# Why were Italians discriminated against so harshly in the early twentieth century? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 22, 2021, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-italians-discriminated-against-so-harshly-in-the-early-twentieth-century/938461 "2021-03-22T21:32:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2021, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-italians-discriminated-against-so-harshly-in-the-early-twentieth-century/938461/141 "2021-08-09T04:46:30Z")
> [@am77494](#): > > Again Twain says Mark Twain is not a good authority to quote. He spent 3 months in India as a tourist in 1897. That’s the very limited viewpoint he can give. It may be good travel writing, but it’s not a good source for real knowledge or understanding. It would be better to quote the work of real historians. There are plenty of Indian historians writing about the British Raj today, as well as British historians. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2021, 11:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-italians-discriminated-against-so-harshly-in-the-early-twentieth-century/938461/142 "2021-08-10T11:32:27Z")
The English church had structural as well as cultural difficulties with evangelism in India. As a church /defined/ as ‘that section of the catholic church which derives it’s canon law from the English civil authority and it’s membership from the UK’, it had no obvious role in place with a different civil authority and community. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2021, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-italians-discriminated-against-so-harshly-in-the-early-twentieth-century/938461/143 "2021-08-10T12:46:58Z")
> [@Melbourne](#): > > As a church /defined/ as ‘that section of the catholic church which derives it’s canon law from the English civil authority and it’s membership from the UK’, it had no obvious role in place with a different civil authority and community. Really? [A History of the Church of England in India, by Eyre Chatterton (1924)](http://anglicanhistory.org/india/chatterton1924/) From Chapter XXVIII. Conclusion: > In 1815, when Bishop Middleton arrived in Calcutta, there were seven hundred thousand Christians in India, of all denominations and races; now there are over four millions, of whom between five and six hundred thousand belong to the Anglican Communion. Then there was one Anglican Bishop in the whole of the Eastern Hemisphere; now there are thirteen dioceses in the Province of India, Burma, and Ceylon. Then there were forty Anglican Clergy and no Indian Clergy; now there are about a thousand Clergy, of whom one-third are Indians. Of these Indians one has been raised to the Episcopate and two are Archdeacons. Then there were only fifteen Churches in the whole country; and now there are well over twelve hundred. Then there was no vernacular Prayer-book, and now the Church of England Prayer-book has been translated into at least fourteen Indian languages. Then the vernacular versions of the English Bible could be counted on the fingers of one hand, now there are translations of the Scriptures into seventy-six Indian languages and dialects, including eighteen translations of the whole Bible. Nineteen million copies of these have been distributed by the Bible Society alone in India, besides the enormous number issued by the S.P.C.K. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2021, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-italians-discriminated-against-so-harshly-in-the-early-twentieth-century/938461/144 "2021-08-10T13:02:15Z")
And the Anglican Communion also hasn’t had any trouble expanding to other lands outside of the British Isles. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2021, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-italians-discriminated-against-so-harshly-in-the-early-twentieth-century/938461/145 "2021-08-10T23:04:19Z")
Yes, really, the Anglican church in India is mostly the result of Swiss/German missions. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2021, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-italians-discriminated-against-so-harshly-in-the-early-twentieth-century/938461/146 "2021-08-11T04:43:23Z")
That’s a strange claim. Cite? ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2021, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-italians-discriminated-against-so-harshly-in-the-early-twentieth-century/938461/147 "2021-08-11T06:06:29Z")
I had never heard of this before, but I just now searched on the phrase “the Anglican church in India is mostly the result of Swiss/German missions” and found this Wikipedia entry: > **[Church of South India](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_South_India)** > > Pages for logged out editors learn more > > > > Saint Thomas Christian denominations > Syro-Malabar Catholic, Syro-Malankara Catholic, Latin Catholic This says that a denomination called the Church of South India is the second largest Christian denomination in India. It has 1.55 million members. Another search says that the Catholic Church is the largest Christian denomination in India. It has 20 million members: > **[Catholic Church in India](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_in_India)** > > Pages for logged out editors learn more > > > > The Catholic Church in India is part of the worldwide Catholic Church under the leadership of the Pope. There are over 20 million Catholics in India, representing around 1.55% of the total population, and the Catholic Church is the single largest Christian church in India. There are 10,701 parishes that make up 174 dioceses and eparchies, which are organised into 29 ecclesiastical provinces. Of these, 132 dioceses are of the Latin Church, 31 of... Together that’s 21.55 million members. The population of India is 1,352,642,280 as of 2018. That means those two denominations together are about 1.6% of the population of India. The percentage of Christians in India is about 2.3%. So together those two denominations constitute about 70% of the Christians in India. I don’t know what Melbourne means by “the result of Swiss/German missions”. Is Melbourne claiming that the Church of South India is the result of Swiss/German missions? It doesn’t seem to say that in the Wikipedia entry on the Church of South India. I’m now lost. What’s going on here? > **[India](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India)** > > Pages for logged out editors learn more > > > > > > India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: Bhārat Gaṇarājya), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast, it shares land borders with Pakistan to the west;\[f\] China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the north; and Bangladesh and M... ---
**Author:** ![thdudescar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thdudescar/32/4638_2.png) [@thdudescar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thdudescar)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2021, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-italians-discriminated-against-so-harshly-in-the-early-twentieth-century/938461/148 "2021-08-18T21:23:11Z")
My father grew up on the gulf coast of Mississippi and he told me the story of an influx of Czech migrants in the area. When they arrived, they separated them in to 3 groups and told them if you are in group 1, you’re last name is Saucier, group 2, you’re last name is Gaspard, and I forget group 3, but you get the idea. Obviously, Cajun Americans there were in charge at the time. Whenever I meet someone with one of those last names, I’ll ask them where they’re from and they always say the gulf coast of Mississippi. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2021, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-italians-discriminated-against-so-harshly-in-the-early-twentieth-century/938461/149 "2021-09-06T03:05:20Z")
> [@GreenWyvern](#): > > There was a Jewish community living in India at that time [Still is](https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-cochin-jews-of-kerala/), though an extremely small one. Many are descended from more recent Jewish immigrants from the 16th century onward, but there are probably still some Cochin Jews with ancestors going back to the Malabari Jewish community of a couple millennia ago. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-italians-discriminated-against-so-harshly-in-the-early-twentieth-century/938461.md?page=7)