Italian Americans

This article is about Italians and their descendants in America. For the 1974 Martin Scorsese documentary film, see Italianamerican.

Italian Americans
Italo-americani (Italian)
Americans with Italian ancestry by state according to the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey in 2019
Total population
Increase 17,767,630 (5.3%) alone or in combination

5,953,262 (1.8%) Italian alone
2021 estimates, self-reported[1]
17,285,619 (2015)[2]
17,566,693 (2010)[3]
17,829,184 (2006)[4]
16,688,000 (2000)[5]
14,664,550 (1990)[6]
12,183,692 (1980)[7]

Other Estimates:
20-23 million (1973)[8]
Regions with significant populations
Northeastern United States (parts of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Connecticut and Rhode Island); Illinois (especially Chicago); also, parts of Baltimore–Washington, Ohio, St. Louis, Kansas City, Milwaukee, Detroit; parts of California (such as Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego), Florida (particularly the southern part of the state) and the Atlantic coast, Louisiana (especially New Orleans), with growing populations in Denver, Las Vegas, Phoenix and Albuquerque
Languages
Religion
Predominantly Catholicism with small minorities practicing Greek Orthodoxy, Protestantism and Judaism
Related ethnic groups
Italian Argentines, Italian Bolivians, Italian Brazilians, Italian Canadians, Italian Chileans, Italian Colombians, Italian Costa Ricans, Italian Cubans, Italian Dominicans, Italian Ecuadorians, Italian Guatemalans, Italian Haitians, Italian Hondurans, Italian Mexicans, Italian Panamanians, Italian Paraguayans, Italian Peruvians, Italian Puerto Ricans, Italian Salvadorans, Italian Uruguayans, Italian Venezuelans, Italian Australians, Italian South Africans, Italian Britons, Italian New Zealanders, Sicilian Americans, Corsican Americans, Corsican Puerto Ricans, Maltese Americans, Sammarinese Americans and other Italians

Italian Americans (Italian: italoamericani) are Americans who have full or partial Italian ancestry. According to the Italian American Studies Association, the current population is about 18 million, an increase from 16 million in 2010, corresponding to about 5.4% of the total population of the United States. The largest concentrations of Italian Americans are in the urban Northeast and industrial Midwestern metropolitan areas, with significant communities also residing in many other major U.S. metropolitan areas.[11]

Between 1820 and 2004, approximately 5.5 million Italians migrated to the United States during the Italian diaspora, in several distinct waves, with the greatest number arriving in the 20th century from Southern Italy. Initially, most single men, so-called birds of passage, sent remittance back to their families in Italy and then returned to Italy.

Immigration began to increase during the 1880s, when more than twice as many Italians immigrated than had in the five previous decades combined.[12][13] Continuing from 1880 to 1914, the greatest surge of immigration brought more than 4 million Italians to the United States.[12][13] The largest number of this wave came from Southern Italy, which at that time was largely agricultural and where much of the populace had been impoverished by centuries of foreign rule and heavy tax burdens.[14][15] This period of large-scale immigration ended abruptly with the onset of World War I in August 1914. In the 1920s 455,315 immigrants arrived.[16] They came under the terms of the new quota-based immigration restrictions created by the Immigration Act of 1924.[17] Italian-Americans had a significant influence on American society and culture, making contributions to visual arts, literature, cuisine, politics, sports, and music.[18]

  1. ^ "IPUMS USA". University of Minnesota. Retrieved October 12, 2022.
  2. ^ "Table B04006 - People Reporting Ancestry - 2015 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates". United States Census Bureau. Archived from the original on July 13, 2022. Retrieved July 13, 2022.
  3. ^ "Table B04006 - People Reporting Ancestry - 2010 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates". United States Census Bureau. Archived from the original on July 13, 2022. Retrieved July 13, 2022.
  4. ^ "Welcome to nginx!". factfinder.census.gov. Archived from the original on February 12, 2020. Retrieved May 22, 2022.
  5. ^ "Italian American Population in All 50 States". www.niaf.org. Archived from the original on October 9, 2008. Retrieved May 15, 2022.
  6. ^ "1990 Census of Population Detailed Ancestry Groups for States" (PDF). United States Census Bureau. September 18, 1992. Retrieved November 30, 2012.
  7. ^ "Rank of States for Selected Ancestry Groups with 100,000 or more persons:1980" (PDF). United States Census Bureau. Retrieved November 30, 2012.
  8. ^ Gambino, Richard (April 30, 1972). "Twenty Million Italian‐Americans". New York Times. Retrieved November 13, 2024.
  9. ^ "AMERICAN ITALIAN SLANG WORDS". LETS LEARN SLANG. June 15, 2021.
  10. ^ "American-Italian dictionary". americanitalian.net.
  11. ^ Cite error: The named reference c2kbr-35 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  12. ^ a b Annual Report of the Immigration and Naturalization Service 1966 (PDF). Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office. June 1967. pp. 55–58. Retrieved July 13, 2022.
  13. ^ a b "Table 1: Italian Immigration To The United States By Years". Mtholyoke.edu. Archived from the original on November 4, 2020. Retrieved October 7, 2017.
  14. ^ Wepman, Dennis (2008). Immigration. Infobase Publishing. p. 171. ISBN 978-1-4381-0810-0.
  15. ^ Mangione, Jerre and Ben Morreale, La Storia: Five Centuries of the Italian American Experience, Harper Perennial, 1992
  16. ^ Frank J. Cavaioli, "Patterns of Italian immigration to the United States" Catholic Social Science Review 13 (2008): 213-229 at p. 220.
  17. ^ "Who Was Shut Out?: Immigration Quotas, 1925-1927". History Matters.
  18. ^ Pellegrino A D'Acierno (October 1, 1998). The Italian American Heritage: A Companion to Literature and Arts. Routledge.