Rick Santorum (or, if you use Google, Ick Santorum), former Republican Senator for Pennsylvania, and I share a common heritage. His grandfather and my great-grandparents came to America from Italy. My family made the trip only a few years before his. Both families set off from towns only a hundred miles apart from each other in northern Italy (‘northern’ Italy used to be an important distinction as “northern Italians” pride themselves on being much cleaner and more educated than their southern counters―not to mention “those Sicilians”).
There is one big difference. My family came here legally. I’m not so sure about Rick’s.
The Daily Beast reports that Rick Santorum’s grandfather, who emigrated to the United States from Italy, was a communist sympathizer, if not actually a communist: “On the campaign trail, Santorum often touts his grandfather’s flight from Italy ‘to escape fascism,’ but he has neglected to publicly mention their close ties with the Italian Communist Party.”
In the early 1920s, when Rick’s grandfather came to America, there was a red scare going on. Communists, socialists and anarchists were subject to harassment, arrest, imprisonment and deportation for little more reason than how they thought. Tsarist Russia had been taken by the Bolsheviks in 1917. Communists were threatening the European nations (if not through elections then through force of arms). Eugene Debs, American socialist, was in jail until 1921 for speaking out against World War 1 (Debs ran for president from jail and got almost a million write-in votes). Most notably, it was in the 1920s that Italians Sacco and Vanzetti stood trial and were executed for a crime they might not have committed―the ‘crime’ that they were certainly guilty of was that of being anarchists.
Italians were a major target of the anti-communists and had even more to deal with than left/right politics. They were Catholics coming to a Protestant-majority country. They spoke a foreign language. They were much darker than Vikings. Hairier too. (Goombahs! We aren’t white! Stop pretending we are!).
This nation did not welcome people who might advocate the overthrow of the country―especially when they were Italian. I haven’t seen the actual immigration documents for Rick Santorum’s family. But history suggests that there was a term on applications to enter this country that mimicked the McCarthy-era phrase: “Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party…” It’s doubtful that anyone who had spent their savings on a long and grueling ocean voyage to America would then offer to turn around and go back. Instead, this phrase was meant to make liars out of most poor, far-left Italians trying to enter these United States.
So it would make sense that Rick’s grandfather might have lied on his application to enter the country and to become a citizen. If we look at the current anger from the right over issues like the “Dream Act” (granting children of some “illegal” immigrants certain benefits) and moves to alter the Constitution’s 14th Amendment (to prevent children born on US soil to ‘illegal’ immigrants from being citizens automatically), we could suggest that Rick Santorum has very little claim to being an actual citizen and should immediately be deported back to northern Italy (where they would probably resent his messing with their “cleaner and more educated” self-reputations).
Rick Santorum’s politics have followed a familiar pattern for people who came to this country from Italy. Many weren’t only fleeing poverty, but fascism as well. Many were members of the far left who lied on their applications to enter the country. Not to stereotype (well, ya), but once here, many of them attempted to rapidly assimilate, running to the right politically and becoming a solid Republican base of racists and homophobes―all while generously sharing their delicious pastas, salamis and cheeses with their new home.
Bob Maschi
Socialistcafe.com
