Italian Americans 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.
Standard Fruit Company was established in the United States in 1924 by the Vaccaro brothers. Its forerunner was started in 1899, when Sicilian Arberesh immigrants Joseph, Luca and Felix Vaccaro, together with Salvador D'Antoni, began importing bananas to New Orleans from La Ceiba, Honduras. By 1915, the business had grown so large that it bought most of the ice factories in New Orleans in order to refrigerate its banana ships, leading to its president, Joseph Vaccaro, becoming known as the "Ice King".
The muffuletta or muffaletta is a type of round Sicilian sesame bread and a popular sandwich that originated among Italian immigrants in New Orleans, Louisiana, using the same bread.
Little Italy, sometimes combined with University Village into one neighborhood, is on the Near West Side of Chicago, Illinois. The current boundaries of Little Italy are Ashland Avenue on the west and Interstate 90/94 on the east, the Eisenhower Expressway on the north and Roosevelt to the south. It lies between the east side of the University of Illinois at Chicago campus in the Illinois Medical District and the west side of the University of Illinois at Chicago campus. The community was once predominantly Italian immigrants but now is made up of diverse ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds as a result of immigration, urban renewal, gentrification and the growth of the resident student and faculty population of the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). Its Italian-American heritage is primarily evident in the Italian-American restaurants that once lined Taylor Street. The neighborhood is home to the National Italian American Sports Hall of Fame as well as the historic Roman Catholic churches Our Lady of Pompeii, Notre Dame de Chicago, and Holy Family.
Lupara is an Italian word used to refer to a sawed-off shotgun of the break-open type. It is traditionally associated with the Sicilian Mafia for their use of it in vendettas, defense—such as its use against Benito Mussolini's army when he decided to break up the Sicilian mafioso network—and hunting.
Anti-Italianism or Italophobia is a negative attitude regarding Italian people or people with Italian ancestry, often expressed through the use of prejudice, discrimination or stereotypes. Often stemming from xenophobia and anti-Catholic sentiment, it has manifested to varying degrees in a number of countries, notably the United States, Switzerland, Germany, Belgium and the United Kingdom. Its opposite is Italophilia, which is admiration of Italy, its people, and its culture.
Joseph, Luca, and FelixVaccaro, known as the Vaccaro brothers, were Italian-American businessmen originally from Sicily.
The culture of New Orleans is unique among, and distinct from, that of other cities in the United States, including other Southern cities. New Orleans has been called the "northernmost Caribbean city" and "perhaps the most hedonistic city in the United States". Over the years, New Orleans has had a dominant influence on American and global culture.
Sicilian Americans are Italian Americans who are fully or partially of Sicilian descent, whose ancestors were Sicilians who emigrated to United States during the Italian diaspora, or Sicilian-born people in U.S. They are a large ethnic group in the United States.
The New Orleans crime family, also known as the Marcello crime family or the New Orleans Mafia, was an Italian-American Mafia crime family based in the city of New Orleans. The family had a history of criminal activity dating back to the late nineteenth century. These activities included racketeering, extortion, gambling, prostitution, narcotics distribution, money laundering, loan sharking, fencing of stolen goods, and murder. Operating along the Gulf Coast, with its main criminal activity centered in the New Orleans area, the organization reached its height of influence under bosses Silvestro Carollo and Carlos Marcello.
An important part of Italian American identity, the Italian language has been widely spoken in the United States of America for more than one hundred years, due to large-scale immigration beginning in the late 19th century. Since the 1980s, however, it has seen a steady decline in the number of speakers, as earlier generations of Italian Americans die out and the language is less often spoken at home by successive generations due to assimilation and integration into American society. Today Italian is the eighth most spoken language in the country.
The History of Italians in Mississippi is related to the Italian presence and emigration to the State of Mississippi in southern US. The immense obstacles that these Italian immigrants faced in assimilating into the broader society were far from easy, while also attempting to preserve their identity, culture, and traditions in a new land. Italian immigrants are responsible for developing and contributing to the region now known as Mississippi.
The cuisine of New Orleans encompasses common dishes and foods in New Orleans, Louisiana. It is perhaps the most distinctively recognized regional cuisine in the United States. Some of the dishes originated in New Orleans, while others are common and popular in the city and surrounding areas, such as the Mississippi River Delta and southern Louisiana. The cuisine of New Orleans is heavily influenced by Creole cuisine, Cajun cuisine, and soul food. Later on, due to immigration, Italian cuisine and Sicilian cuisine also has some influence on the cuisine of New Orleans. Seafood also plays a prominent part in the cuisine. Dishes invented in New Orleans include po' boy and muffuletta sandwiches, oysters Rockefeller and oysters Bienville, pompano en papillote, and bananas Foster, among others.
Joseph Nicholas Macaluso Sr. is an American musician, counselor, teacher, administrator, veteran of World War II and the Korean War, and retired colonel. He is also an author, Italian-American Civic Award recipient, and civic leader.
Chicago and its suburbs have a historical population of Italian Americans. As of 2000, about 500,000 in the Chicago area identified themselves as being Italian descent.
The American Italian Cultural Center(AICC) is a nonprofit institution in New Orleans, Louisiana, whose mission is to honor and celebrate Italian American history and culture in Louisiana. Founded in 1985 by Joseph Maselli and adjacent to New Orleans's renowned Piazza d'Italia, the AICC offers Italian language courses, concerts, events, trips to Italy, and dual-citizenship applications, as well as promotes other Italian American organizations and their events. The AICC also houses an Honorary Consul of Italy. It operates under the parent organization of the American Italian Renaissance Foundation.
The 1891 New Orleans lynchings were the murders of 11 Italian Americans and Italian immigrants in New Orleans by a mob for their alleged role in the murder of police chief David Hennessy after some of them had been acquitted at trial. It was the largest single mass lynching in American history. Most of the lynching victims accused in the murder had been rounded up and charged due to their Italian ethnicity.
Joseph Maselli was a businessman, philanthropist, and American-Italian activist. Maselli was the founder and publisher of the Italian American Digest. Maselli also founded the American Italian Museum and the Louisiana American Italian Sports Hall of Fame as well as the American Italian Federation of the Southeast, the first umbrella organization of Italian American groups in the region and now consisting of 30 organizations.
This is a list of organized crime in the 1890s, arranged chronologically.
