Emma (Yujie) Chen
AMS330: Ethnic America
Professor Dennis Deslippe
Nov 30th, 2015
Lecture Proposal Project
Remaking Immigrants’ Culture through Commercial Enclaves
There have been many ongoing debates regarding the significance of including studies of immigrants’ cultural and ethnic identities in American historical studies. Within the United States’ racialized landscape, issues about assimilation and acculturations of immigrants by the dominant whites or developments of immigrants’ cultural and ethnic identities should continue to be studied in depth. In addition, there have been some notable cases of ethnic and cultural identity reaffirmations whereby individuals in their ethnic groups have been proud of and tried to promote their cultural …show more content…
The most famous and eloquent cultural marker of Italian Americans was Italian foods. Italian foods could be identified from others by their power to keep Italians together, importance in trade and their symbolic values in representation, which always help Italians to know who they were and where they were going. Unlike Chinatown, in urban areas the Italian identity was mostly reshaped by Italian restaurants, to represent aspects of their national culture. Italian entrepreneurs have thus capitalized on those aspects of food to bring the truly Italian native cultural foods. The cuisines are often codified in easily recognizable menus that embody cultural values to create new Italian imaginary culture that signifies artistry, tradition and abundance, but not crime or poverty. In this way, Italian immigrants have been passing their food culture to non-Italian Americans. By combining Italian national culture and American popular culture, Italians restaurants were seen as simple and welcome, and Italian Americans were seen no longer as uncivilized immigrants or dangerous criminals but as a ‘family-centered’, ‘artistically inclined’, and ‘emotionally exuberant people’.
However, in the United States, Italians have been regarded as less white than other Anglo Americans. Together with other Eastern Europeans, they have been regarded as the Chinese of Europe. According to Barrett and Roediger, the origin of this classification …show more content…
Chinatown was emerged as a symbolization of preserving Chinese culture, and then used it for commercial attraction. Unlike Chinese immigrants, Italian immigrants used little Italy to reshape their ethnic identity in Anglo-Americans’ eyes. They wanted to become white. Therefore, one should not just assume that assimilation and acculturation paradigms of all cultural groups would be the same in America. Inclusion of studies regarding different cultural groups and ethnic identities of minorities was therefore necessarily needed in broad American historical studies.
Annotated Bibliography
Cinotto, Simone. The Italian American Table: Food, Family, and Community in New York City. Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2013.
By examining various sources such as Italian-American movies and TV series, the author demonstrates how Italian foods have formed the centrality of Italian-American identity. Italian foods have been presented as most identifying markers of Italian-Americans in literatures, memoirs, poetry and visuals. Social workers, anthropologists, sociologists and other observers identify themselves with Italian foods to assert their cultural and political claims. The writer illustrates the claim of foods being the eloquent identity of Italian-Americans by
AMS330: Ethnic America
Professor Dennis Deslippe
Nov 30th, 2015
Lecture Proposal Project
Remaking Immigrants’ Culture through Commercial Enclaves
There have been many ongoing debates regarding the significance of including studies of immigrants’ cultural and ethnic identities in American historical studies. Within the United States’ racialized landscape, issues about assimilation and acculturations of immigrants by the dominant whites or developments of immigrants’ cultural and ethnic identities should continue to be studied in depth. In addition, there have been some notable cases of ethnic and cultural identity reaffirmations whereby individuals in their ethnic groups have been proud of and tried to promote their cultural …show more content…
The most famous and eloquent cultural marker of Italian Americans was Italian foods. Italian foods could be identified from others by their power to keep Italians together, importance in trade and their symbolic values in representation, which always help Italians to know who they were and where they were going. Unlike Chinatown, in urban areas the Italian identity was mostly reshaped by Italian restaurants, to represent aspects of their national culture. Italian entrepreneurs have thus capitalized on those aspects of food to bring the truly Italian native cultural foods. The cuisines are often codified in easily recognizable menus that embody cultural values to create new Italian imaginary culture that signifies artistry, tradition and abundance, but not crime or poverty. In this way, Italian immigrants have been passing their food culture to non-Italian Americans. By combining Italian national culture and American popular culture, Italians restaurants were seen as simple and welcome, and Italian Americans were seen no longer as uncivilized immigrants or dangerous criminals but as a ‘family-centered’, ‘artistically inclined’, and ‘emotionally exuberant people’.
However, in the United States, Italians have been regarded as less white than other Anglo Americans. Together with other Eastern Europeans, they have been regarded as the Chinese of Europe. According to Barrett and Roediger, the origin of this classification …show more content…
Chinatown was emerged as a symbolization of preserving Chinese culture, and then used it for commercial attraction. Unlike Chinese immigrants, Italian immigrants used little Italy to reshape their ethnic identity in Anglo-Americans’ eyes. They wanted to become white. Therefore, one should not just assume that assimilation and acculturation paradigms of all cultural groups would be the same in America. Inclusion of studies regarding different cultural groups and ethnic identities of minorities was therefore necessarily needed in broad American historical studies.
Annotated Bibliography
Cinotto, Simone. The Italian American Table: Food, Family, and Community in New York City. Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2013.
By examining various sources such as Italian-American movies and TV series, the author demonstrates how Italian foods have formed the centrality of Italian-American identity. Italian foods have been presented as most identifying markers of Italian-Americans in literatures, memoirs, poetry and visuals. Social workers, anthropologists, sociologists and other observers identify themselves with Italian foods to assert their cultural and political claims. The writer illustrates the claim of foods being the eloquent identity of Italian-Americans by