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Podcast: New Books in Italian Studies
Episode: Maddalena Marinari, "Unwanted: Italian and Jewish Mobilization against Restrictive Immigration Laws, 1882–1965" (UNC Press, 2020)
Description: In the late nineteenth century, Italians and Eastern European Jews joined millions of migrants around the globe who left their countries to take advantage of the demand for unskilled labor in rapidly industrializing nations, including the United States. Many Americans of northern and western European ancestry regarded these newcomers as biologically and culturally inferior--unassimilable--and by 1924, the United States had instituted national origins quotas to curtail immigration from southern and eastern Europe.In her new book Unwanted: Italian and Jewish Mobilization against Restrictive Immigration Laws, 1882–1965 (UNC Press, 2020), Maddalena Marinari examines how, from 1882 to 1965, Italian and Jewish reformers profoundly infl...