The results of the 1980 United States census indicate that about twelve million persons were reported as being partly or solely of Italian ancestry. One in twenty people in the United States or 5.4 percent of the total U.S. population claims Italian descent, representing the sixth largest group in the United States

Lothrop, Gloria

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economic and social circumstances have on their beh avior and on the fa mily structure? In the shaping of attitudes, behavior and relationships, what was the role of music and ethnic traditions? What functions did these traditions have in Italian American families and communities? Are there any noticeable demographic or generational differences in the extent to which "popul ar" (or "folk") traditions and culture have been retained by Italian Americans? Assuming a successful resolution of the questions raised, will studies of Italian Americans based on new methodologies and a "feminist" frame of reference provide new i nsights for similar studies of other cultures? Can valid concl usions be obtained from studies of individual eth nic groups apart from their social and cul tural contexts? Will the res ults of such studies lend credence to a specifically "feminist" view­point? Or will  these studies, i nstead,  confirm the need for a "humanist" approach that recognizes gender-based differences in attitude and behavior as functions of the h uman condition and social dynamics and formulate its methodology, observations and conclusions accordingly? - Gloria Eive Critique Th e res ults of the 1 980 United States census indicate that about twelve million persons were reported as being partly or solely of Italian ancestry. One in twenty people in the United States or 5.4 percent of the total U.S. population claims Italian descent, representing the sixth largest group in the United States. Given their significant representation in the population, Italian Americans are a legitimate area of in vestigation. It is, in addition, a particularly challenging arena for feminist scholars because of the traditional role of women in a culture profoundly infl uenced by the metaphor of the Madonna.  As a result. Italian society has been described as a mother-centered but a ma le-domin ated culture. That male dom­inance has.  unfortunately, someti mes been shaped by values character­i zed by the following proverb: 38 l . ikt• u l(tllld wen pun Nhe ahould be en red for properly, l .i kt• n h n t  Hill' Hhould Ill' kept Htnt i l( h t .  l . i h  n mul<' Hhe N h o u l d  h l'  l(iven pll'nty of work nnd occasional beatings, Ahovt• n i l .  Hht• should Ill' kept in ht•r plnct> ns u subordinate. To some degree the polarization of Italian male and female roles was exacerbated by the experience of immigration. The consequent social reorientation caused males to express outwardly even more dominance in an effort to compensate for the growing insecurity in this unfamiliar environment where their traditional values were continually assaulted. Despite patriarchal imprecations against the abandonment of La via uecchia, however, children and grandchildren were inexorably drawn to the emblems and values oftheir adopted culture. The resulting accultura­tion is evident in the fact that by 1980 eighty percent of women reporting partial Italian ancestry had married outside the ethnic group. An earlier 1964 study conducted by the National Opinion Research Center noted a significant distancing by third generation Italian American women, fifty-eight percent of whom had married outside the traditional confines of the Roman Catholic Church. It is not surprising, therefore, that the Italian American woman's demographic profile today is not congruent with the image of " woman as the heart of the family." In 1980 Italian American women had approximately 2.5 children, slightly below the national average, and they reported a divorce rate of 4.8 percent, more than double the two percent noted in 1974, and only .5 percent below the national average of 5.3 percent. The same census report revealed that while only one-third of the first generation Italians were high school graduates, fully sixty percent of the second generation had graduated from high school, lending support to the 1975 findings of the National Opinion Research Center, which in tabulating family incomes of ethnic groups, ranked Italians third from the top. These few indicators cited suggest the tendency of Italian Americans to enter the mainstream, and, in the process, dilute many of their cultural traditions. This has given rise to a variety of responses alluded to by Micaela Di Leonardo in The Varieties of Ethnic Experience: Kinship, Class and Gender among California Italian-A mericans (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984). She contends that "Italian-American women have embraced, modified and rejected" the traditional mother-centered role. In Di Leonardo's estimation, economic context rather than inherited ethnic family culture has "influenced the structure and functioning of the Italian-American household." If, in examining the traditional image of the I tali an American woman, Ruggiero intends to focus on the females among the 831 ,922 Italian foreign-born persons in the United States in 1980, the research model is complicated by variables of age, class, and regional difference. For example, the G.L war brides and their successors have been, on the whole, better educated, more frequently nurtured in urban centers, and generally reflective of contemporary Italian cosmopolitan tastes-all 39 factors con tributing to a far greater degree of acculturation than their earlier counterparts, who often emigrated from the agricultural villages of southern Italy in the decades preceding America's i mposition of strict immigration q uotas i n  1 924.  These two groups represent extremes within the com plex spectrum of immigrant  experience. Yet both have mani­fested a sufficient degree of acculturation as to render relatively evan­escen t the traditional mother-cen tered image posited by Ruggiero. The researcher's task is further complicated by the fact tha t  the values and adaptive behavior of immigrant Italia ns have been reflective of their socio-eco nomic class. Their adaptation was also affected by the prevail­ing conditions in their receiving en vironment. Even greater was the i n fl uence of their vil lages and regions of origin.  It is extremely i mportant, therefore, to concentrate on the immigrant's place of origin, since it was not until  Mussol ini 's ascendence in the 1 920s that the concept o f  the Italian nation gained widespread acceptance. The com plex and dynamic issues of immigration,  particularly the status of the sexes within an i n tergenerational context, are made even more difficu lt  by the frame of reference of traditional investigators who by conti n uing to ask the same questions elicit the same skewed answers. In light of this, it  is not the feminist  researchers who are guilty of bias, as the author observes, but rather the tradi tional researchers whose conceptual frameworks are biased. As a result, these conventional histories, according to Deconstructionist critic Jacques Derrida, are no more tha n  peti tions sen t forward by the culture, containing implicitly approved code words and using canons of research and i n terpretation approved by the power structure. Such history, the Deconstructionists contend,  rests fi rm ly though fal sely upon the concepts and perspectives approved by a male authority .  Feminist historians and soCial scientists are i ndeed needed to revise the categories of questions and revamp the fra mework of study. Th us, Ruggiero's analysis is appropria te. The obvious need for fem i nist enquiry into the field of I talian American women's studies has accelerated the pace of research on both sides of the Atlantic,  a trend which should be welcomed by the a uthor. Eleven percent of the respondents to a 1 983 survey by the America n I ta l i a n  H istorical Association reported on research i n  women's studies rangi ng from the changing role of the I tal ian American woman to the psycho-social conflicts experienced by I talian Americans. There were a s  well several studies comparing Italian American women with women o f  other eth nic groups. Additional research projects h a v e  focused on food exchange as gifts and on food preparation as woman's work. Charles Zappia of the U ni versi ty of California ,  Berkeley, is i nvestigating I tal ian American women workers in the International Ladies Garment Workers 40 Union. While in Italy, Giovanna Clavi has researched Italian American factory women. L. Cetti has documented the life and work of Italian American women in New York City and M. Tirabassi has examined the Americanization of Italian women and children. The one universal rendered by these examinations is that immigrant history is complex and changing. Consequently, the stereotypical image of the Italian American woman needs to be fine tuned and refined through a series of microhistorical studies more clearly focused on the issues of class, kinship, region of emigration, and generation. Finally, if as the data suggest, the Italian American wom an is evolving from paisana to professional and suburbanite, her constraints and oppor­tunities may be those shared by h er American sisters, and the miscon­ceptions against which the a uthor urges vigilance may be m ethodological considerations d eprived of a test population to sample. - Gloria Ricci Lothrop 4 1  

Critique [of Reclaiming the Subject: Italian Women Self-Defined by Chris Ruggiero]

https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1314&amp;context=ees

Critique [of Reclaiming the Subject: Italian Women Self-Defined by Chris Ruggiero]

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