Specials

In response to a recent posting of mine, Emanuel Rota asks: "why should Italian Americans do all the things that he (Verso) thinks they should do?" My answer: I do not believe anything I wrote constituted an imperative about what Italian Americans 'should' or 'should not' do.  Rather, I meant to engage in a dialogue with people (e.g.

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Are "Italian Americans" a fairy-tale?

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Anthony Tamburri) who 'wonder' about, and 'study' the nature of the Italian American 'state of mind'.

To me it is a social-psychological question about culture and I suggested a "major social scientific study" of the phenomenon.  Scientific enquires, it seems to me, are driven by 'curiosity' and 'wonder', and resolved 'empirically'.  For example, Mr. Rota asks, albeit rhetorically, "Does a poor woman whose last name happens to be somehow Italian have something in common with Rudy Giuliani? Is it a blood thing?"  Let me respond rhetorically: "Does she have something in common with a poor African American share-cropper?" Imagine that she sat down to dinner with one and than the other; with whom would she feel more in common?  What foods do they commonly enjoy?  What family histories are more in common?  What do they commonly find humorous?  What idiom do they commonly speak?  What music do they commonly enjoy?  I don't know the answers to these questions.  I say: observe the points of commonality and attempt to find an explanation - be it blood or otherwise (nature or nurture).

Further, I am absolutely certain that students of the Italian American 'state of mind' are NOT motivated, as Mr. Rota suggests, by a "will to power" - if he is referring to Nietzsche's philosophy.  Rather, I think, it is an aesthetic motivation - a 'Will to Beauty', so to speak.  Why, for example, are some of us so moved by "Paper Fish", so intrigued by "Underground", and so fascinated with "La Storia"; when so many books foisted upon us throughout our formal education were so unmoving, uninteresting and irrelevant?  Why are there so many Italian American organizations?  Why do so many Americans of Italian descent feel a need to go to Italy and visit the towns and grave sites of their ancestors? Attempting to answer such questions comes under the aegis of Italian American state of mind and all involve the perception of beauty and love for things Italian.

Also, I must say that I am perplexed by Mr. Rota's description of his ancestors: i.e. "the universalist, cosmopolitan and internationalist tradition of my Italian ancestors."  He must be related to Gramsci.  South of Rome, where the vast majority of Italian American ancestors come from, I'm told the common wisdom was: "Don't go farther than the village bell."

Finally, I can't help but wonder why a person who feels "constructions like 'the Italian Americans' look like fairy-tales" reads H-ItAm.*  The joy of "fair tales" or is it a "blood thing"?

*(H-ItAm is the discussion network where some of the articles in this special were originally posted)