Re:Origins of the Sicilian Mafia: The Market for Lemons (2017)
by leafmeal on Friday July 28, 2023 @12:16PM
(#36909134)
I learned about the plight of Sicilian immigrants in New Orleans at that time from Annie Proulx's historical fiction book "Accordion Crimes". She was inspired in a large part by a lynching of Italian immigrants which was depicted in the book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1891_New_Orleans_lynchings
One of the guests was of Italian descent and one of his ancestors moved from Sicily to Louisiana in the late 19th Century. Many of those Italians worked as laborers on the sugar plantations.
So, as Henry Louis Gates, Jr., the host, said, Sicily was so poor that working on a Louisiana sugar plantation was better.