The Changes Italian Culture Made To New York

I personally believe that Italian Culture has made one of the biggest changes to the overall culture in New York. That is the main reason I chose this as the topic of my paper. Italians have made huge changes to New York ever since they started to immigrate here. What I really want to know is what did Italians do that the other immigrants did not do. For example, look at how Little Italy is one of the better-known areas in New York City. Why do more people know areas like Little Italy and Chinatown but not any of the other areas with groups of people from the same culture? I think it has something to do with the impact that each of those cultures has made on the city. What I plan to do is show you how they made the impact that they did.

Starting from when they first came to New York and started spreading the Italian culture around. I’ll even get into how the Mob changed how New York was from the late 19th century all the way to today. Even the food culture in New York has turned pretty Italian. Almost everywhere you go you see either a Pizzaria or an Italian restaurant. I feel that this topic is extremely important because of all the things that have come into fruition after the Italians began to travel to America but more specifically New York City. All of these factors have really pushed me into deciding on Italian Culture in New York as the basis for my Paper.

Now to get into how I plan to explain each of the factors I listed above. To explain what the Italians did that the other groups did not, They just happened to be the latest group to have a massive immigration. They were the second largest immigrant group to New York City. They were also very different than the Jewish immigrants that came before them. Unlike the Jews, the Italian immigrants were mostly illiterate Sicilian and Southern Italian peasants or laborers. The Italians resembled the Irish of the “old immigration” in their inability to prosper in an urban setting. Unlike the Irish though, the Italians were not leaving a famine such as the Irish Potato Famine but were leaving a land of poverty. Upon coming to America, the Italians were met with even more poverty, low-paying unskilled labor jobs, deficient housing, and prejudice. The reason more people know about Little Italy compared to other areas with groups of people from the same culture comes down to the amount of Italian Americans there are in New York. The population of Italians in New York is almost two million. That’s is an absurd amount of people for one ethnic group. I mentioned China Town earlier. The population of Chinese Americans in New York is only seven hundred thousand. That is almost three times the amount of Italians to Chinese Americans in New York.

The Food Culture from Italy is pretty big in New York because of all the Italian restaurants there are all around the city. While some Italian-American cuisine may deviate from food made in Italy, the roots of all dishes remain true. Just think of all the great food that we eat every day thanks to the food culture change that New York experienced with the rise of Italian culture in the state. There’s everything from spaghetti and meatballs, sausage and peppers, ravioli, lasagna, manicotti, baked ziti, and pizza. Finally, let’s talk about the mob. Now the Italian mafia was basically running the show in New York from about the mid-1900s all the way to the early-2000s. Now the mob even used the Italian food culture to help themselves grow as a whole. While researching I found that restaurants were yet another powerful means by which the Mafia could gain economic power. A large concentration of Mafia-owned restaurants were in New York City. Not only were they the setting of many killings and important meetings, but they were also an effective means of smuggling of drugs and other illegal goods. From 1985 to 1987, Sicilian Mafia in the U. S. imported an estimated $1. 65 billion worth of heroin through the Al Dente Pizzeria Chain, hiding the cargo in various food products.

For my Paper, I decided to look up some specific things on google about this topic. I intended to come away with a few things I didn’t know about this topic just from living in a partially Italian household all of my life. As I am half Irish and Italian I am a clear example of how Italian culture has rubbed off on New York. There are so many families in New York that are partially Italian. I even asked my grandpa a few questions about what it was like 5 growing up with full Italian parents. These questions included “What was your neighborhood like growing up?” He told me “Well the area I lived in was mostly Italian so I ended up getting along with a lot of the people around me. ” I found that response interesting because he grew up in Queens and not Little Italy. That just goes to show that even back then the Italians were already spreading their culture all around New York and not just Little Italy. I also asked him what it was like going to school when he was younger. He told me that it was weird being around colored people because his father was a racist. He also told me that he was never really picked on by people because of who his father was to the people who lived around him. If anyone ever tried to pick on him the kids who were in with the mafia would always come and back him up out of respect for his father. I ended my questions there and walked away pretty happy about what I took away from the responses. I was able to confirm somethings I expected about New York at the time going into the questions.

Trying to find out how the Italian culture changed New York was a lot more difficult than I had originally imagined. Upon picking this topic I expected I would easily be able to write just off prior knowledge on the topic. That, of course, was a mistake. Now I still believe that Italian culture has changed New York City over the years. Now whether that’s 6for better or for worse is up for debate. I personally think it is for the better. But that is only my opinion. The Italian influence wasn’t always so great. When they first came into America they came from the poverty-stricken southern regions of Sicily, Calabria, Campania, and Abruzzo. This is crazy to me when you consider how much power these people end up having later down the line. During the late 19th century and early 20th century, waves of Italians flocked to America in search of better economic opportunities. In New York City alone, the number of Italians soared from 20, 000 to 250, 000 between 1880 and 1890, and by 1910, that number had jumped to 500, 000 according to historian Thomas Repetto. That crazy growth led the Italians to have a tenth of the city’s population. That just helped the influence of Italian culture on New York. When a tenth of your city’s population is from one culture it’s only natural that a fair bit of the city would be influenced by this culture.

Everything in our culture has been somewhat influenced by Italian culture. From the way that we talk all the way to what we eat. Other cultures have made big impacts on the culture of New York but no Culture has made as big of an impact as the Italian culture. You know a culture has made a big impact when there is a museum dedicated to it. That museum is the Italian American Museum. This museum was constructed in 2001. It was dedicated to Italian Americans showcasing their culture back in Italy. It even has a multimedia exhibit that just focuses on Italian immigration from Italy to New York. That’s crazy to believe that there is an entire museum dedicated to one culture. When I first heard about this I was shocked to think that the influence the Italians have made on New York is large enough to warrant a museum but, that’s just my opinion.