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I voted based on connectedness to Italy, and I still think it's Toronto. New York's Italian community has, for the most part, gone into the Melting Pot except for immature Guido displays of their heritage.
Toronto's Italian community is not entirely dissimilar to how you described New York's, to be quite honest.
Not sure if this makes them "more Italian", but in North America the Italian community where the Italian language (or at least regional dialects of Italian) survives the longest intergenerationally can be found in Montreal. By a longshot probably.
It is quite a bit smaller than the communities in New York or Toronto but the likelihood of finding a third or fourth generation person of Italian origin who speaks Italian is far greater in Montreal. (This tends to be true of most ethnic communities in Montreal BTW, not just Italians.)
It is quite a bit smaller than the communities in New York or Toronto but the likelihood of finding a third or fourth generation person of Italian origin who speaks Italian is far greater in Montreal. (This tends to be true of most ethnic communities in Montreal BTW, not just Italians.)
I could see that. I think that Toronto's dominant Anglo culture almost encourages that. The fact that Montreal already has French as its mother language makes the diversity more encouraged, it seems. While Toronto has the bigger numbers, Montreal's Italian population "acts" more Italian (and NOT Guido/Gino), and I've had some girls in their late teens help me in a store in St. Leonard who spoke Italian on recent visits.
Are they as 'proud to be Italian' as the ones in the US and Oz? It seems not.
Yes, if anything, they are slightly MORE proud in Toronto and Montreal. The 20 year old kid of Italian parents in Canada probably knows more about his Italian roots and can talk about it than does the 20 year old, or 40 year old, Guido in Brooklyn or the Jersey suburbs. Ditto for the Greeks and Portuguese in these same Canadian cities vis-a-vis those in the States. I used Air Canada to go to Europe in July and was surprised to see Italian-Canadians fluent in the language, as in "spoken in the home" fluency versus school-acquired fluency. There was a couple in front of me, both mid 30s with their 2 daughters in between them, who were flying back from seeing relatives in Italy and were, again, fluent. You would NOT see that in the States, because the Italian dude would have chased some blonde chick. Heck, in some US cities, there isn't much of a choice, especially if they're an Italian in primarily Germanic St. Louis.
Argentinian Spanish is full of Italian words and the accent itself has been strongly influenced by Italian acent - I doubt you can say the same about US or Canadian English. It's not about the ghetto - it's about which mainstream culture has been most influenced by the Italians. Just on that base and on sheer numbers, Buenos Aires runs away with this.
Last edited by Perfect Stranger; 09-17-2012 at 02:36 PM..
Argentinian Spanish is full of Italian words and the accen titself has been strongly influenced by Italian acent - I doubt you can say the same about US or Canadian English. It's not about the ghetto - it's about which mainstream culture has been most influenced by the Italians. Just on that base and on sheer numbers, Buenos Aires runs away with this.
Yeah seriously. I don't doubt that Montreal or Toronto have their very Italian characterstics, but Buenos Aires hands down.
Just by the way they talk, the Italian roots of the people, how European the city feels, the cuisine (Italian food is everywhere and probably the #1 type of food there), the wine culture and even the fashion culture. Fashion is such a big part of Argentines' lives.
I was there when the economic crisis was going on, but saw tons of people in fur coats. I asked someone that I didn't understand with so many poor people how there could be so much fur? Not even in Chicago do you see fur that often and Chicago gets like 20-40 degrees colder than Argentina. The person's response was "People rather starve to death before dressing badly in Argentina" . Not saying Italians are like this, but the whole fashion culture is prominent in Buenos Aires just as it is in Italy.
I would have voted for B.A. except that you rarely hear of them going to Italy to visit their first cousins or their aunts or uncles in a "rolled up sleeves" manner of doing so. Instead, they will tell you exactly where their ancestors, up to where their grandparents, came from. The culture of Argentina also supports ties to Europe (Spain and Italy), while being simultaneously VERY nationalistic. Then, that whole thing about appearances is what Italians call "la bella figura" (making an impression), a true art form. But let's not kid ourselves. Spain has its own breed of pomposity, for which my Dad used an expression to describe the Spanish presence in Sicily as that of "i grandi di Spagna." The cultures and temperaments of Italy and Spain are so similar that it would be hard to see where, in BA, the line of demarcation is. I am friends with a family in BA who is Spanish (Catalan) who, while driving around Puerto Madero, were commenting on some things about the workings of the city. They live in Barrio Norte, so they are not lacking. Nevertheless, the Dad mused something about "ay, los Italianos," as if a separate entity from those of Spanish stock.
With Toronto, you have people coming over through the 70s, making for "paesanos" constantly getting on the planes to cross the pond to Italy. I believe that the dominant Italian groups in Toronto are those from Calabria, Sicily, Apulia (Puglia) and Friuli Venezia Giulia. Toronto to Rome (with an eastward jet stream) is a lot less of a schlep than BA to Rome, and it appears to be more of a "treat" for those from Argentina. It is easy to assimilate an Italianate style if one has been acclimated that way. And it's even easier to do that if you don't want to Americanize (southern hemisphere version). However, most BAers of Italian stock don't speak it, or do so like a Spaniard speaks Italian. In Toronto, I pulled up my rental car to a side street on St. Clair West in front of some house to get an Italian meal in the area, and stumbled right into the homeowner who was from Calabria and spoke better Italian than he did English.
Perhaps the argument revolves around what MOST means: is it a numbers game, or is it a question of more recency and the accompanying lack of cultural erosion?
Last edited by robertpolyglot; 09-17-2012 at 03:56 PM..
Unlike Canada, Argentina is not a "mosaic society", and the concept of multiculturalism does not apply. It's more a philosophy of laid-back integration. They're generally more laid back about the whole thing, and ethnic-based nicknames, more or less salty, -"Tano", "Gallego", "Negro", "Ruso", "Vasco", "Bolita", "Moshe"- are everywhere...
I would have voted for B.A. except that you rarely hear of them going to Italy to visit their first cousins or their aunts or uncles in a "rolled up sleeves" manner of doing so. Instead, they will tell you exactly where their ancestors, up to where their grandparents, came from. The culture of Argentina also supports ties to Europe (Spain and Italy), while being simultaneously VERY nationalistic. Then, that whole thing about appearances is what Italians call "la bella figura" (making an impression), a true art form. But let's not kid ourselves. Spain has its own breed of pomposity, for which my Dad used an expression to describe the Spanish presence in Sicily as that of "i grandi di Spagna." The cultures and temperaments of Italy and Spain are so similar that it would be hard to see where, in BA, the line of demarcation is. I am friends with a family in BA who is Spanish (Catalan) who, while driving around Puerto Madero, were commenting on some things about the workings of the city. They live in Barrio Norte, so they are not lacking. Nevertheless, the Dad mused something about "ay, los Italianos," as if a separate entity from those of Spanish stock.
With Toronto, you have people coming over through the 70s, making for "paesanos" constantly getting on the planes to cross the pond to Italy. I believe that the dominant Italian groups in Toronto are those from Calabria, Sicily, Apulia (Puglia) and Friuli Venezia Giulia. Toronto to Rome (with an eastward jet stream) is a lot less of a schlep than BA to Rome, and it appears to be more of a "treat" for those from Argentina. It is easy to assimilate an Italianate style if one has been acclimated that way. And it's even easier to do that if you don't want to Americanize (southern hemisphere version). However, most BAers of Italian stock don't speak it, or do so like a Spaniard speaks Italian. In Toronto, I pulled up my rental car to a side street on St. Clair West in front of some house to get an Italian meal in the area, and stumbled right into the homeowner who was from Calabria and spoke better Italian than he did English.
Perhaps the argument revolves around what MOST means: is it a numbers game, or is it a question of more recency and the accompanying lack of cultural erosion?
The numbers games is very important. Even if people in Argentina don't speak Italian they live a lifestyle and physically look like Italians. When you go to Toronto it has it's Italian parts for sure but it doesn't feel overwhelmingly Italian. BA does. No people in Argentina don't maybe speak Italian or stay in contact with Italy, but ouside of that, almost everyone there looks, eats, drinks and dresses like an Italian. Then on top of that the city itself looks like it could be Italian. Those are all thing that Toronto does not have. Yes they have a Italian population but it doesn't overwhelm like it does in Buenos Aires.
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