How immigrants adjust to new homes

Press, 4 March 1978, Page 17

How immigrants adjust to new homes

From Pasta to Pavlova: A Comparative Study of Italian Settlers in Sydney and Griffith. By Rina Huber. University of Queensland. 270 pp. $9.95. The Golden Door: Italian and Jewish Immigrant Mobility in New York City 1880-1915. By Thomas Kessner. Oxford. 224 pp. $5. (Reviewed by Richard Thompson) People find it easier to settle in a new' country if their traditional customs and institutions can be adapted to fit in with new ones. This is the lesson drawn by the author from her study of two groups of immigrants to Australia. Both groups of immigrants came from the same part of northern Italy. Both groups had been accustomed, before coming to Australia, to life in an extended household, to accepting the authority of the Church, and to meeting in the trattoria to talk, play cards and enjoy a drink. Those who immigrated to Australia before the Second World War were forced by economic circumstances to look for' work in the country. They settled in Griffith, worked as farm labourers and eventually achieved farms of their own. They enjoyed the best of both worlds. They lived in nuclear households, but telephones and cars kept them in touch with relatives.

They formed clubs and took part in the social life of the area. Immigrants who came to Australia after the Second World War were able to find work in Sydney. These former rural workers were not only alien, but also unfamiliar with the world of industry. The women particularly were lonely. They spoke little English and missed their friends and relatives. City life did not encourage attempts to organise their social life on traditional lines. Before these immigrants could settle happily in Sydney, they often returned to Italy, became disillusioned with life at home and once again set off for Australia, but this time on a permanent basis. This is a thoroughly worth-while study with some salutory words for any prone to sentimentalise over extended households. None of the author’s informants had a good word to say for such a family arrangement. Thomas Kessner’s study of Italian and Jewish immigrants to New York around the turn of the century differs from Huber’s in time, place and methods. But the human problems were not dissimilar, though the lot of the earlier immigrants was very much harder. Between 1880 and the First World War, 23 million European immigrants entered America, 17 million of them through New York. Many passed on to settle in the interior. Two of the

largest groups to remain in New York were the Italians seeking better work opportunities and Russian Jews fleeing persecution. The Italian's arrived fresh from the countryside with little experience of city living. They were often bent on taking whatever unskilled jobs were offering, saving a modest sum and returning to Italy. They occupied the lowest blue-collar jobs. The Jews were deeply committed to their new home. As refugees there was no going back. Historically urban dwellers, they set great store by education and brought with them skills which kept them out of the manual labouring class. They filled for the most part the lowest semi-skilled and white-collar jobs. Jews and Italians huddled together ii. the slum settlements. Although the conditions were wretched, it was here that the newcomers found hospitality and the chance to carry on to some degree the established patterns of life. The ethnic neighbourhood provided friends and relatives, and the help with such matters as jobs and language which eased the way of the immigrant. Kessner concludes that the myth of an open American society with opportunity for the common man was grounded in experience. But. he offers the sobering reflection, the myth promised success; it did not promise happiness.