However, it did not take long for "La Merica", as the early immigrants called it, to become known as a Promised Land in which money was easy to be had, where one was free to start over and make a new and prosperous life. The new arrivals, lonely for family and friends back home, wrote exaggerated accounts of the "good life" that lured more and more Italians to the ports of Genoa or Napoli, where they booked passage for the arduous sea journey to the New World.

The truth, of course, was quite different. Reality became apparent to immigrants as soon as they arrived on Ellis Island, where they were detained in densely overcrowded and unsanitary conditions. They were typically held there for many days while their papers were processed and their physical and mental health were being assessed. Many people's names were changed. It's no wonder that the place became known to them as L'Isola delle Lacrime - the Island Of Tears.

Once past the odreal of initial processing, immigrants confronted the chaos and culture shock of New York City, a world so far apart from the rural towns and villages of southern Italy as one could imagine. It was a world in which they were extremely vulnerable, rarely knowing the language or having the street savy to survive. And yet they came in greater and greater numbers throughout the first decades of the new century. By 1935, there were more than 5 million Italians in America, a number of immigrants surpassed only by the Germans, who had been arriving throughout the nineteenth century. They began to settle in "Little Italys" throughout the country, although by far the greatest concentration remained in New York City.

At that time, Italians faced widespread discrimination and found little work outside menial labor. In 1910 a city official spoke candidly of why Italians were so welcome in New York: "We want someone to do the dirty work...the Irish aren't doing it any longer." The propensity of the new immigrants to undertake backbreaking work has led a distinguished American to write: "The greatest metropolis in the world rose from the sweat and misery of Italian labor."

And yet, of course, there is a silver, even golden lining to the dark cloud of conditions that greeted the early Italian immigrants. As Italians throughout the twentieth century became more and more integrated into the cultural quilt that is contemporary America, they deeply influenced its culture and history, as many of the 101 chapters of this book indicate. Our food, our architechure, our music, our art, our education, our law, our politics, our sports, our films - indeed virtually every aspect of contemporary life - have been influenced by the talent, vision and energy of the Italian Immigrant spirit. That spirit is embodied in the lyrics of the anonymous "Song Of The Immigrants" first published in 1881:

In tatters, in great herds we in pain beyond belief
journeyed to the vast and distant land.
Some of us did drown.
Some of us did die of privation.
But for every ten that perished a thousand survived
and endured.

All of us who are descendants of those who died, as well as those who survived and endured, take great pride in the indomitable will and courage of the Italian immigrants.