In Manhattan, not really. But the outer boroughs still have pockets of Italian neighborhoods. Parts of the East Bronx (where I live in Throggs Neck), parts of Brooklyn and Queens, and certainly Staten Island, which is still heavily Italian American.

As far as Jersey, there are loads of Italian Americans assimilated into the suburbs. But as far as an inner city stronghold, like the one they had in Newark years ago? Not really. That neighbhood is something like 90 percent Black and Latino today.

Times change, demographics change. We're not part of the "new immigration." The fact is, the overwhelming majority of Italian Americans can trace their lineage to the Italians who arrived here between 1880 and 1920. That's an indisputable fact.

Today the majority of those families live in the suburbs, mixed in with other third and fourth generation immigrant groups (Irish, Eastern European Jews, et al.). In short, everyone is starting to look the same .