Persistence Through Italian-American Oppression

Whether or not their parents were born in America, those from an immigrant family of Italian descent were placed at a disadvantage and had to grind to be successful even more so than non-immigrants.  Despite countless occurrences of backlash and hatred towards their culture, their family and themselves, Italian-Americans who either immigrated themselves or their ancestors before them, persevered through the hardships no matter what those entailed.  Leaving their homeland in hopes of finding a new land where stories claimed that money grew from trees and crops grew bigger than they could have imagined, most immigrants were faced with a harsher reality than they expected.  While America did bring a safe haven from war, the society which surrounded these Italian-Americans brought much of the same hatred that faced Italian Jesuits back home.  Keeping their arms closed to foreigners at first, American citizens were far from welcoming to most Italians, causing them to have to fight on their own against all odds to even smell success.  Despite this hatred, over time, Italian immigrants began to find their homes in the new land where they began to branch out and enter industries in which they could do what they dreamt of for themselves and their future.  While these Italian-Americans truly began to succeed in all areas of society in America, one of the most interesting industries in which they thrived and still do to this day is entrepreneurship.  As times went on and immigrants began to open up their own businesses, they started off small but quickly skyrocketed into some of the most well known companies and corporations that we know and recognize today.  More specifically, in the state of California during the early to mid 1900s, entrepreneurship was growing intensively in the hands of two prominent Italian-Americans, AP Giannini, and Nicholas Pellerano.  These two famous names began just as everyday immigrants trying to make their name known before ultimately working extremely hard in order to blow their business and legacies up into some of the most well known in the country and state to this day.  AP Giannini and his pursuit to cement the Bank of Italy as one of America's most notable commercial banks began as a mere dream with a small chance of ever happening, but the perseverance and hope pushed him forward alongside a notable member of the Pellerano family.  Both Giannini and the Pellerano family’s hard work would eventually turn into a legacy that may never be broken not only in the eyes and hearts of Iatlians, but also in that of America so much so that one of his many obituaries would call him the, “boy produce peddler who fought his way up to become the world's biggest banker” (My Italian Family 1949).