The Italian Americans Essay Example for Free

The Italian Americans Essay The dream of America has always been a powerful beacon of hope for people of other countries searching for a better life. The Irish came in droves to escape starvation, the Jewish came to seek safety, the Russians looking for improved living conditions. Regardless of the reasons, millions have sacrificed everything at the chance for something better. It is the same for the Italians. The real immigration of Italians didn’t start until the early 1900’s when the number of immigrants mushroomed from 70,000. â€Å"This figure changed to close to four million who arrived between 1880 and 1914. † (Davison, 1998) The reasons for immigration are varied and include overpopulation, a scarcity of jobs and the hope for better economic opportunity. Italy at that time was fairly agricultural with most of the land being owned by a small group of wealthy families. Many of the immigrants that came to America during this period continued their tradition for growing and cultivating things and many sold the small crops they grew in their little gardens. And many Italians came temporarily, working and sending money back to family in Italy. Regardless of the reasons, the Italians had one strong trait in common, they came to work. Although they were a predominantly agri society, many found work here using the various skills and trades that they brought with them from Italy. Oftentimes, however, they changed what they did to fit into the new life they were creating. As they landed in port towns they spent their time recreating the country from which they came and generally segregated themselves in this way. The concept of paesani, or little villages, was kept in tact by blocks of Neapolitans sticking together, and blocks of Calebrese living together. This tradition of paesani helped with the cultural assimilation that many Italians found difficult. During the rush of immigration the greatest number of Italian immigrants focused on America and Brazil. However, because the English language, family values and traditions, and religion were very much different from their own, â€Å".. The Italians in New York confronted significantly greater cultural differences. † (Italain American Civil Rights, 2007) These cultural differences reared their heads in a variety of different forms. Religious persecution was one of them. When the immigrants arrived they found that the predominant religion was white Protestantism as opposed to the Catholicism they came from. However, things became even more difficult when the Irish, who also practiced Catholicism, found the Italian from of practicing their same religion unsatisfactory. They began to be â€Å"†¦ attacked for being prejudiced against blacks and for being super patriotic hard hats with little sophistication or with connections to the Mafia. † (Bailey, 1999) Tensions rose quickly as the once disparaged Irish were now replaced by newly immigrated Italians. A common thread of prejudice began to grow and immigrants that were not of an Anglo-Saxon decent were looked at as less than human. There are many factors that aided this prejudice. One of the most important was the issue of racism. In the summer of 1989 a sixteen year old African American was shot and killed during an argument by a group of youth in an Italian neighborhood. Although the community was aghast and all applauded the severe punishment of the boys, the Italians were labeled â€Å"racists†. This is both interesting and strange because at the same time in the south the Italians were a threat to white solidarity as they were more apt to side with black rights. This so enraged the southern whites that it was not uncommon for Italians to be hung for their beliefs. It was obvious then that American had found a new scape goat. † Since then, the stereotype of the Italian American-as-bigot has become accepted by the general public, thanks in large part to the U. S. entertainment industry, which routinely portrays its fictional Mafia characters as racists. † (Faegin, 1978) In addition to trouble with racism, and false stereo-typing, Italians found problems with class walls. They were portrayed by the media as illiterate and diseased, and the general public accepted this view. It was not helpful that Italians seemed to like to stay close to the city centers, often as home owners, and they blame for crime and other offenses also began to be laid at their feet. However, it was shown that, this mafia based criminality blame was also unfounded. â€Å"Italian Americans had relatively low crime rates, close to those for all native-born Americans. † (Faegin) However, regardless of the facts, these myths provided difficulties for Italians to overcome in all facets of society. Nevertheless, overcoming them is exactly what they did. Italian Americans today continue to play an active and vital part in American society. They continue to hold strong family and cultural ties, and to work within the fabric of America to make it a better place. Bibliography Bailey, S. (1999). Immigrants in the Land of Promise. Ithaca: Cornell University. Davison, B. (1998, May 2). Italains Immigrating to Maryland. Retrieved March 17, 2007, from www. oriole. umd. edu Faegin, J. (1978). Racial and Ethnic Relations. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Italain American Civil Rights. (2007). Retrieved March 18, 2007, from Order of the Sons of Italy: www. osia. org

But you are not jeffmute? Irelands Image Abroad :: Essays Papers

'But you are not jeffmute?' Ireland's Image Abroad In "Ireland at the Bar" James Joyce is concerned with the image of Ireland in the eyes of the Britain and the role of the English media in Imperialism. The essay recounts the details of the trial for murder of Myles Joyce, accused of killing John Joyce [not a relation of his], his wife, mother and children on the 17th of August 1882 in Maamtrasna in Connemara. Myles Joyce was one of four or five peasants, "all of them members of the ancient tribe of the Joyces", arrested for the murder of their neighbour. Myles was the eldest of them, at sixty years of age, and belonged to a generation of Irish people who only spoke Irish. The patriarch was tried in English, a language he didn’t understand, and "Myles Joyce was convicted after the jury met for six minutes." (Flood, 883) and hanged in December 1882 at Galway jail. Myles Joyce was given the services of an interpreter as Joyce describes. "On the one hand there was the officious interpreter, on the other the patriarch of the miserable tribe who, unused to civic customs, seemed quite bewildered by all the legal ceremonies."(145) The Magistrate instructed the interpreter to ask the accused if he saw the woman on the morning in question, "the old man broke out into intricate explanations, gesticulating, appealing to the other accused, to heaven. Then, exhausted by the effort, he fell silent."(145) The interpreter answered to the magistrate "He says no, your worship."(145) The interpreter does an injustice to Myles Joyce by rendering the passionate protestations of the accused into monosyllabic answers. For Joyce, however, the case of Myles Joyce represents a greater issue concerning Irish Identity. He points out: The figure of the bewildered old man, left over from a culture which is not ours, a deaf-mute before his judge, is a symbol of the Irish nation at the bar of public opinion. Like him, Ireland cannot appeal to the modern conscience of England or abroad. The English newspapers act as interpreters between Ireland and the English electorate. (146) After he had been executed, Myles Joyce was considered to have been wrongfully accused of the murders. In fact, his co-accused admitted their part and exonerated Myles of any wrongdoing. But respective governments in Britain who refused to ever have a proper enquiry into this miscarriage of justice overlooked this.

The ways in which ideas were communicated to the audience in War Spectacular

We constructed War Spectacular to be an abstract piece made up of a number of unconnected scenes; this structure enabled us to tell numerous different stories, all with their own message. We realised early in the devising process that in order to keep this piece objective we would have to keep all of the scenes and settings non-specific, if we used the real names of locations, religions or people it may have caused offence to the audience, thus drawing away from our message. There were many different messages we wanted to convey to the audience; however there was one theme which ran throughout the piece, ultimately connecting the disjointed scenes; we were showing the different ‘faces of war'. The first ‘face of war' which we wanted to show was the human element of war. The original concept for the play was to show the affect of a conflict upon two families, show their struggle, and ultimately their collapse. Although this concept was scrapped the themes were kept for use during War Spectacular. You can read also Audience Adaptation Paper If we were to show the human and emotional side of war it was obvious that we needed to use a group of ‘real' characters (opposed to the more abstract characters which would use throughout the play which would lack exposition and depth) who would open up to one another and show their hatred for the conflict. We constructed a scene with three soldiers who had been split from their unit and were forced to take shelter from the enemy in a bomb crater. My character was bitter and angry with my superior who, with his little leadership experience had got them no closer to safety. With talk of home and arguments together the two showed their insecurities and ultimately their fear. In this scene home was constructed to be the place which was away from this conflict, it is ‘safe, it's warm†¦ and dry'. However, in the scene ‘War spectacular' this ideal of home was destroyed. The execution of a man within his own house was used to show that war is now not just on the battlefields but in our streets and homes. This intrusion of safety was not just meant literally but metaphorically too – with modern media we are spared no detail of a conflict; past generations believed that their ‘brave boys' were safe and doing the good of the country, now the truth is only too evident. At the beginning of the devising process I was very keen to have a subtext of media manipulation throughout the play; this was achieved through two scenes. First I wanted to make the ironic point about the hypocrisy of a news report (‘War Spectacular' by Kate Adie) which compares a missile launch to a fireworks display, and then attempts to convey the reporters concern for the human suffering of mugged refugees. Reciting this piece while playing Holst's Saturn, an eerie classical track gave the reading a strange poetic nature which a war report really shouldn't have. This recital was made DSR, whilst a soldier robbed a dead body CS; this abstract staging was used to show the reporters obliviousness to the events which were actually happening around her. With these juxtapositions, the article lost all the sincerity with which it may have be written; showing how easy it is to both overlook the true meaning of news we are being provided with, and how what we are being shown with can never be the full story, and just the observations of one person. The second scene showing our media subtext was our most complex, both to construct and to perform. Set in a Middle Eastern bar we meet three journalists, Danny Richards, Kate Stevens and Malcolm Grey – Danny and Kate are both shown as rookies and Malcolm the veteran. A number of flashbacks are used throughout the scene as a means of exposition for each of the characters but also showing their different journalistic styles. Half way through the journalist scene we cut to Kate standing DSR reporting from the aftermath of a missile attack. We see her emotional report which describes a graphic and horrific scene. When her report is finished she asks the cameraman ‘brutal enough? ‘ – again showing the hypocrisy of the so-called emotionally attached reporter. Continuing in the bar Malcolm questions Danny's integrity, calling him a ‘Two-bit rookie' in response to this the audience is shown an interview between Danny, an interpreter and a woman living in a village which has been raided by American troops. This scene was used to show how drastically information can become. Statements coming from the village woman, through the interpreter and then to Danny are changed ‘Chinese whispers' style until their meaning has been completely lost. For example, the word ‘Americans' is changed to ‘military' and then to ‘militants'. We ensured that it was the interpreter which made the most drastic mistakes, showing that it was not Danny who was at fault, and that this corruption of the truth could happen even to the most professional reporters. So to contrast this media orientated aspect of war we wanted to show a side of war that has very little understanding to it; the new warfare of fanaticism and blind allegiance. However much research we did for these roles it was always impossible to collect information which was objective as everything that we had collected was opinionated and not factual. With this stigma in mind, I felt that it was important to work with the theme of connection between all human beings which had been established in the opening scene as it would have been easy to just cast the characters in this section as inhuman, and so we worked to show the audience familiarities with these characters that they otherwise would have trouble connecting with. With the child soldier it was the shock of his revealed age which worked to remind the audience that the ‘inhuman' soldier was still a small boy, and as the audience was made up of students and parents we felt that this would force them to think of children close to them. Similarly, the suicide bomber, whilst fanatical, still showed very human traits. He had thoughts of his family, performed this act because he believed that he was right and ‘just', and ultimately showed fear. In contrast to this very new attitude to war we wanted to depict a very old fashioned warfare which looking back on it is now highly comical. The ‘new generation' of weaponry was presented to the audience in the form of a ‘1950's style' advert. The main purpose for this scene was to provide the audience with a comic relief from the seriousness of the play. However, whilst this was an opportunity to relax placing this scene previous to the suicide bomber scene it to show a drastic change in attitude to warfare, whilst the character of the advert believed that that their weapons would drive the empire into the 20th century, the suicide bomber represents a very modern and much more dangerous enemy; one which does not have a flag or country, but just a cause and the will to cause destruction. The piece was concluded with the recital of the poem, ‘All things are connected' which we quoted for the opening sequence. With lines such as ‘Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it' it worked well to convey our themes of unison as a race – although the hope of total peace is a fantasy, it is the theme which ultimately runs throughout the whole of the piece.

The Importance of Human Resource Management Essay

Armstrong (2006) defined Human Resource Management as a strategic deployment of an organisations most valued assets; the people working there, who individually and collectively contribute to the achievements and the objectives of the business. Links between HRM and performance are predominantly focused on the following practices: sophisticated selection and recruitment methods, training, teamwork, performance-related pay and employment security (Wall, Wood, 2005). Products can be copied, methods of production can be changed and optimized, companies can move from one continent to the next trying to exploit geographical advantages however, the one inescapable truth is that a strong, talented workforce still exists as the most valuable asset†¦show more content†¦Perry-Smith and Blum (2000) suggest that ‘bundles’ of HR practices capture ‘broader and higher-level effects’ than those captured by focusing on more exact, individual policies and are particul arly appropriate for investigating firm-level effects (Cassoni and Labadie, 2013). One of the most significant and valuable aspects of HRM is its control of the recruitment and selection of candidates. Human Resources is at the forefront of determining what kind of candidates an organisation wishes to add to its workforce, hence they are impacting organizational performance before people even step through the door. By developing recruitment strategies HR managers seek to attract the finest possible pool of applicants, encompassing the best, most talented individuals as a result of a carefully selected recruitment strategy, utilizing the concepts of person job fit (PJF) and person organization fit (POF). By hiring and selecting more talented people HRM maximizes the potential of the workforce and by association influences organizational performance. The more thorough and complex the recruitment process the higher quality the candidates. In a study of 259 Indian enterprises investigating the level at which recruitment and selection practices integrate with business s trategies and its effect on organisational performance, it was found that the majority of Indian enterprises who had a high level of recruitment andShow MoreRelatedThe Importance of Human Resources Management1233 Words   |  5 PagesThe economic environment in nowadays dynamic, it is fairly important for organisations and managers to recognise the curtail of Human Resource Management. It is clear that Human Resource Management (HRM) has become one of the most recommend management strategy in the modern business (Leopold and Harris, 2009). Human Resource Management is a technique process of managing people in the workplace to enable and enhance organization performance (Leopold and Harris, 2009). 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