Italian Americans’ Religious Experience and the Construction of an Italian Ethnic Identity in the United States

The article examines how Italian immigrants and their offspring experienced Catholicism in the United States during the decades of the mass transatlantic exodus. Drawing upon previous studies and supplementing their findings with uncharted primary sources, it resorts to faith-related issues to highlight the shift from a localistic self-perception to a sense of belonging based on their common Italian roots. Although most newcomers and their children were Catholics, a prevailing attitude of campanilismo initially characterized their religious life and practices, contributing to the fragmentation of the Little Italies between the late nineteenth and the early twentieth century. Not even the establishment of national parishes, meeting the spiritual needs of all Italian immigrants regardless of their specific places of origin in the native country, was an exception to this trend. Yet, in part in response to discrimination by other Catholic minorities such as the Irish, the way Italian Americans practiced their faith eventually showed their emerging Italianness.