Growing up Italian was a lot of fun. I’ve learned a lot of different traditions that my families have had throughout the years before I was even born. I will show my children these traditions so when they get older they can teach their children what my parents have taught me. I am a white, Italian female who lives in New Rochelle, New York, works two jobs and goes to College. Even though I am Italian I consider myself more of an Italian American. As an Italian American I enjoy being Italian and I am very proud of it. Although we have all our traditions other types of people from other cultures have many stereotypes about people of the Italian culture. After talking with a group of my friends from school I have realized that my Italian culture is very different from other of my friends cultures in a few ways. As I grew up Italian having family parties and get togethers was always a big project. As for my friends of Irish and African American decent it is not such a big deal. I feel that my family has raised me very well with moral, respect and manners as an Italian American. I would consider myself more of an Italian American because my parents really don’t speak the language and I was not brought up to speak it.
My nationality of being an Italian American means a lot to me and I am proud of it. My background consists of basically being Italian and a little bit of Irish in me through my mom’s side of the family. My dad’s side of the family is one hundred percent full blooded Italian and nothing else. My father’s first ancestor’s came to the United States of America in the- mid 1900’s. I interviewed a few of my family members from my dad’s side but nobody was really sure about an exact date of when they came here. They came here all the way from Naples, Italy. The first person to come here from my father’s family was my fathers’ father’s father. His name was Michael Anthony. Today there are more New York City residents of Italian birth or parentage than the entire population of Rome.(Arno,32)Back in 1880 in NYC there were about 12,000 Italians probably 20,000 if children had been counted.(Arno,34) Of all the Italians who came to the United States in the 80’s only a small proportion settled in the city. Mostly they were shipped direct from Ellis Island to inland destinations where jobs had already been found for them by relatives who had proceded them, or by the unscruplous and ever watchful padrones. This does not relate to my family. My family was different. They did not come here already with jobs planned for them they had to take it step by step. For the construction of new railroad trunk lines in their ambitious program of westward expansion the great railroad magnates required vast numbers of vigorous unskilled workers.
I interviewed my cousin Robert who is thirty- two, which are my father’s sister’s son and my aunt Franny, who is my dad’s older sister and is fifty- two. I wanted to interview two varieties of my family members one from an older generation and one from a more recent generation. I combined both interviews from my cousin Robert and my Aunt Franny. They both had a favorite Italian recipe. One loved the famous lasagna and the other loved baked clams. We had both these foods at all family gatherings. My grandmother made them the best but then she passed away. So my Aunt learned how to make them now for my family but the still aren’t the same. They don’t have her touch. Both would just make your mouth water.
We all agreed that we loved gathering together for big family events. Our favorite time of the year was Christmas time. Both my cousin and Aunt grew up in the Bronx, N.Y. They loved being able to go down stairs from their apartment building and being able to hang out on the steps. They also loved hearing the sound of Mr. Softee coming around the block and getting a cheap ice cream cone. A ice cream cone back then was a quarter now your lucky if you can get one for two dollars. They also used to love walking to the candy store and coming home with a huge bag full of candy fore like a quarter. I asked my Aunt what was the difference between being in Italy and then being in the United States was? She said well I never lived in Italy but I knew from your grandparents what some differences were. It was much harder to get a job coming to the United States from Italy. There weren’t many jobs available so a lot of people would go into there own businesses or become self- employed. If there were any jobs available they would only pay the minimum wage. Some job opportunities for Italian immigrants were drawn mostly from peasant stock, became in the New World hot carriers, excavators, brick layers, masons, bootblacks, news and fruit and vegetable vendors. A lot of north Italians who immigrated were found to be traders.
For me the traditions of growing up Italian were a lot different than any of my friends that were of another culture or race. In my family there are many things that we do that other cultures do. The following are some examples are what my family and I do. During the week we eat dinner early sometimes so that my father can go to bed because he goes to work early in the morning. Unlike other families that are eating dinner at six or seven o’ clock, I eat at around four o’ clock when I come home from school. Another tradition that we have is that my immediate family and I get together and have what we call gravy on Sundays. On Sundays we also eat a very early dinner. It’s just something my family has always done. Gravy is a term that some Italians use for macaroni and meatballs. Whenever we eat all together it feels like a long drawn out process. It feels like it takes two hours just to eat one meal.
One type of event that my family has once or twice a year is that my family and I set aside one day and make jars and jars of tomato sauce and bottles and bottles of fresh red wine. They make enough wine and gravy to last you throughout the winter and the rest of the year. This is a fun family event because you become closer with your family members that you never get to see. It brings your family together. The tomato sauce making process is a lot of fun. First we gather all the fresh tomatoes together from the garden and we throw them into a hug pot after they are all cut up. Then we start to put the flam on low and they simmer and we add spices to them until they turn to mush. Eventually it turns into a gravy. After we are all done with this long process we run out to the back yard and wash the pot out with a hose. The pot we use is huge. The reason my family makes their own tomato sauce is because we hate the way the kind from the store tastes. Once you taste our home made kind you could never eat the store bought one again.
All of our holidays are very big. However a lot of time, money and effort go in to them. All of the holidays are fun, but there is nothing like Christmas time when everybody is all together, always is in a good mood and spending time together. However in some families it’s not to big of a deal but in my family Christmas Eve is a bigger deal than Christmas day. That night my family eats all day long. Then we go to midnight mass. After this we come home and exchange gifts with all of my family. I love watching the expressions on everyone’s face.
In some Italian families they believe that the mother of her children should stay home with her kid until they get older and that they shouldn’t work. Well this happened in my family. My mother worked for years and years until she had kids. She is just now starting to go back to work now after me and my sister have now gotten older and we are basically on our own schedule.
Throughout my childhood years I have had a lot of fun growing up Italian. My grandmother used to live in Bronx, New York. I used to love going there and playing with all the kids that used to hang out on the corner. We used to amuse ourselves so easily. Now that I live in New Rochelle, New York there are many stereotypes about people from different backgrounds and cultures. In my city if you lived in a certain part of the town you were automatically considered a certain nationality or race. They thought you were either Italian, Jewish or Mexican etc. Another stereotype would also be if your family had money or you lived a pretty well life that your family was automatically in the Mafia. I remember when I was younger I used to be spoiled and have a lot of toys and really nice clothes and sneakers, and automatically people would spread rumors that my family was in the Mafia, and this was totally not true.
In other words for me growing up Italian American was fun and I enjoyed
it a lot and still do to this day. I am glad that I didn’t have it as rough
as some of my other family members. This essay has taught me a lot about
how it was for my family to come here what kind of jobs they came here
to. Also how they felt growing up Italian.