Posted on 10/05/2004 12:54:35 PM PDT by Pharmboy
BOSTON (AP) - In this land of Kennedys, O'Neills, Fitzgeralds and Flynns, where shamrocks grace the jerseys of the basketball team, the Italians are taking over. With the ascendancy of Salvatore DiMasi to the speakership of the Massachusetts House last week, Italian-Americans hold the two top positions in the state Legislature for the first time in its 224-year history.
"Finally," said Sheryl Iftikhar (maiden name Spataro), who works at a convenience store in DiMasi's lifelong home, the city's North End, a neighborhood where visitors can buy signs that read "Parking for Italians Only."
DiMasi, who took over from Irishman Tom Finneran, joins Senate President Robert Travaglini, a fellow Boston Democrat who became leader of that chamber in 2003, as well as Boston Mayor Thomas Menino and State Auditor Joe DeNucci in the heights of the state's power structure.
Last Wednesday, they stood side-by-side as DiMasi made his official debut as the new speaker and listened to a blessing given by the vicar of the Old North Church in DiMasi's neighborhood.
"I doubt that earlier residents of Massachusetts ... could imagine all the repercussions of hanging two lanterns in the steeple of the Old North Church," said Vicar Steve Ayres, referring to Paul Revere's ride. "Nor could they imagine that the two beacons of light now keeping the flame of liberty alive in the North End for the state of Massachusetts would be named DiMasi and Travaglini."
The Irish remain dominant in Massachusetts, with 23 percent of residents declaring their Hibernian roots in the 2000 census - the highest of any state and far ahead of Italians, who make up 14.5 percent of the population.
Over the years, ties to the Emerald Isle have been seen as a huge political advantage in Massachusetts. So much so that a minor controversy arose last year when a genealogist hired by The Boston Globe revealed that John Kerry is not of Irish descent after all. The Massachusetts senator, whose grandfather was born to Austrian-Jewish parents, says he never claimed Irish ancestry.
While three Italian-Americans have served as governor - most recently Argeo Paul Cellucci - the state's pantheon of legendary leaders is purely Irish: former U.S. House Speaker Thomas "Tip" O'Neill, Rep. Joseph Moakley of the Irish bastion of South Boston, longtime Boston Mayor James Michael Curley, former state Senate President William Bulger, and President Kennedy and his brother Sen. Edward M. Kennedy.
But the Irish-American grip on power has weakened.
"We've got Menino, we've got Travaglini, we've got DiMasi. What more could we want?" said Johnny "Shoes" Cammarata, presiding in his North End barbershop, Johnny & Gino's. "It's a good, good feeling. The Irish had their day. Now it's our time."
The Irish appear to be taking the success of Italian-Americans in stride, comforted by the number of politicians sharing their ancestry who remain prominent in city and state politics. Among them: Boston Council President Michael Flaherty, Judiciary Committee chairman Eugene O'Flaherty, and Boston Police Commissioner Kathleen O'Toole.
"Things goes in cycles," said John J. Somers, owner of the Green Dragon Irish Pub, who emigrated from County Kerry to Boston in 1971. "But it's not the nationality that matters. It's the man. And I think a lot of Irish women have been marrying Italians over the past 50 years, so we still have our influence."
When immigrants from both countries streamed into Boston in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the Irish at first gained the upper hand. But the divisions have long since evaporated, said DeNucci, 65, the state's auditor since 1987, who grew up in an Italian enclave in Newton.
"It was a real rivalry growing up," he said. "We were behind in terms of the Irish because the Italians came here and they couldn't speak the language. We faced discrimination from the people who were here before us. We were pegged as gangsters. We really never got any credit for any major contributions we made."
One thing the transition will mean, DiMasi said this week, is that there will be a little more demonstrative affection flowing through the House. DiMasi on Wednesday called the Italians an "emotional breed" and then proved it by embracing nearly ever person he encountered in the House, including Gov. Mitt Romney - twice.
"I hope you realize when I came in that under my speakership there's going to be a lot of hugging going on," DiMasi said.
I was born in the garbage, er, garden state, but grew up on the good side of the Hudson River.
Many Irish, on the other hand, had a much harder time integrating into American society, especially the Irish that arrived from the time of the infamous Potato Famine on. (The earlier Scots Irish immigrants, though, did integrate extremely well into US society; these earlier Irish immigrants were among the earliest people that started the westward migration of Americans.) The later Irish immigrants couldn't speak English well, were extremely poor and their Catholicism strongly clashed with the more dominant Protestants in the USA; as a result, the later Irish immigrants were heavily discriminated against even well into the 20th Century. Al Smith, the 1928 Democratic nominee for President, lost because even in 1928 people were not ready to accept someone who was Catholic and of Irish immigrant descent to be President.
BTW: Shouldn't your name be "Arminius?" ;-)
True about the education. But the famine Irish came BEFORE the Italians or Chinese. Prior to that, there was not a significant wave of non-Protestant immigrants in the US.
Santorum is a Republican. Doesn't count.
We are looking for active Dimbulb Italian politicians in NY, PA, and NJ.
Ok, Clemenza. I've lost respect for you.
First you go and put Marinara on the Pierogis.
Then you call my home garbage.
THEN you move to the left coast!!!!
::shakes head::
:)
You ain't seen Irish until you come down to Kearny Avenue in Kearny NJ. THE BEST fish and chip joints on earth :)
The later Irish immigrants were also preyed on by the Tammany Society in New York City, and indeed, a number of people involved in the infamous Tweed Ring of the late 1860's to early 1870's were later Irish immigrants. If you're seen the movie Gangs of New York the later Irish immigrants lived a pretty tough life because others frequently shunned them.
Sounds Latin to me. ;-)
SD
"Being of Irish descent...
I love Italian food.'"
As a Scottish-Irish mix, I can tell you that being Irish, you're going to have to learn to like someone else's ethnic food. It's either that or starve.
A google search of Italian cuisine shows 2.2 million hits.
Irish cuisine, 537, 000 hits. It could be worse, though. Scottish Cuisine only had 340,000.
IIRC, both Ireland and Italy have become net recipients of immigrants rather than sources of emigration in the last ten or twenty years, but the Irish are still coming here. This is the Italian moment, but if it matters at all, the Irish, with their specialized political skills, are apt to win this tribal derby in the end.
In the "old days" an Irish-Italian wedding was regarded as a "mixed marriage." But that's long a thing of the past. The old, ethnic-dominated Catholic parishes are closing down as well, and that's a sad thing for those who remember how things were.
They've followed a different strategy, and it seems to have worked for them. They had some advantages: the fact that they were one of the first large non-Protestant groups to come here, that they arrived in such large numbers, and that they could already speak English helped them to achieve real power in politics, the unions, the Catholic Church and other institutions. But they also made good use of their advantages to overcome their disadvantages.
One interesting theory I heard is that the old 19th century lower classes of the Five Points and other neighborhoods more or less died off or didn't reproduce, and those who did survive, reproduce, and prosper already showed virtues and determination that was greater than what the most troublesome of the immigrants lacked. It sounds like something that someone should look into.
You're too cute!
Ah, the "natural selection" theory.
Believe me, I would LOVE to have a place in Summit or Madison or even liberal Montclair, even though I live in Belltown: ie the "Soho/Tribeca of Seattle."
Actually alot of the Irish who came to New York in the 1980s-early 90s have returned to Ireland.
Hah! Not to my in-laws from my first marriage. I'm English-Scots and Catholic. My ex-wife is Italian and Catholic. My MIL said back in 1991, "Well, at least you're the right religion, but you're too white."
:-)
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