The death of Italian culture....

You go around, you see Mexicans, Asians, Middle Eastern folks, all celebrating their heritage. They hold on to the language, the customs, the traditions, the rituals and recipes from their home countries. The Mexicans still have that big emphasis on family and togetherness, and are like old fashioned Italians in their parties and their get togethers.\

But look on the flipside at so many Italians and their families...They've lost their culture, their traditions, their recipes, their sense of identity really. Not all families, but some. And we have to fill the void with banal crap that is almost a mockery of the culture, like The Sopranos.

I was engaged to a woman whose mother was Italian. Her mother's father was Calabrese, her mother's mother Sicilian. The grandfather was an educated man, a respectable man, a teacher. The grandmother came from money. But they held on to a lot of the old time Italian customs, traditions, the recipes, the language. The grandfather could speak multiple languages and held on to the Italian. Their family was VERY much Italian--I was expected to call her mother "Ma" for example. And lots of cooking etc--Using recipes going back decades.

I admired that. My own family, both of my grandfathers (one Napolitan, one Calabrese) grew up speaking Italian. With my Napolitan grandfather, Italian was his first language as his parents couldn't speak English. But over time, through the 40s and 50s, they became Americanized. They tossed aside the traditions, ate American food, didn't teach the language to their kids, didn't uphold even any of the smaller little customs, like tinkling your glass and saying 'Salut' or kissing on the cheek.

I think the same--this death of the culture--can be said for so many Italian families, and it's really sad...Why did it happen? Can what was lost ever be recovered?

Why did she leave you?

There's still a lot of Italian culture, of course not as much in the 50s/60s but it's like that for every ethnicity. They become Americanized. But there is still Italian culture around along with Irish and Polish. Those 3 are the only white ethnicities in my opinion that still have culture and neighborhoods today. You don't see any German or English neighborhoods today. Italian culture won't go away for a long time.

A variety of reasons, all of them my own fault. But I don't want to talk about that...That was the biggest loss of my entire life. I'll never find a woman like her again, not as classy or as respectable or as old fashioned. Not one I'd love like I loved her....My failing was I loved her more than anything, I held loyalty to her above all else...I just failed often times to show her it. I acted like I took her for granted when really I just viewed her as a fixture in my life, a foundation that'd always be there...

Might sound odd, but I don't really view Italians, Mexicans, other light skinned Latinos (like true Spaniards) as being "white." I think if you're an Italian Catholic, you're something quite different than some mutt of English-German-Dutch ancestry who is your typical Protestant...To me those are 'white' people.....

Italians and Spaniards are both white. As is any other county in Europe. Mexicans of course aren't white.

Genetically, the irish are nearly indistinguishable from the english, germans or dutch. Spainsh and Italians have more mixed blood from different invasions- but still generally fall into similar haplogroups with the other euro groups. South America does have spanish blood, but significantly differs on average from those euro groups.

blame rap music made after the year 2000

2k rap music has destroyed everybodies culture including black people (i'm black)

I think that the main difference is back when waves of italian immigrants were coming into the US (1900-1960) there was great pressure for these immigrants to learn the English language and American culture or starve. In the modern era post 1960, we cater towards the new wave of south american immigrants and make it easy for them to survive here without ever having to learn a word in English or even work a job after they have a child in this country. Everything has and english and spanish option and as long as you have a child in this country we will pay for your housing and food via tax dollars from the rest of us.

Cook County, Well, we finally completely agreed on something.
Amen to your comment about 2K Rap Music, the worst piece of shit I've ever heard in my life. Thanks for that comment brother.

Oh hey, cookcounty. Did you get your screen name from that movie? Me and the girl watched it last weekend on netflix and it was quite good.

Not dying just watch a jersey shore episode, alive and well...lol...

While Hiphop certainty is a blight to the minds of black youth , i dont think it can explain the decline of black culture. In reality , black culture was on a decline before hiphop even emerged. I think you can thank Lydon B Johnson and the liberal social welfare programs that he rolled out , and the mass introduction of drugs into the black community ( and the subsequent war on drugs) for the destruction of black culture. I also think that integration played a inadvertent role as well.

But when talking about italian americans , i think assimilation/intermarriage with non italians , destroyed the culture.

America destroyed it. At best i am a third generation italian-american. You know what i call that? An american with an italian last name. Actually a fucked up translation of the original italian name. I dont look italian at all. If anything i could be a light skinned one from northern italy. my dad is dark my mom is lighter. I really dont care about it, thats probly how italian culture died. When your seperated from something for a few generations, it quits to be of importance. As far as the mob guys, its all money now anyways.

Haha skinny i feel u at not looking italian, im half irish on my mothers side so i have an italian name but i look as italian as any other fucking irish person. As for america destoying it your spot on, my grandma is from sicily and after living here for about 20 years even she doesnt give a shit about the culture, her favorite italian resturant is papa johns lol.

Not sure if it's really America that destroyed italian culture. I am third generation italian/belgian and the new italian kids today in Belgium hardly speak italian anymore & I don't think they really hold on to certain traditions (food ect..). Italians blend in very easy but on the other hand everywhere they went (usa, Belgium, Argentina, Germany, France, Canada, Australia), the country always had a catholic background. What if they would have immigrated to for example Egypt or Thailand. I think it would have turned out differently.

I'm more amazed by what is still the same, rather by what is different.

I think it's up to the individual. I'm first generation and proud of my heritage. My sister on the other hand has always been ashamed to be an Italian....always wanted to be a WASP...could have been the friends she grew up with (none of them Italian). Me on the other hand had all Italian friends growing up...hell the only non-Italian friends I had as a kid were first generation Indians who respected their culture. I know plenty of people on both sides of the equation (those proud to be Italian and those who are ashamed). I'm going to teach my kids about their heritage and the language but also let them make their own choices. The best way to be is to adapt to your current culture but keep one foot deeply planted in your past. I actually am noticing a lot of young people who are getting back in touch with their Italian roots without being the stereotypical guido....the guido culture gave Italians a bad name....my friend (who is also Italian) said it best once...."the Sopranos don't give Italians from NJ a bad name....Italians from NJ give Italians from NJ a bad name (LOL)"

True.


Not wholly true. Ont he whole they are of mestizo heritage. There are also alot of indians, and there is a sizable portion of white Mexicans. Guillermo del Toro for example.

With Latin America, ethnicity and race are not homogenous. As in America these nations are colonial ones. They are comprised of many levels of admixture. And some have maintained their European purity as criollos. The caste system and the white elite have made this so. Just look at your average telenova cast. For the most part they're white.

In the episode "Commendatori" from the 2nd season of Sopranos (when they go to Naples) you can see how even those Italian-Americans who haven't really assimilated and are proud of their heritage (Tony, Paulie) are ultimately strangers in Italy. They're basically Americans.

Another interesting moment from the Sopranos is when Furio says that he doesn't like Columbus because he was from Genoa (north). It always seemed funny to me how Italian-Americans (big majority of them have southern Italian ancestry) considered the likes of Columbus, Dante, Da Vinci, Machiavelli and other 'northerners' as part of their heritage, while in fact they have nothing to do with them. Their real heritage are Sicilin vespers, kingdom of the two Sicilies, brigantaggio, "mafia" etc. Their ancestors were culturally different from Italians in the north and had a different history.

Irish, English, Scottish, Dutch and German are still distinguishable from one another. Irish and Scottish are more or less related since they are of mixed Celtic/Germanic (mostly Viking and Norman) stock. The English are Germanic( Anglo-Saxon for the most part with some Viking and Norman admixture). Germans and Dutch are related and very distinguishable from the Brits and Irish. They both descend from local Germanic tribes. No or very little Viking or Norman admixture.
Experts are even able to divide them just by looking at them. But I guess it takes some experience to be able to do that

I've even heard some Italians argue once that 'Italian' should be a panethnicity instead of an ethnicity. It's said that there are large cultural and genetic difference not only between northerners and southerners but even between Neapolitans, Calabrians, Sicilians and Apulians.
But I'm not an expert on that.

My parents are Irish. They went to England in the 70s during the troubles and came to the United States in the 80s.

I've had this conversation with them a few times. Obviously in Northern Ireland they were very "Irish." It was almost a given that they would be very proud of their culture and live within it. It was suppressed when they were kids so they were ultra "Irish" to make up for lost time. When they moved to England they were outsiders (kind of) since they were just a couple paddies off the boat. So they ingratiated themselves with the large Irish community in North London.

Since they moved to the United States most outward aspects of Irish culture have vanished. They are pretty much American at this point. They have mostly American friends, attend an American church, watch American football, eat American food, etc. In the United States it's relatively easy to assimilate and be "American" which is definitely one of the strengths of this country. There is no real sanction against maintaining one's culture however so people don't always feel a NEED to do so. They easily adopt American culture as it's pretty welcoming. The distance between Italy and the United States, the slowing down of Italian migration, and Italian success in the United States all contribute to less Italian culture among Italian Americans.

Mexico is a mixture of people somewhat like the US, but a much larger portion is non-white Mestizo. Then you have those of Spanish, German, French, Middle-Eastern etc background. The main reason Mexicans aren't considered white is because the ruling class whites normally stay there, while the immigrants who come to America are the mestizos.

As for the death of Italian culture:

In my neighborhood, there is Papa John's that opened up DIRECTLY across the street from an independent pizza shop called John's Pizza.

John's pizza has a staff with Italian accents, personally knows his customers, sells large pies with fresh mozzarella.

Papa John's, as you can imagine, has a couple kids taking orders for 8 bucks an hour and sells (essentially) cheap, microwaved pizza.

Papa John's seems to be running John's out of business.

Give it 50-100 years like we've had, and the Mexicans will be just as Americanized as we have become. Fact of life. Also, a lot of what people think of as "Italian" culture is more like "Italian American" culture.

There ya go. If it was ever true Italian culture, Italian-Americans would be living with their mother/family until they marry, they'd be in church every week, they'd never work on a sunday, they'd be taking off the entire month of August for vacation, the men would have been walking around with euro-bags (purse) forever now, families choosing to hang out with each other (cousins, etc) rather than friends, and thousands of other things I can't think of off hand. It's the death of Italian-American culture. In fact, I hear left and right Italian-Americans making fun of Italians in Italy. For their style of dress, men wearing speedos, carrying purses, wearing lavender and pink with jeans and white belt.
This culture was never here to begin with, so it never died.

Absolutely right, Carmela. As I mentioned, I'm first generation so I find myself somewhere between the two (Italian and Italian American). Not sure what you identify with...just curious how others feel. Thanks.

Simply, when I'm in the US, I identify with americans and american lifestyle, etc. When I'm in Sicily, I identify with them easily. It used to be a bit of culture shock going over there, but now it's just normal, hanging with family, etc. But no matter what I do when I'm in Sicily, I'm still the american over there to them. lol And no matter how much fun they think it is, I still dont want to spend my afternoon in 100+ degrees watching homemade mozzarella being made on uncle so n so's farm.

IMO Italians aren't an ethnicity but a nation formed in 19th century on linguistic and geographic basis. The people who would through time start to identify themselves with Italian national identity were ethnically and culturally diverse, part of different cultural spheres and different historic states on the peninsula. Particularly in the south (what was "The Kingdom of Two Sicilies" before the unification) the Italian-speaking people had a strong regional identity of their own and many of them opposed the new Italian nation-state (economic and religious/ideological reasons also played a role).

Italian national identity then consilidated through 20th century. That's another aspect we have to consider when comparing Italians from Italy and Italian-Americans. Majority of Italian-Americans immigrated to USA from 1890s to 1920s and were not part of major historic events that in Italy considerably shaped Italian national identity - WWI and the "patriotic experience" of fighting for Italian homeland, the rise of Fascism and Fascist rule (very important part of Italian history, for a number of reasons), WWII, the loss of Istria and Dalmatia, the end of monarchy, the cold war in Europe, post WWII decades and political struggle between Christian Democracy and Communist Party (PCI), economic miracle in 50s and 60s, socio-political turmoil in "the Years of Lead", the fact that Italy has now for decades been (de facto) a social-democratic state (like the rest of Europe) and in this regard different from the USA etc... These things shaped Italian identity, mentality and political culture (and culture in general) but had no effect on the Italians in the USA. I doubt Italian-American population in general knows much about these events. The big majority of them probably didn't care what went on in Italy because it didn't concern them. Instead, they were strongly influenced by the American environment and by what was going on in the USA, which on the other hand didn't concern Italians in Italy. It's the same in any other community of economic immigrants.

Great post! Thanks. You obviously know your stuff.
In this thread I also heard a mention of Mexicans becoming more 'americanized' in the future. The thing is, there are a lot of illegal immigrants who will likely identify as 'Mexicans'. Some of them do get caught up in gangs. Illegal immigrants make up the bulk of gangs like Florencia 13, Gran Familia Mexicana,...
But a large portion of the Hispanic community also consists of Americans of Mexican descent who have lived in the USA longer than most Italians or even Irish were there. If you like to stay in the OC hemisphere you can take a look at the Mexican Mafia or the Nuestra Familia for instance. Most of the members (and especially the original founders) have Anglo surnames and in some cases even Anglo last names. Joe Morgan was 100% Anglo-Slavic, but Benjamin Peters, Randy Therrien, Mike Ison,...as well as some others clearly were Hispanic. It's also said that the Mexican Mafia as well as the Nuestra Familia identifies with 'American' somewhat homegrown to the modern US territory than with more recent Mexican immigrants and their first or even second generation descendants. That's why even the Hispanic population in the US themselves make a distinction between 'Mexicans' and 'Chicanos'.

Apologize for butting in but i recall 18st gang having the most illegal immigrants in their group.

Yeah, that's true. Not solely Mexicans, also a lot of Salvadorans and Guatemalans.

Actually yes there are Caucasian or "white" Mexicans. They are of Spanish descent or are descendant from other European countries as many people from various countries did emigrate to Mexico, and Mexico was controlled by the French at one point a long time ago.

Italian/Italian-American culture is still around and IME it's just as strong as Mexican-American culture, various cultures from different countries who are living in the United States, African American/Black American culture, and Puerto Rican culture.