Italian American Heritage Month: From Reconstruction to Reckoning - Pt. 1

Ep 1: From Reconstruction to Reckoning (1865–1891)
Bada Bing Bayou kicks off Italian American Heritage Month with a hard look at the first wave of Sicilian and Southern Italian migration after the Civil War. We map the push–pull economics, the padrone labor system, and why thousands landed along the Gulf South. We unpack how Italians were racialized as “in-between" and the rise of mutual-aid societies and parish life that kept families afloat. The episode culminates in the 1891 New Orleans lynching—what led to it, how media and politics weaponized fear, and the precedent it set for civil rights, diplomacy, and identity. Clear-eyed history, primary-source context, and the takeaways that still shape our culture and opportunities today.