Impact on Italian Americans

As the war was drawing to an end, for both Italians and Italian Americans alike, it was clear that Fascism was not the solution to a brighter future. Italians had faced the scrutiny of being so closely associated with Mussolini and his actions, but there was hope to assimilate tighter into American culture and redefine the identity of Italian Americans.

The story of A.P. Giannini was still an inspiration to Italians and although he supported Mussolini in the early days, as a banker, he voted with his dollar. Giannini was adamant on supporting America’s war effort, as it was the only home he and many other Italian Americans knew. In fact, “The Bank of America continued to help with the expansion, and by 1944 they [the Solar Aircraft Company] were successfully manufacturing stainless steel exhaust manifolds for B-29 bombers. This was a success story that Giannini loved to remember”(Valente, 170). He had found pride in supporting America during the war, knowing that it was a home to millions of other Italian Americans like himself, who collectively thrived since he had first founded the Bank of Italy. Giannini’s shift in sentiment against Fascism represents that of many Italian Americans, especially near the end of the war, in which their identities were solidified as American, given their support and compliance of the war effort. Furthermore, this shift unified them with America rather than against Italy.

In the aftermath of World War II, Italian Americans found it easier to “identify more closely with the traditional mainstream of the United States. By supporting their adopted country in the military effort against the Axis, they started to associate themselves politically to America, maintaining a connection of a more emotional nature to the old country” (De Lucia, 94). This was partially due to the decrease of Italian-born Italian Americans, whose children and grandchildren would become more familiar with America and know it as their only home. As for the Italians to immigrate to America following the war, the numbers would be much less influential than the first wave of Italian immigration. As in the first large migration, “during the 1880 to 1920 era, 4,114,603 Italians arrived out of the total number of 23,465,374 immigrants who came to the United States” (Cavaioli, 214). The following waves of Italians diminished in numbers more and more, as most of the Italian-born population in the United States was aging. Second and third generation Italians in America found assimilating much easier than their parents did, especially with a strong sense of belonging to the United States after the war effort which Italian Americans took part in. The age and connection to Italy’s Fascist Era was behind them and they could move forward, stronger, as Italian Americans.