People often resent their superiors.
The other great destination for Italians in the 19th/20th centuries was Argentina. I’m interested how their experience there compared to the US. Lacking the same anti-Catholicism, did they still face discrimination? (Argentina lead the hemisphere in the extent it wiped out its native population, so somebody had to be at the bottom of society). Did the Argentine-Italians bring the mafia and prey upon other Italian immigrants there too?
When I first lived in London back in the 60s, there was a poor area I used to go to where most of the businesses were Jewish.
A decade later, they had moved on and the shops were largely occupied by Ugandan Asians who had fled Idi Amin’s reign of terror. They moved on and were replaced by Bangladeshi’s and although I haven’t been there for years, I believe that you would now find many of the poorer East European countries represented there.
AFAIK, Italians were never discriminated against here (at least no more than the usual racial discrimination). They took over the mobile ice cream trade after WW2. Many Italian immigrants were actually ex POWs who decided not to return home to a country even more devastated by war than the UK.
Nearly 100,000 Italian POWs were sent to South Africa during WW2. They were kept in a huge camp under pretty good conditions, and got on well with South Africans. Thousands were let out to work on various projects like road-building and construction, and even to work on farms.
After the war, many emigrated to South Africa and did well. I don’t think there was any particular discrimination against them – probably because they were white, and there was enough discrimination against non-whites to go round!
Much the same with the Portuguese, Greek, and Jewish communities here. They were not particularly discriminated against.
The ‘Little Italy’ of London is Clerkenwell.
The ice cream trade in the UK was run by Italians long before WW2. In the case of Donoghue v Stevenson - Wikipedia, 1032, probably the most famous torts case in English common law, the cafe where Donoghue was served an ice-cream float was operated by “Francis Minghella”/Minchella: born in the UK, Italian parents.
One of my friends in grad school was an Argentine of Italian descent. She said that in Argentina, recent Italian ancestry was just taken for granted as normal.
The largest ethnic group in Argentina is Italians. One way to remember this is by thinking of the most famous Argentinian at the moment. Pope Francis is an Argentinian of Italian descent. According to this Wikipedia entry, people of Italian ancestry are the majority in both Argentina and Uruguay:
I’m a bit late clocking it, but the premise is naive that there was an objective reason for discrimination. Italians were discriminated against for much the same reason that Mexicans and Central Americans are discriminated against today. Or Muslims. Or anyone who is not Western European. They are outsiders trying to come here for a better life. In 100 years there will probably be some other group that bigots decide to hate just because they are different.
Great people discuss ideas. Lesser people feel the need to look down on other groups to bolster their fragile self esteem. The groups in question and degree of discrimination change with time and place.
I think the simplest answer is that they were the biggest immigrant group at the turn of the 20th century. My grandparents were first generation American. Their families came in through Ellis Island and settled in Brooklyn and endured lots of discrimination and hatred. Today, if I get any reaction at all for being Italian, it’s that it is a cool thing.
My home for a year…
As an aside I moved to the United Kingdom just as the EU enlargement began to bring the huge swarths of Eastern Europeans.
It was mind boggling to watch just how prejudiced White British were against them and how quickly the same people who were bigots against British Asians decided that they frankly preferred them to the newcomers. Less so (to me at least) how British Asians were down right racist towards the Poles, Romanians etc. 
Prejudice never makes any sense.
A turn-of-the-century reason (or excuse) for anti-Italian prejudice in America was the rise of the Black Hand, which was into extortion, kidnappings and bombings. Crimes typically targeted Italian immigrants but sometimes spilled over into involving non-Italians.
I recently finished reading the above book, which is about an Italian-American detective and his “Italian Squad”, an elite NYPD group that went undercover against the Black Hand.*
*apparently the Black Hand was pretty disorganized for “organized crime”. It’s unclear how many crimes were perpetrated by imitators, since anyone could send a “Black Hand” extortion letter.
You misspelled “Lionel Messi.” 
It’s amazing that he was able to adapt to US mores since he immigrated all the way from California.
I just had a thought. How they spoke about DiMaggio illustrates why Ted Williams hid his Mexican heritage.
What I find interesting about the DiMaggio quote is that they consider chow mein to be an acceptably American dish.
It didn’t help that Williams was embarrassed by his Mexican-American evangelist mother, who used to drag him and his brother to Salvation Army revival meetings in Tijuana when they were children. I also recall a story about her proselytizing in the stands at one or more of his games.
I agree. The whole quote is so hilarious and appalling but that liking chow mein (which is, after all, Americanized Chinese food) is a sign of a true American while liking spaghetti is not, is just weird.
It’s weird that people’s bigoted assumptions were irrational 
Yeah, that is the cherry on the top of the nonsense sundae.