Experience of Italian immigrants in Scotland

• Italians were accepted by Native Scots due to popularity of their ice cream parlours and fish and chip shops
• Young Italians soon adopted local speech patterns due to frequency of contact in catering trade which led to them being accepted by the Scots
• Some tension between Catholic Italians and Presbyterian Scots
• Italian café owners also met with criticism from local people who claimed the cafés were sometimes the scenes of unruly behaviour
• Overall, religious tensions existed between Catholic Italians and Protestant Scots as the Scots disliked the Catholic religion
• Italians suffered hostility in the years before World War II as concerns grew about Mussolini's actions