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That makes me really sad to hear that all of us Italians are moving out. It's a shame because Italian immigration to this country has declined because of that Kennedy bill and now we are losing our neighborhoods but I guess we at least have New Jersey, Staten Island, Long Island and Howard Beach
The only thing that should make you sad is the quality of pizza. Change happens. Attachment causes suffering.
That makes me really sad to hear that all of us Italians are moving out. It's a shame because Italian immigration to this country has declined because of that Kennedy bill and now we are losing our neighborhoods but I guess we at least have New Jersey, Staten Island, Long Island and Howard Beach
It should actually make you happy that so many Italians came to NYC poor, living in tenements and occupying low wage jobs, now to see them move on to better lives all across the country.
Same situation in NJ really; there are still places with a lot of Italians but nothing like the past. Bayonne where my Italian family was is now 25% Hispanic. Still a lot of Italians left, but I'd guess they're mostly older generations.
Italians were the biggest community to come to the Island after the Verrazano was built. Urban sociologist Jerome Krase has written a book about Staten Island’s Italian community. He describes an almost wholesale transplant of the Italian American population from places like Bay Ridge and Bensonhurst, over a 20-30 year period. Staten Island had seen its first wave of Italian immigrant in the late 1800s. These Italians tended to come from Northern Italy and were reasonably successful businessmen. Famous residents include the father of Italian unification, Giuseppe Garibaldi, who spent four years hiding on the Island, and the overlooked inventorof the telephone, Antonio Meucci According to Krase, the wave of Italians who came after the Verrazano was built were mostly working class, blue collar and city workers. The post-Verrazano Italians bolster the number of Catholic schools and churches on the island. Today, Italians represent the largest ethnic group on the Island, with almost 32 percent giving declaring Italian ancestry.
When I see posts like yours, I wonder what the point is of your moving to NYC and wonder if you should forget about it. There are many reasons to come to NYC, but a major one is to MIX - to bump up against entirely different kinds of people and take advantage of the breadth of the city. Otherwise, you might as well just move to Sicily.
I basically agree with you. Also NYC neighborhoods tend to change demographically. What he's looking for hasn't been around since the 80s.
As of the last census the White-Non-Hispanic population in NYC was about 45%. Yes you still find bastions where the former are the majority such as parts of Staten Island, but even so the future looks like this: Young Hispanic population booming on Staten Island | SILive.com
No matter how you do the math it is baked into the cake.
Italians cannot simply walk across the border nor are there that many on SI or elsewhere to remotely rival the numbers of illegal Latino/Hispanic and other populations. This is important for as the above link illustrates birth rates matter.
On Staten Island as elsewhere you have "mixed" marriages that just didn't happen back in the day. Just because woman has an Italian surname does not follow she is one herself. Looking at the SI Advance weddings section you have Irish, German, Puerto Rican, WASP, and so forth.
Also just as in Italy, Italian American couples aren't having large numbers of kids. When I was growing up my IA friends like the Irish came from big families. Today not so much as people are careful not to have more children than they can afford.
Sooner or later what has happened to the North Shore will catch up with the South. Many Italian-Americans will decide things have changed "too much" and make tracks. Some such as City workers who are mandated by law to remain within NYC (NYPD, FDNY, DSNY, etc...) will stay at least until they separate/retire. Then they too will likely join the exodus to NJ, PA, FLA, and NC.
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