Samuel L. Baily
Immigrants
in the Land of Promise: Italians in Buenos Aires and New York City, 1870 to 1914
(Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1999), 308 pp.
Reviewed
by Matthew Scalena
Simon Fraser University
Italian migration to the new world
has been a topic of interest for countless migration historians. The result of this attention has been a
plethora of microstudies, focusing on Italian immigrants in a number of
urban
centres in the new world. Samuel L.
Baily makes a significant break from this tradition with his pioneering
study Immigrants
in the Land of Promise. Baily
applies a transnational approach, comparing Italian “adjustment” prior
to the
First World War in Buenos Aires to that of Italians in New York City. His argument
is compelling: Baily postulates
that Italians in Buenos Aires adjusted more quickly and
completely than their counterparts in New York because of differing
economic strategies. Italians in Argentina developed a “long-term
economic strategy” that focused on improving their standard of living
in their
adopted home, facilitating adjustment.
Quite the opposite, Italians in New York chose a “short-term
economic strategy” with the goal of accumulating as much wealth as
possible so
they could return wealthier to Italy, hindering adjustment to New York.
Baily arrives at his conclusion
using a systematic analytical model. He
divides his analysis into three sections: “what the immigrants brought
with
them,” referring to occupational and organizational skills,
expectations of
migration (namely duration of stay), and social networks; “what the
immigrants
found when they arrived,” which involves several host society factors,
such as
economic opportunity, discrimination, among others, and “subsequent
developments,” entailing the rate of ensuing migration, and community
leadership and development. Buenos Aires was more favorable to
adjustment in all three aspects.
First, Baily illustrates that, though all
from Italy, the immigrants that went
to Buenos
Aires were
quite distinct from those that went to New York. Northern
Italians, who were generally more
literate and skilled than those from the south, migrated earlier, and
predominantly chose Buenos Aires. The
Argentinean capital provided better
economic opportunities for it was not as industrially advanced as New
York, nor
did it have the competition of the older, more densely populated Irish,
Russian, Austrian and German communities.
Italians in Argentina competing only with Spanish
immigrants had the opportunity to advance into white-collar
professions, or at
the very least into skilled blue-collar work.
Structural realities, then, created an Argentinean social
hierarchy in
which Italians faired satisfactory.
This, as we know, was not the case in New York.
One of the most distinguishing findings in Immigrants
in the Land of Promise is what Baily terms “pace of migration” (55). He convincingly illustrates that (behind
opportunity and skills) pace of migration is one of the most
“consistent
indicator[s]” of adjustment (236). Buenos Aires, for instance, had a large,
relatively similar level of Italian immigrants through the 1860s and
1870s that
excelled in the 1880s, carrying on at a similar level until the start
of World
War One. The large, established Italian
community of the previous decades had adequate “institutional
structures” to
absorb the massive migration that occurred from the 1880s to 1914 (220). New York on the other hand received
very few immigrants prior to 1900.
Indeed, more than three-quarters of New York’s Italians arrived between
1900 and 1914 (55). Not only was the
Italian community not as established and therefore unable to aid the
newcomers,
the sheer numbers strained the host society’s resources to absorb them.
The
unprecedented volume of Italian immigrants to New York left many of the newcomers
with little support.
The significant differences between Italian
immigration to New York and Buenos Aires calls into question Baily’s
overall, direct comparison, specifically considering his abrupt end
date of
1914. Though Baily acknowledges that
Italians had been in Argentina en masse for a
significantly longer period of time than they had been in New York, he downplays its significance,
leaving this seemingly important factor absent in his analysis. For example, in his chapter entitled
“Residential Patterns and Residential Mobility,” Baily suggests that
Italians
in Buenos
Aires
spread out to suburban areas of the city in
great numbers during the decade before 1914, whereas similar
occurrences did
not happen in New York until after the war. He
attributes this to different economic
strategies as well as differing positions in the host-society job
hierarchy
(143). One would think that the most
obvious (yet absent) explanation would have to do with the length of
time the
immigrants had to adjust in their new surroundings—a time that was
substantially longer for most Italians in Buenos Aires.1
Even with the problematic differences in a
direct
comparison between New York and Buenos Aires, Baily nevertheless finds
very fascinating similarities. Of utmost
importance is his in-depth detailing of “village-based clusters”
(122-134). Italians as a group settled
differently in Buenos Aires and New York during the time period; at
the local level, however, settlement patterns were very similar. In both cities, members of villages clustered
together, usually within a few blocks of each other.
These clusters became focal points for more extensive
provincial and regional clusters, emphasizing the influence of
“personal
networks” on the migration experience.
Baily’s last chapter develops a “continuum of
Italian immigrant adjustment” in five new world cities—from easiest
adjustment
to most difficult using the same variables systematically.
Buenos
Aires
represents the most
effective, rapid adjustment, while New York is its polar opposite. San Francisco is closer Buenos Aires; Toronto is closer to New York, and Sao Paulo is somewhere in the
middle. Intriguing is Baily’s finding
that cultural similarity (or how alike a host society’s culture is to
the home
society) is not as important as others have previously suggested. Rather, economic opportunities combined with
minimal discrimination allowed for the most effective adjustment,
regardless of
the host-society’s language, religion, or predominant world-view.
Baily’s direct comparison of Buenos Aires and New York downplays some seemingly
important factors in the immigration experience; yet, this should not
detract
much from his pioneering study. Baily
convincingly puts forth a number of variables that support effective,
rapid
adjustment for Italians in the new world.
In doing so, he provides some exciting new findings that should
spark debate
amongst those interested in the field as well as encourage further
research. What's more, in utilizing his
variables systematically, he lays the groundwork for many more students
of
immigration to delve into comparative history.