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Conventional wisdom is that you stop "hyphenating" during or after the third generation, so there's no hyphenation going on here. Aside from becoming a citizen, which itself is enough to call yourself American, I'd say that once someone fights on the U.S. side of a war, all bets with hyphenation are off, anyway--which takes my family right out as my great-grandfather fought in the Spanish-American War, and so it continued in WWI with my grandfather and WWII with my father.
While that's true to a certain extent, there are still some cultural traditions passed down from the forebear's country of origin. Despite assimilation into the lifestyle of an American citizen, traditions are handed down such as food, music, dance, language, literature, as well as the connection to any family remaining in the 'old' country.
We'll always have our surnames to remind us of a portion of our origin, so while hyphenating should be dropped after a generation or two, we will always be reminded of where some of our ancestors came from.
While that's true to a certain extent, there are still some cultural traditions passed down from the forebear's country of origin. Despite assimilation into the lifestyle of an American citizen, traditions are handed down such as food, music, dance, language, literature, as well as the connection to any family remaining in the 'old' country.
We'll always have our surnames to remind us of a portion of our origin, so while hyphenating should be dropped after a generation or two, we will always be reminded of where some of our ancestors came from.
To each their own.
I'm American. That's pretty much it. In fact, I cannot stand it when people bring Italian into it, because then they expect me to cook. Fuhgettaboudit!
I'm second generation Italian - growing up, my entire family (and it was very large) lived in walking distance of each other. When they decided to move from Brooklyn to Queens, the entire family moved - they bought houses together, etc. No one moved out until they were married, and no one left the neighborhood. My generation, however, all moved out as soon as we could afford to - we are scattered all over the place now. I think as previous generations came to NY from Italy, they wanted to stay in areas that were familiar to them - where there were stores that catered to them and people who spoke the language. As generations passed that was no longer as important. Looking back, I remember those Saturday nights at my great grandmother's house where my 20+ cousins played and no one got into a car to get there. Now it is a 3 hour drive for my kids to see their cousins.
I'm American. That's pretty much it. In fact, I cannot stand it when people bring Italian into it, because then they expect me to cook. Fuhgettaboudit!
So therein lies the rub! You don't want to cook! I tease, I tease!
I'm second generation Italian - growing up, my entire family (and it was very large) lived in walking distance of each other. When they decided to move from Brooklyn to Queens, the entire family moved - they bought houses together, etc. No one moved out until they were married, and no one left the neighborhood. My generation, however, all moved out as soon as we could afford to - we are scattered all over the place now. I think as previous generations came to NY from Italy, they wanted to stay in areas that were familiar to them - where there were stores that catered to them and people who spoke the language. As generations passed that was no longer as important. Looking back, I remember those Saturday nights at my great grandmother's house where my 20+ cousins played and no one got into a car to get there. Now it is a 3 hour drive for my kids to see their cousins.
Not Italian, but on my Spanish side we had almost the same thing. What a great time we had as kids until our families fled the city. Even then, we were within 30 mins of grandma.
My experience only: some family cohesiveness was lost as everyone moved further apart. It was sort of sad to me, personally.
I was tempted to include it, but omitted it strictly because many Brooklyn and Queens residents consider themselves 'the city' despite being firmly planted on LI proper.
In many Italian-American neighborhoods, you'll also find American-Jews.
Among other factors, Italians, relative to other ethnic groups, were never anti-Semitic; and, Italians and Jews enjoy each others cooking spells.
Recently released DNA studies, Studies Show Jews Genetic Similarity , report that Ashkenazi (central and eastern European) and Sephardic (Spain and Portugal) Jewry have a measurable amount of Italian DNA. Prior to Christianity, many Romans and others on the Italian peninsula converted to Judaism (it's estimated, circa the 1st Century BCE, 10% of the Roman world was Jewish).
Recently released DNA studies, Studies Show Jews Genetic Similarity , report that Ashkenazi (central and eastern European) and Sephardic (Spain and Portugal) Jewry have a measurable amount of Italian DNA. Prior to Christianity, many Romans and others on the Italian peninsula converted to Judaism (it's estimated, circa the 1st Century BCE, 10% of the Roman world was Jewish).
Visions of True Romance and Dennis Hopper / Christopher Walken.
OhBehave - i was not inferring that Italians were WASPs, just that they in some small way had a "leg up" over Jews because last I checked, Roman Catholic is a Christian religion.
Yes I am well aware that both Irish and Italians were reviled when they first came to this country.
Most groups still are, unfortunately
I see a good deal of prejudiced coming from so many Long Islanders towards these newer immigrants. .
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I tease, I tease!
