Sicilian Americans

Sicilian Americans (Italian:Siculoamericani) (Sicilian:Siculu-miricani) are Americans of Sicilian birth or ancestry. They are one of the largest and most prominent Italian American groups in the United States.

History

Early arrivals and the main immigration

The first Sicilians came to what is now the United States in the seventeenth century as explorers and missionaries. Sicilian emigration to the US then grew substantially in the period starting in the 1880s and in 1906 as many as a 100,000 Sicilians came to the US. By 1924, immigration restrictions had caused this to plummet. This period saw political and economic shifts in Sicily that made emigration desirable. A great portion of the Sicilian immigrants would settle in New York, New Haven, Buffalo, Tampa, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Boston, Detroit, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, San Francisco, New Orleans and Milwaukee.

Culture

Elements of Sicilian culture came with them, such as theatre and music. Giovanni De Rosalia was a noted Sicilian American playwright in the early period and farce was popular in several Sicilian dominated theatres. In music Sicilian Americans would be linked, to some extent, to jazz. Many of the more popular cities for Sicilian immigrants, like New Orleans or Chicago, are pivotal in the history of jazz. In Chicago the predominantly Sicilian neighborhood was called "Little Sicily" and in New Orleans it was "Little Palermo." One of the earliest, and among the most controversial, figures in jazz was Nick LaRocca, who was of Sicilian heritage. Modern Sicilian American jazz artists include Bobby Militello and Chuck Mangione.