Rosemary Serra. ll senso delle origini: Indagine sui giovani italoamericani di New York. Milan: Franco Angeli Edizioni, 2017. 489 pp. EUR 44.00 (paper), ISBN 978-88-917600-5-0.
Reviewed by Tiziana Serafini (University of Notre Dame)
Published on H-Italy (December, 2018)
Commissioned by Matteo Pretelli (University of Naples "L'Orientale")
Searching for Italian Roots
After approximately 140 years from the start of the massive immigration of Italians to the United States between the 1880s and the 1920s, Rosemary Serra’s volume presents an insightful perspective into the values and perceptions of belonging that characterize the young descendants of those generations, as well as of those who more recently immigrated onto US soil. Serra, herself a migrant from southern to northern Italy, focuses her research on a restricted group of young Italian Americans aged eighteen to thirty-four, ranging from the second to the fifth generation of immigrants. Conducted between 2012 and 2013, the project is grounded in both a qualitative and a quantitative approach, and comprises initial interviews and subsequent analyses of a standardized questionnaire. The goal of the study is to examine the relationship that young Italian Americans entertain with their Italian cultural and historical heritage, and to show how they represent and interpret this heritage.
Serra starts off by illustrating the theoretical premises that underpin the concepts of ethnicity, identity, and ethnical identity. The presentation of various theories by renowned scholars in these disciplines is thorough, and usually carried out with an eye to concurrent and later phenomena with the intent to give the reader a more complete picture. In dealing with ethnicity, for instance, Serra inscribes her discussion among Israel Zangwill’s Melting Pot theory (1908), the assimilation perspective, Horace Kallen’s cultural pluralism (1915), and more recent philosophies of ethnicity transformed through personal awareness, such as Michael Novak’s “new ethnicity” (1996). The plethora of theories expounded in the first three chapters also scientifically seeks to frame the questions of Serra’s survey, thus preempting risks of oversimplification or stereotyping on the part of the reader. By way of implicit comparison with her own study, in the third chapter Serra reports the results of a 2010 Pew Research Survey conducted across the various generations from 1928 to the present in which certain values and identity perceptions appear as typical of specific groups.
The presentation of Serra’s own field work starts in chapter 4, in which she illustrates her methodology, the sample chosen for the survey, and the five principles underlying her questionnaire: the image of the perceived physical appearance of Italian Americans; their ideal-typical personalities; the cultural elements that distinguish Italian Americans, such as knowledge of their own history, Italian language and dialects, and Italian and Italian American traditions and food; the feeling of belonging to an Italian American community and heritage; and finally, the affective dimension and emotions connected with ethnical self-representation. Chapters 5 and 6 focus on questions of parental and spousal characterization, as well as ethnical self-positioning, both with regard to nationalities (Italian, Italian American, Irish, etc.) and ethnic groups (whites, Native Americans, blacks). The theme of chapter 7 is the extent to which cultural heritage is passed through generations and influences the meaning of Italian American identity. This section offers a precious insight into the participants’ perceptions of identity by reporting verbatim some comments on their self-images. The vivid representation that transpires from these comments equips the reader with a whole new tool to make sense of the numbers and statistics that are accounted for in the quantitative section of the survey starting in chapter 8. In this chapter, Serra reports values of specific characteristics that are posited by way of supposition as typical of the Italian American identity: determination, adaptability, submission, superficiality, commitment, modesty, openness, parsimony, and altruism. Here, the intersection of the synchronic and diachronic values from similar age groups distributed along different generations, in itself an essential component of research that aims to condense findings according to chronological principles, may at times prove to be challenging for the lay reader who is unaccustomed to elaborate statistics. The author, however, does a thorough job of explaining these findings in a narrative way as well, and clarity of presentation is a well-thought-out trade-off against potential risks of redundancy. Chapter 9 confirms the intuition that the younger generations of Italian Americans have a better understanding of Italy and Italian people, as well as a higher desire and ability to keep in touch with their roots. It also presents interesting results for those who work for institutions and organizations devoted to transmitting Italian culture, because it indicates specific areas that need intervention: specifically, the tendency by older generations of Italian Americans to portray contemporary Italy as a close-minded society, and the lack of knowledge of the Italian language. Stereotypes of Italian Americans are the subject of chapter 10, where Serra offers additional reflections on the negative myth of “Guido” characters, those all-Italian-American men typically represented with their hair full of gel, unbuttoned shirts, and muscular bodies not coupled with brilliant minds. Chapter 11 elaborates on young Italian Americans’ religious faith, political views, food preferences, and closeness to significant places in their lives. In line with the strategic and practical objective of intervention set forth at the beginning of her study, Serra devotes a significant part of this and the following chapter to the knowledge of Italian American culture. She also expounds on the perceived effectiveness, or lack thereof, of Italian American associations to promote this culture, and proposes ways to improve inefficiencies.
The last part of the book is possibly the most interesting because it puts forward four identity profiles based on the answers given by the young Italian Americans who took part in the survey. Thus, “the contemporary,” “the integrated,” “the disinherited,” and “the traditional” make up a picture in which the various generations evince attitudes consistent with the trends that have been observed as typical of their individual group. Most important, these profiles may hint at possible interventions to make Italian American heritage free from stereotypes, to allow it to retain a more valuable and earnest meaning in contemporary America.
In times of crucial investigations into questions of ethnicity and migrant identity around the globe, Serra’s study may prove useful not only in an Italian American environment but, mutatis mutandis, also for the descendants of the innumerable present-day migrants who will find themselves living in countries different from those of their ancestors.
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Citation:
Tiziana Serafini. Review of Serra, Rosemary, ll senso delle origini: Indagine sui giovani italoamericani di New York.
H-Italy, H-Net Reviews.
December, 2018.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=53475
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