The Integration Of Italians Into American Culture

The first episode takes place south of Sicily as an American soldier, Joe, and an Italian teenager, Carmela, try to communicate after Carmela safely led a group of American soldiers. At one point, Joe and Carmela are alone and struggling to converse because of the language barrier. They do not understand each other’s ways and dialect. Joe and Carmela end up bonding as Joe speaks of loneliness and homesickness, demonstrating a connection aspect between varying cultures. This feature of communication is broken when violence interferes and Joe is killed. Carmela shows obvious sorrow over the loss, displaying realism and progressing the relationship between Italians and Americans. This episode introduces a multitude of themes that present themselves again later in Paisan. Joe and Carmela’s language barrier is an effort at a mutual understanding and interaction between Italians and Americans. As an opening episode, this scene shows a level of vivid reality and brings awareness to humanity.

The gangster genre within films in America has accomplished numerous positive criticisms and constant willing audiences due to containing outstanding spectacles and mind-blowing action. The Godfather, being second on the IMDb Top 250 Movies, has set a new popular concept to life within the Mafia from their point of view. Doing so, creating a positive association. Yet within Italy, the same topic contains a complete different view. Movies such as I Cento Passi demonstrate unenthusiastic view by those whom are outside yet negatively affected by those members. Unlike American films, the gangsters are not as often viewed at the protagonist and are the main causes for the problematic events. But how different is Italian Mafia and American

Although we all are living on the same planet we have a huge diversity among us. One of these notable differences between the people on earth is their different cultures. One can notice these differences when traveling or relocating to a new country with another culture he or she are familiar with. For example, the American culture and the Italian culture both have more differences than one would expect. When people try to visit Italy they should be aware of the cultural differences, and the right way to communicate with the Italians.

She returns to discussing the match with Francesco’s daughter and states that she likes the fact that Francesco has participated in government, even if his positions have not been important ones. This statement conveys how much of a factor status and power were when considering a spouse and the spouse’s family.

With each generation of Irish Americans, the assimilation of the American culture became greater. Irish Americans were very open to acculturation and structural assimilation. For Irish Americans, cultural assimilation was a very swift process. Mainly, they would focus on learning the Anglo-Protestant culture along with the values and basic views of the country. Immigrating Irish, like many other ethnic immigrants, have to adapt to the ways of the new country by adopting the language and cultural norms. Cultural assimilation for Irish Americans occurred when they adopted Anglo-protestant culture and, in exchange, gave up much of their own culture. Not only did Irish American citizens have to assimilate to the culture, they also had to go through

The details on how my family arrived in America have been passed down by various members of my family. The accuracy and detail of these memories have diminished with every retelling. Some of my family arrived in America so long ago that all that remains of their experiences are rumors and stretched truths. As a story gets retold over and over it loses much of its accuracy. While much of my family history relies on this kind of storytelling, there are some in my family who were alive and experienced the challenges faced by immigrants. Though born in the United States, my maternal grandfather, Sebastian Passantino, was very familiar with the hardships of being an immigrant.

It is expected that ultimately there will be a loss of ethnic distinctiveness for immigrants in the U.S., meaning the lack of attachment to the country of origin. (Golash-Boza, 2006) It is argued that all ethnic distinctiveness will no longer exist by the seventh or eighth generations. Before exploring the influence of foreign born vs. U.S. born parents on their children’s cultural assimilation; the different theories of assimilation will be explored. The idea of Assimilation came about in the early 20th century. (Golash-Boza, 2006) Assimilation is surrounded by two theories, the first that all immigrants will assimilate sooner or later and that the generational status of the individual is one of the main factors in determining the

American cinema flourished due to their movies about Italian Americans being portrayed as mafia. “ Our national obsession for violence, and blood and our out-of-control appetite for wealth and power is siphoned off and projected onto Italian organized crime.” This quote clearly stated that due to the Americans obsession to watch violence and blood, Italian Americans became the main target for them to achieve that due to their history. However, they ignore the fact that it was only a certain percentage of Italian Americans that were part of the mafia while the rest Italian Americans were immigrants struggling to survive past those stereotypes. “ According to the

Italian American and Greek American parents are devoted to raising their children, and caring to them well into their adult years. While the Irish American culture allows their children to move out, prepared or not, the Italian American and Greek American cultures would not do this willingly. The Italian American and Greek American cultures believe that they will not have as much an impact or closeness, and their children could venture into trouble if not advised everyday of their lives. With that being said, Italian American and Greek American children often live in their parent’s homes well into their adult years. What might be surprising to other cultures, especially the Irish American culture, is that even newly married couples are welcomed to live in their in-laws home until they find, or until they can afford, their own home. The Italian American and Greek American cultures are even big on assisting their relatives in finding employment, and this ties into the importance of family businesses, where they will hire and keep their success

Josie's grandfather, Francesco had a unique situation with his wife - Josie's "Nonna". Being from Italy (the old country), it was customary for arranged marriages to be set up by ones parents. This is the situation that "nonna" found herself in. However, she committed adultery, and had a child that was not fathered by Francesco. This child was Josie's mother, and Francesco always resented her. While Josie never met him, she was aware of the coolness between her mother and him, and of the unusual situation between him and her grandmother.

First, Hollywood and the media had a negative portrayal of Italian-Americans compared to other ethnic groups. In the article Family, Gang, and Ethnicity in Italian-themed Hollywood Gangster Films, the author Silvia Dibeltulo states that in movies where both Italian-American and Irish-American gangsters were portrayed, Italian-American gangsters were portrayed as more “alien” whereas their Italian-American counterparts were portrayed as more “assimilated” . This led to Italians being negatively associated with the stereotypes from these movies, which led to anxiety across the country. The article goes on to state more differences between the depictions of Italian-American and Irish-American gangs in films. The

The story is about two sisters Katherine and Bianca. Bianca has a suitor who would like to marry her, Lucentio, but the only way that he will be able to marry her is if her older sister is married first. When Petruccio arrives to Padua he agrees to court and marry Katherine because she will provide a lovely dowry. Rumor has it that Katherine is a cynical, unruly, and

Even Sardinia, the second largest island of the Mediterranean Sea, has been dominated by various and different populations during its history. As well as Sicily, Sardinia was part of the geographical environment of the new Muslim Empire. Unfortunately, all the documents we have, do not give a certain date of the Muslim landing on the island. The historian Pietro Martini, has done a deep analysis of the ancient Arab text of Ibn el-Athir, who told about his raids in the islands of the Rum Sea, (the Mediterranean), declaring that the Arab incursions in Sardinia have been from 707 to 710, until 752. However, historical scholars are uncertain about the interactions between Sardinia and Arabs, since according to most of them such interactions are limited, and the various naval raids

Progressing through the novel, Miss Lavish, an extravagant woman, guides Lucy to release control and embrace the unknown. Coming from an upper class, Lucy’s perspective on life has always been encompassed on social norms. The people she interacts with and rules she must follow all have a distinct relationship to her social class. Italy has given her the opportunity to go beyond the social standard that her upper-class stature puts forth. Miss Lavish tries to rotate Lucy’s close-minded view of the world because she believes that exploring will always lead to a wide variety of opportunities. When Mrs. Lavish says "One doesn't come to Italy for niceness," was the retort; "one comes for life. Buon Giorno! Buon Giorno!" (2.12) She is forcing Lucy to look up from the Baedeker which subtly begins to introduce the idea that this, in fact, represents Lucy slowly peering up from the metaphoric barrier the society has created for her. Lucy has always been a shy girl who was influenced by other people’s opinions on her, but coming to Italy gave her a new outlet to discover her own personality. It’s a new environment where she can explore not only the streets of Italy but the streets of her thought process as well. Mrs. Lavish unintentionally introduces to Lucy that in order to explore, you must be patient. Lucy finds that solutions to all issues are not just given. When she says, “As to the true Italy--he does not even dream of it. The true Italy is only to be found by patient observation." (2.12) It points Lucy in the direction of solving

The next day, Guido is preparing to wait tables. He sees German children playing hide-and-seek outside. He sneaks back to the barracks and brings Giosue to see that there are other children having fun. When the mistress of the children spots Guido and Giosue, Guido tells Giosue to go with her but never to speak, so as not to give away the fact that he is not German. At dinner that night, Guido waits tables while Giosue eats with the German children, obediently not saying a word. When food is set down before him, however, he accidentally says, "Thank you" in Italian, catching the attention of the other (German) waiter. When the waiter brings over the headmistress to inspect the situation, they find Guido teaching all the children to say "Thank