Italians in America are a melting pot of their own. Most recently immigrated ones (who got here in 70s, 80s, 90s), and their progeny, don’t always feel like they have anything in common italian-culture-wise with the descendants of the earliest waves of the 1880s, 1910s, 20s and 30s. And it makes total sense.
There are plenty of 1st and 2 generation italians who speak the language fluently tho. They are a minority within italian-americans, sure, and the lack of general knowledge about them undermines the relevance of the later immigration waves.
Official US Govt. data shows that Italy still provided the largest number of european immigrants as late as the mid-1980s. Not saying that the 70s, 80s and 90s brought more italians than between the 10s and 40s, of course not, but the most recent waves have yet to be properly addressed even by the academia.
Not to mention mix-generation households, such as mine: dad’s michigan-born, mom’s italian-born. he speaks decent sicilian and so-n-so italian, mom speaks perfect italian and brescian. I speak native-speaker italian but both my sicilian and brescian are beyond embarrassment. Same thing with my cousins and their buddies in ny and nj, most of whom (mid-20s, early 30s) were born here to foreign-born parents. They are a minority within a minority I know, but they deserve to be mentioned.
Many of those who moved here post-1960 didn’t settled in large, segregated urban ghettos as the as pre-WW2 italians. It was a
suburban immigration. Long island, non-ny centric new jersey, upstate new york, w. new york, w. pennsylvania, w. mass., ct., michigan townships, illinois and many other locales are filled of later immigrated italians. They are more of a less visible minority as opposed to the millions who lived squished one next to the other in tenements and slums between the late 1800s and early 1900s.
We have a lot of Italians in the UK and many are maybe now 2nd or 3rd generation Brits and they hardly bother with anything Italian and don't describe themselves as Italian
Must be more of an American cultural thing, I think its nice that people want to hold on to their history, but they should know the language if they feel that strongly about it..
^ yes italian-americans have managed to grip on their culture and identity more so than the descendants of italian immigrants elsewhere.
Sometimes with odd outcomes, but it’s still admirable.
