“Hopelessly Alien,” Italian Immigration to Chicago Heights, 1910-1950

FAIN: FT-291124-23

Louis Corsino
North Central College (Naperville, IL 60540-5461)

Research and writing of a monograph on the communal idea of hope in the Italian community of Chicago Heights, Illinois, as representative of the U.S. immigrant experience. 

This is a case study of Italian immigration to Chicago Heights, Illinois, between 1910 and 1950. Drawing upon oral histories, interviews, and historical materials, it focuses upon the critical concept of hope. Most studies view hope in psychological terms as the motivation to emigrate. I offer a sociological perspective that views hope as both an ideological lure used by the dominant groups to recruit and manage these Italian newcomers and a cultural capital resource immigrants employed to purchase an acceptance and avoid a disparaging label as a “hopelessly alien” stranger. I examine these dialectical responses to hope in terms of the American ethos of occupational mobility, homeownership, and success in the lives of children. Each became forms of cultural capital demonstrating a public commitment to the American spirit of “joyful striving.” However, I address whether these pursuits of privatized hopes came at the expense of the communal hopes that characterized Italian communities.