Yes, but his views on Italians were not as severe as his views on people of Asian or African descent. That was my point.
I was not just talking about Italians. I was also talking about his views on Jews and the Irish. Also I think he considered Jews asian because he often referred to them as predominantly asiatic (not sure, I just know he used this language a lot in his letters)
I don't know how to grade the severity of his views towards different races and ethnicities. One feature of the New England racism he seemed to subscribe to is that it is often just as suscipious of some white groups as it is of people of different races (because so much of it is about this idea of breeding). He was very obsessed with his New England genealogy and this idea of pure English bloodlines (though I believe he did consider his 'stock' to be of peasant origin---which might account for some of the insecurity underlying many of his views).
I do think though it is a little hard for people to understand just how hostile people were to Catholic groups in that time. And this gets bound up in his concern about Italians and other ethnicities. He did seem to think we were capable of being assimilated but he had a very, very dim view of that saying (and his views on the Irish here are pretty clear as well):
These elements [here is talking not just about Italians but Southern Italians, Portuguese and French Canadians] will form a separate Roman Catholic culture hostile to our own, joining with the Irish--who in a highly unassimilated sate, are the pest of Boston. Many of these stocks could be assimilated---such as the Nordic Irish of Eastern Ireland and such of the French-Canadians as are of Norman extraction--but the process will be very slow.
Or this (again not strictly about Italians but it expresses some of his views towards them---note this is gets pretty intense):
...Gawd knows what they are--Jew, Italian, separate or mixed, with possible touches of residual aboriginal Irish and exotic hints of the far east---a bastard mess of stewing mongrel flesh without intellect, repellent to the eye, nose and imagination---would to heaven a kindly gust of cyanogen could asphyxiate the whole gigantic abortion, end the misery, and clean out the place.
This has been widely quoted, though the last portion there often gets clipped (and it is the worsts part). This was I believe on his way to Chinatown, where he is describing the ethnically mixed area the lower east Side in NY. This is sometimes described as him depicting the people of Chinatown, but my reading of the letter is this is simply an area of New York where he is upset by the racial mixing (and mostly seems to think its a mix of Italians, Jews and Irish, which again is pretty much my heritage), before he actually reaches Chinatown (which he also describes)
I would say that is pretty bad. It is possible the bit about wishing people got gassed was a bad attempt at being funny and not sincere (I don't know, and this is well before the Holocaust but describing Jews in that way and following it with that kind of thinking certainly troubles me a lot). So it isn't like his ideas about race don't upset me. I find what he says to be very troubling here.
I am sure I could find equally, possibly worse, descriptions of other groups. But the point is his racism was not just about a black and white dichotomy or about black, asian and white. It was very focused on this idea of ethnic inferiority too.
And to be clear, this isn't a contest. I am not saying he reserved his deepest vitriol for Jews, Italians and Irish, I am just saying he sure had a lot of vitriol for them (and it is something instantly recognizable if you grew up in New England and were exposed to any of that thinking).