Full Description
Studies the relationship between young Italian Americans and their Italian cultural and historical heritage.
In Sense of Origins, Rosemary Serra explores the lives of a significant group of self-identified young Italian Americans residing in New York City and its surrounding areas. The book presents and examines the results of a survey she conducted of their values, family relationships, prejudices and stereotypes, affiliations, attitudes and behaviors, and future perspectives of Italian American culture. The core of the study focuses on self-identification with Italian cultural heritage and analyzes it according to five aspects-physical, personality, cultural, psychological, and emotional/affective.
The data provides insights into today's young Italian Americans and the ways their perception of reality in everyday interactions is affected by their heritage, while shedding light on the value and symbolic references that come with an Italian heritage. Through her rendering of relevant facets that emerge from the study, Serra constructs interpretative models useful for outlining the physiognomy and characterization of second, third, fourth, and fifth generations of Italian Americans. In the current climate, questions of ethnicity and migrant identity around the world make Sense of Origins useful not only to the Italian American community but also to the descendants of the innumerable present-day migrants who find themselves living in countries different from those of their ancestors. The book will resonate in future explorations of ethnic identity in the United States.
Contents
Foreword
Jerome Krase, Professor Emeritus
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I: Field Research
1. Theoretical Structure, Methodological Path, Description of the Sample
2. Values, Family, and Primary Socialization
3. Ethnic Identification
4. Different Identity Models of Young Italian Americans: The Significance of Being Italian American Today
5. The Image of Italian Americans
6. Italy and the Italians
7. The Stereotypical Images of Italian Americans
8. Attitudes and Affiliations
9. The Future
10. Knowledge of and Attachment to the Italian and Italian American Cultures
Part II: Identity Profiles
11.The American Identity in Generational Flux
12. Profiles of Young Italian Americans: Sketches in Chiaroscuro
Concluding Reflections
Notes
Bibliography
Index
