In 1924, the United States Congress passed the Immigration Act, also known as the Johnson-Reed Act. The law established strict quotas designed to limit immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe—including Italy. The goal was explicit: preserve the racial purity of America by keeping out people deemed inferior.
Italian immigrants were the primary target. Lawmakers, eugenicists, and social reformers argued that Italians—especially those from Southern Italy and Sicily—were racially distinct from Northern Europeans and posed a threat to American civilization. Scientific authorities testified before Congress, presenting data that supposedly proved Italians were genetically inferior, prone to crime, and incapable of assimilation.
This wasn’t fringe racism. It was official policy, backed by the most respected institutions in America. And it worked. Italian immigration dropped by more than 90% almost overnight.
The history of Italian immigration quotas is a history of racial science, political manipulation, and the social construction of whiteness. It’s a reminder that who gets counted as “white” has always been a question of power, not biology.
The Racial Science of the Early 20th Century
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, eugenics—the pseudoscientific study of heredity and human improvement—dominated American intellectual life. Universities taught it. Foundations funded it. Supreme Court justices endorsed it.
Eugenicists divided humanity into racial categories and ranked them hierarchically. At the top were “Nordic” or “Anglo-Saxon” peoples—Northern Europeans who supposedly possessed superior intelligence, morality, and civilization. At the bottom were Africans, Asians, and Indigenous peoples. In between were various European groups, including Italians, who were classified as “Mediterranean” and deemed racially inferior to Nordics.
Madison Grant, one of the most influential eugenicists of the era, published The Passing of the Great Race in 1916. The book argued that immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe threatened to dilute America’s Nordic stock and lead to racial decline. Grant specifically targeted Italians, describing them as “criminal, lazy, and incapable of democratic self-government.”
Harry Laughlin, another prominent eugenicist, served as an expert witness for Congress during the immigration debates of the 1920s. He presented charts and graphs purporting to show that Italian immigrants had higher rates of crime, insanity, and dependency than Northern Europeans. His testimony was treated as scientific fact.
These ideas weren’t confined to academic journals. They appeared in newspapers, magazines, and political speeches. Prominent politicians openly questioned whether Italians could ever become true Americans. Social reformers argued that Italian immigration was a public health crisis. The racial inferiority of Italians was presented as settled science.
The 1924 Immigration Act
The Immigration Act of 1924 imposed quotas based on national origin, using the 1890 census as a baseline. This choice was deliberate—it favored immigration from Northern and Western Europe while dramatically reducing immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe.
Under the new law, the annual quota for Italian immigrants was capped at fewer than 4,000. Before the law, more than 200,000 Italians had been entering the United States each year. The impact was immediate and devastating. Families were separated. Communities were disrupted. Dreams of reunification were shattered.
The law’s sponsors made no attempt to hide their intentions. Senator David Reed of Pennsylvania, one of the bill’s architects, stated: “The races of men who have been coming to us in recent years are wholly dissimilar to the native-born American.” Albert Johnson, the House sponsor, warned that continued Italian immigration would lead to “race suicide.”
President Calvin Coolidge signed the bill into law, declaring: “America must be kept American.” The implicit message was clear: Italians were not American, and they never could be.
What Made Italians “Not White”
The racial categorization of Italians wasn’t based on skin color alone. It was based on a constellation of factors that supposedly marked them as racially other.
First, there was geography. Southern Italians and Sicilians came from the Mediterranean, a region associated with Africa and the Middle East. Eugenicists argued that proximity to these regions had resulted in racial mixing, making Southern Italians less purely European than their Northern counterparts.
Second, there was culture. Italian immigrants spoke a different language, practiced Catholicism, and maintained customs that seemed foreign to Protestant Anglo-Americans. These cultural differences were interpreted as evidence of racial difference.
Third, there was class. Most Italian immigrants were poor, uneducated laborers who worked in low-status jobs. Eugenicists conflated poverty with genetic inferiority, arguing that Italians were poor because they were racially incapable of anything better.
Finally, there was crime. Italians were stereotyped as violent criminals, members of the “Mafia,” and threats to public order. These stereotypes were used to justify violence, discrimination, and exclusion.
In the racial logic of the early 20th century, all of these factors combined to place Italians outside the boundaries of whiteness. They were “in-between people”—not Black, but not quite white either.
The Fight for Whiteness
Italian Americans didn’t passively accept their racial categorization. They fought back—politically, economically, and culturally.
Italian American organizations lobbied Congress to oppose the immigration quotas. They published newspapers, held rallies, and built coalitions with other immigrant groups. But they also adopted strategies that reinforced racial hierarchies.
One strategy was distancing themselves from Blackness. Italian Americans in the South participated in segregation and aligned themselves with racial supremacy. They joined white ethnic coalitions that opposed civil rights for Black Americans. They worked to prove they were “more white” than other groups.
Another strategy was economic mobility. Italian immigrants started businesses, bought property, and sent their children to college. Second-generation Italian Americans became doctors, lawyers, and teachers. They moved out of urban ethnic enclaves and into suburbs.
Cultural assimilation also played a role. Italian Americans anglicized their names, abandoned the Italian language, and downplayed their ethnic identity. They celebrated Christopher Columbus as a symbol of Italian achievement and whiteness, erasing the violence of colonialism in the process.
By the 1940s and 1950s, Italian Americans had largely achieved whiteness. World War II played a significant role—military service allowed Italian Americans to prove their loyalty and patriotism. The GI Bill provided access to education and homeownership. Postwar prosperity lifted many Italian American families into the middle class.
The 1965 Immigration Act finally abolished the discriminatory quota system, but by then, it no longer mattered for Italian Americans. They had already been absorbed into the category of white.
What Was Lost
The transformation of Italian Americans from racially suspect immigrants to white ethnics required strategic forgetting. The history of discrimination, violence, and exclusion was erased. The Italian language disappeared. The cultural practices that connected Italian Americans to their ancestors were abandoned or commercialized.
Today, Italian American identity is often reduced to food, festivals, and stereotypes—positive and negative. The Sopranos. The Godfather. Pizza and pasta. Family values. Organized crime.
The racial science that once excluded Italians is now recognized as pseudoscience, but its legacy persists. The same logic that categorized Italians as racially inferior continues to be used against immigrants from Latin America, Africa, and Asia. The same fears about cultural contamination and racial purity still shape immigration policy.
Understanding this history means recognizing that whiteness is not a biological category but a political one. It means acknowledging that the privileges Italian Americans enjoy today came at a cost—acceptance in exchange for assimilation, whiteness in exchange for solidarity with other marginalized groups.
The story of when Italian wasn’t white is a story of power, science, and survival. It’s a reminder that racial categories are made, not born—and that who gets to belong is always a question worth asking.
