{"id":221,"date":"2013-04-22T12:19:16","date_gmt":"2013-04-22T12:19:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/faculty.wagner.edu\/lori-weintrob\/?p=221"},"modified":"2013-04-22T14:00:42","modified_gmt":"2013-04-22T14:00:42","slug":"to-be-italian-or-american","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/faculty.wagner.edu\/lori-weintrob\/to-be-italian-or-american\/","title":{"rendered":"To be Italian or American?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com\/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRlGnI6HKz_4XvMS85x7YpI9TF9t7XFV-Xh3Lppt_BUfTMxRmZYVw\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=d5eBnuDCsS4&amp;feature=youtu.be\">Interview<\/a><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"960\" height=\"720\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/d5eBnuDCsS4?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">\u201cI want my daughter to have a better life than me,\u201d Joann Maniscalco said but when asked if keeping the Italian culture or being Americanized was a better life for her daughter she shrugged. Joann Maniscalco came to American from Milan,\u00a0Italy\u00a0on September 14, 1974 by plane so that her mother could rejoin with her siblings and parents.\u00a0 Joann struggled with the language for a bit, she spoke about how her history teacher asked her to read a page from the textbook and Joann didn&#8217;t know what to do because she did not know how to read it or speak.\u00a0 Her teacher encouraged her to try her best and with help from classmates, she was able to learn it.\u00a0 She married to Vincent Maniscalco and they had their daughter, Antonella.\u00a0 The three live in Staten Island and are struggling with keeping the culture Joann grew up with and the American culture that surrounds them everywhere.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><a id=\"irc_mil\" href=\"http:\/\/www.google.com\/url?sa=i&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;frm=1&amp;source=images&amp;cd=&amp;cad=rja&amp;docid=ym3xWET1a3EVsM&amp;tbnid=aYggz6AFOLrQ-M:&amp;ved=0CAUQjRw&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lonelyplanet.com%2Fmaps%2Feurope%2Fitaly%2F&amp;ei=TH90UZvbKanS0gHn-IGwBw&amp;bvm=bv.45512109,d.dmQ&amp;psig=AFQjCNFrYweDAkcTx4nLvV-0eMWYVO8OqQ&amp;ust=1366675656640135\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" id=\"irc_mi\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.lonelyplanet.com\/maps\/europe\/italy\/map_of_italy.jpg\" width=\"466\" height=\"350\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">Italians have been coming to this land since the late 1800s, coming in huge masses in the early 1900s.\u00a0 As any new group to American soil, they faced their hardships in this land.\u00a0 Discrimination and the language barrier was the hardest ones they had to face.\u00a0 If you did not speak the language, there were few people around to translate for you.\u00a0 This made getting an education hard, which led to very few high ranked official jobs.\u00a0 A lack of an education left jobs that did not involve much speaking and easy to learn.\u00a0 Many Italian young women worked in the garment industries and gave every last penny to their families.\u00a0 Italian wives not only took care of her household but also took in boarders, made artificial flowers, and some helped their husband\u2019s business. Many of these workers took a cheaper pay because it guaranteed a job for them, which took jobs away from the American work force, creating and intensifying the relations between Italians and non-Italians. They have had time to assimilate, so why is there this struggle?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">Could it be that the education, although promoted to include everyone, is not equal for immigrants? The family and teachers are forced to play a game of <i>catch up<\/i>; where students (immigrant children) not only have to learn the English language but they also have to learn everything that a student their age or close to their age (maybe a year or two off) would have learned here in America. For adults, it has been a trend that they come and work in America with little education of American standards, unless they have attended a graduate school and sometimes that is not always a guarantee.\u00a0 The adolescents come to work for the most part and are enrolled into the education system.\u00a0 It does not last long before one drops out of school, although the numbers are low it still exists. It tends to become easier for second and third generations because they are exposed to American education but also because their parents will have had an education already.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">Could it be non-acceptance of Italians? Or a failure to have as assimilated? In the old days, everything had to be American or they needed to change to meet American standards in life.\u00a0 To have one\u2019s culture and traditions that were only celebrated by their immigrant group was supposed to be done away with because Americans frowned down upon it.\u00a0 Italians, however, were a very stubborn group.\u00a0 They insisted on keeping their language and their culture going strong.\u00a0 It was not until the 1970s and 80s that they began to assimilate, they left their old neighborhoods, married outside their group, shed their values and customs to become more American. The irony in all of this is that by the time they started doing this; America was falling in love with movies that were based on Italian lives.\u00a0 Movies like <i>Godfather<\/i>, <i>Rocky and the sequels, <\/i>and so on, had maybe not the full truth about Italian lives but they had some basic fundamentals about them that were true. A close family, even if blood did not hold them together, passionate, suspicion of authority, penchant for violence.\u00a0 They had something that many people were almost jealous of.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">This was during the 60s where there were a lot of problems in the country with the anti-war movements, civil rights, and so on. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0These movies represented \u201cfantasies of personal authenticity and communal loyalty, rage against state and authority.\u201d \u00a0They showed the past lives of Italian Americans, of course with some Hollywood blitz in it, showing the connections that these people had.\u00a0 Family was very important to Italians and so was their heritage. \u00a0These movies showcased those connections and the tendency for violence amongst people, but in reality of the 1970s, the men and women were going to college, were having successful professions, settling in the suburbs and were \u201cmingling with\u201d every culture group that they came into contact with.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">It is standard procedure for immigrants for the first generation had the advantage of optimism and ability to take dual frame.\u00a0 The second generation had advantage of full citizenship and consistent exposure to English and the American society.\u00a0 As Richard Alba points out, the cultural values and customs of the third generation were indistinguishable from those of white Protestants.\u00a0 So as the number of generations increases, the amount of assimilation increases.\u00a0 It is seen in most of the cultural groups, including Italians.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">One cannot point at a finger solely at one thing, but people may attempt at answering it out themselves. Joann said that the problem she faces is traditions, which ones should she keep and which ones would she put behind her? What does one find more important about one tradition over the other?\u00a0 Which ones do you pas onto your children and which ones do you keep to yourself? How can one rank them?\u00a0 How can one incorporate their heritage and American lifestyle? How?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">Today society focuses on keeping our heritage and being proud of who we are and where our families come from.\u00a0 However, as Joann Maniscalco put it, \u201cIt gets harder to keep our cultures.\u201d\u00a0 For Joann\u2019s family, they try to have the Sunday dinner at two or three in the afternoon but because of work, her daughter\u2019s activities, school and so on, it is great when they can have it once a month.\u00a0 Another problem that Joann pointed out was that the importance of her culture is not the same as Antonella, her daughter, because she has grown up in America from birth and has been more Americanized than she. When Antonella was younger, her Christmas tradition was to wait to open presents on January 6<sup>th<\/sup>, the Epiphany. \u00a0How was she supposed to keep that tradition when she saw all her friends opening presents days before? One belief that Antonella was not brought up on, although was taught, was that the la Befana brought presents during Christmas.\u00a0 It was not old Saint Nick who came, but a witch, who does exactly what Santa does (presents for the good, coal for the bad), was a \u201cSanta.\u201d\u00a0 It is the juggle of two cultures and how to incorporate them into one.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com\/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRMBxswmWqsg02O37muqaL2ITOFINE-V1v-2oQTzHbD4uPDyvgG\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">To be able to at least teach a person where you came from, that is what we should all be able to do.\u00a0 Once we can establish where we come from and what traditions come from that country, then can one start to formulate their new life\u2019s beliefs and traditions in America. As much as we all want to believe that America is not a melting pot anymore and has become a tossed salad of every immigrant, personally, I\u2019m not so sure about it.\u00a0 In truth, every group is giving up a small piece, if not the entire culture they had grown up with, to become American and live the American life. How can we find the balance between our true culture and American life?<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: left\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\"><em><strong>Bibliography<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>Barkan, Elliott Robert, Hasia R. Diner, and Alan M. Kraut. <i>From Arrival to Incorporation \u00a0\u00a0Migrants to the U.S. in a Global Era<\/i>. New York: New York University Press, 2008. Print. Chapter 8.<\/p>\n<p>Del Boca, Daniela and Venturini, Alessandra, Italian Migration (November 2003). IZA Discussion Paper No. 938. Available at SSRN: http:\/\/ssrn.com\/abstract=475021<\/p>\n<p>Foner, Nancy. <em>From Ellis Island to JFK New York&#8217;s Two Great Waves of Immigration<\/em>. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000.<\/p>\n<p>Foner, Nancy. 1999. \u201cImmigrant Women and Work in New York City Then and Now.\u201d <i>Journal of American Ethnic History<\/i> 18, no. 3:95. <i>America: History &amp; Life,<\/i> EBSCO<i>host<\/i> (accessed February 24, 2013)<\/p>\n<p>Portes, Alejandro, and Ruben Rumbaut. <em>Immigration America A Portrait<\/em>. Berkley: University of California Press, 1990.<\/p>\n<p>Salamone, Frank. &#8220;Changes in Post-World War II: Italians in Rochester, N.Y..&#8221; <em>History Reasearch<\/em>. no. 3 (2012): 233-241.<\/p>\n<p>Waters, Mary C., Reed Ueda, and Helen B. Marrow. <i>The New Americans: A guide to Immigration Since 1965<\/i>. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2007. Print.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Interview \u201cI want my daughter to have a better life than me,\u201d Joann Maniscalco said but when asked if keeping the Italian culture or being Americanized was a better life for her daughter she shrugged. Joann Maniscalco came to American from Milan,\u00a0Italy\u00a0on September 14, 1974 by plane so that her mother could rejoin with her [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-european-immigration","category-immigrant-nyc","et-bg-layout-dark","et-background-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.wagner.edu\/lori-weintrob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.wagner.edu\/lori-weintrob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.wagner.edu\/lori-weintrob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.wagner.edu\/lori-weintrob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.wagner.edu\/lori-weintrob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.wagner.edu\/lori-weintrob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.wagner.edu\/lori-weintrob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.wagner.edu\/lori-weintrob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.wagner.edu\/lori-weintrob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}