, "The ability of the company's members to communicate in the same language (however broken an immigrant's English might be); their common knowledge of company practices and equipment; and their unfamiliarity with the people and ways of France helped to diminish, though certainly not erase, the cultural divide that previously separated Italian from non-Italian, immigrant from native-born Yankee." On the home front, the Italian-Americans of New Haven joined the national effort to support the war and this deepened their ties to their adopted country, but their support was due less to their loyalty to their new country and more to do with their ties to their Italian villages. This provincial loyalty, however, grew less during the war because Italian-Americans began to identify themselves more with an Italian national identity. Surprisingly, the popular mutual aid societies of the colonia, which often identified themselves with local Italian regions, joined ranks to support the war effort. By working together, the aid societies furthered the immigrants' sense of being from a unified Italy. Upon returning home, Italian-Americans soon found that they faced renewed discrimination and prejudice, but too much had already changed. Their efforts and experiences during World War I had already begun to further their assimilation into mainstream American society. Feeling more part of the American fabric than ever, these Italian-Americans fought back and demanded their rightful place in society. Because of his thoughtful and careful analysis, Sterba's book will be a welcome addition to the bookshelves of those interested in the immigrant experience and assimilation. By describing the different experiences of the Italians of New Haven and the Jew of New York, Sterba is able to show assimilation as an often complex and even "messy" process. From the experiences of the Italians of New Haven and the Jews of New York, we can learn many lessons as we attempt to integrate new immigrants into our country. Italian Catholic Federation, 675 Hegenberger Road, Suite 230, Oakland CA 94621 tel: 888/ICF-1924; 510/633-9058; fax: 510/633-9758; Email: info@icf.org Website designed by HYPERSPHERE