I read recently that Italians (including Sicilians) and Poles were the last White ethnic groups to come to America in great numbers. The peak years for this immigration was 1907 for the Southern Italians and Sicilians, and 1912 for Polish Catholic peasants. Both groups went to America, largely illiterate, with nothing to their names but the clothes on their backs. However, I read while Italians were the poorer off of the two ethnic groups, they managed to progress a little further each generation. For instance, the Italian immigrant may have been a construction labourer, but his son became a bricklayer, and his son became a policeman, and his son became a university professor; whereas, the Poles apparently still live in the same dirty old industrial neighbourhoods, and still do the same unskilled and semi-skilled factory jobs that their fathers and grandfathers did before them. Is this true? I realise this is a gross generalisation, but are their elements of truth to this thesis? Thanks!
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