An Italian American (Italian: Italoamericano singular, Italian: Italoamericani plural), is an American of Italian ancestry. The designation may also refer to someone possessing Italian and American dual citizenship. Italian Americans are the fourth largest European ethnic group in the United States (not including American ethnicity, an ethnonym used by many in the United States; overall, Italian Americans rank seventh, behind German, Irish, African American, English, American and Mexican).
About 5.5 million Italians immigrated to the U.S. from 1820 to 2004. The greatest surge of immigration, which occurred in the period between 1880 and 1920, alone brought more than 4 million Italians to America. About 80% of the Italian immigrants came from Southern Italy, especially from Sicily, Campania, Abruzzo and Calabria. This was a largely agricultural and overpopulated region, where much of the populace had been impoverished by centuries of foreign misrule, and the economic measures imposed on the South after Italian unification in 1861 . After unification the Italian government initially encouraged emigration of landless peasants to relieve economic pressures in the South. In the U.S., most Italians began their new lives as unskilled, manual workers in Eastern cities, mining camps and in agriculture. Italian Americans gradually moved from the lower rungs of the economic scale in 1890-1910 to a level comparable to the national average by 1970. By 1990, more than 65% of Italian Americans were managerial, professional, or white-collar workers. The Italian-American communities have often been characterized by strong ties with family, the Catholic Church, fraternal organizations and political parties. Today, over 17.8 million Americans claim Italian ancestry.
Martin Charles Scorsese ( /skɔrˈsɛsɛ/; born November 17, 1942) is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. In 1990 he founded The Film Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation. He is a recipient of the AFI Life Achievement Award for his contributions to the cinema, and has won Academy Award, Palme d'Or, Emmys, Golden Globes, BAFTAs, and DGA Awards.
Scorsese's body of work addresses such themes as Italian American identity, Roman Catholic concepts of guilt and redemption,machismo, modern crime, and violence. Scorsese is hailed as one of the most significant and influential filmmakers of all time, directing landmark films such as Mean Streets (1973), Taxi Driver (1976), Raging Bull (1980), and Goodfellas (1990) – all of which he collaborated on with actor and close friend Robert De Niro. He won the Academy Award for Best Director for The Departed (2006), having been nominated a previous five times.
Stevie B (Steven Bernard Hill) is an American singer, songwriter, and record producer who was influential in the Latin freestyle and High-Energy, mostly from Miami dance music scene of the late 1980s. Also known as the King of Freestyle, Stevie B is perhaps best known for his 1990 number-one hit "Because I Love You (The Postman Song)."
Born in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Stevie B worked a variety of jobs—from car washing to fast food—before gaining recognition for his 1987 national club smash "Party Your Body". It was also the title track of his 1988 debut LP, which eventually went gold. In 1989, he had his first top 40 hits with "I Wanna Be the One," "In My Eyes," and "Love Me For Life." With his 1990 album, Love & Emotion, he reached the height of his success, with the accompanying single "Because I Love You" enjoying four weeks at number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 in December 1990. He had two subsequent top 15 hits with "I'll Be by Your Side" and the title track from the album. In 1998, The Best of Stevie B was released, highlighting the light dance-pop sound that marked the start of his career. He has found new fame in Brazil, where he not only appears regularly on radio shows but continues to sell out concerts to tens of thousands of fans, many hailing from the favellas of both Rio and Sao Paolo, due to the popularity of his style of music with urban youth.