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Also the Italian neighborhoods of Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx are largely made up of 1st and 2nd generation Italians from the 1950-1970 wave, although these enclaves are now shrinking as the elderly die off and younger generations leave NYC.
Speaking for the rest of the world, and as British guy with some Irish ancestry, I don't want to spike your bubble, but we are not interested in Americans who go on about, Italian, Irish, Jewish ancestry, though Once upon A Time in America is a good film and the Godfather a great series, you cannot keep harping back, especially as your relatives arrived from 1860-1920, nobody in America is pure this or pure that, you just feel good in yourselves that you belong to a certain group. My DNA to the British Isles goes back at least 2,000 years ( as do a lot of Southern state Americans) and I am happy with that, whereas, in a changing world you are clinging on to an identity that ( I am sure not all US-Irish bed/married US-Irish) is not important to the world, maybe back in the 1950`s ( when you were the dominant urban cultures) but America to me is, now, about Black-Americans ( who, lets face it do all your great music, and Southern poorer white folk) and now Mexican-Americans. The term Irish/Italian American, is I am afraid, embarrassing to people in Europe. If you don't visit your ancestral homes at least ONCE a year then you are just.... American
I get what you're saying but still...America is a big place with many people connected to their home countries. There are many people here that are "pure this or pure that". My friend's Grandmother in South Philly not only speaks Italian but barely speaks any English. Her son (my friend's Dad) was born in Italy but came to the US as a child. That is not very uncommon. All my Grandparents were born in Ireland, but I don't harp on about being "100% Irish"-most people don't know unless they ask.
And there has actually been an uptick in Irish immigrants recently to the US East Coast (NYC, Boston, Philly).
Thanks for that post, maybe in Europe, in the larger cities people intermarry/mingle more than Americans( especially working class British whites and Afro-caribbeans), though I bet the Italians and Irish did merge more in New -York, Philly ect.
This isn't surprising to see. I will say that I noticed on that list that NY communities like Gates/Gates-North Gates, Lyncourt and Frankfort are just outside of Upstate NY cities.
The thing I've noticed is that someone can be 1/4 th Italian and they seem to drop the other cultures or heritages even going as far as to self identify as exclusively Italian.
If so, it's probably not because the Italian identity actually replaces some other one, but rather because an ethnic identity would be lacking otherwise. So the Italian one takes on that role. Most white Americans don't have much of an ethnic identity. But Italian-American identity is relatively strong.
I am more Italian than that; my dad's side is mostly Italian. But on my mother's side I have 2 Ukrainian immigrant grandparents. So the connection is more recent, and my ethnic identity is Ukrainian. I feel quite strongly about this. I tend to take positions or comments that are anti-Ukrainian quite personally, and this can cause me to utterly despise the person who expresses such sentiments.
My general area is among the most heavily Italian-American in the entire USA, and consequently there are many more opportunities for Italian-Americans to explore and celebrate their heritage compared to Ukrainian-Americans. But not even that really influences my ethnic identity. So, fundamentally, I think ethnic identity in diaspora communities is not truly chosen, but instead largely determined by involuntary factors.
Still, I perhaps have a somewhat unusual relationship with my Italian heritage. I do take some pride in several things about it. More so ancestrally than ethnically, if that makes sense (ponder that a bit if you're confused and it will). An example would be the popularity of Italian/Italian-American cuisine (especially pizza being from Naples & having ancestry from there). Even the very alphabet we're using and an enormous number of words in the English language, are Latin--i.e., Italic. Greek, too, in part, on both counts; but I've got that covered as well due to the substantial historical presence of Greeks in Southern Italy (aka Magna Græcia), once a Greek-speaking colony.
The Italian portion of my family moved to the US in 1910-12 time frame. They did everything in their power to disassociate their heritage and be seen as American citizens first and foremost. They moved out of the ethnic neighborhoods of the east and went west to further pursue that perception.
I find it very weird that Boston is more associated with Irish and Philadelphia with Italians yet both have similar %'s of both ancestries.
Philly's two largest are Italian (second to NYC) and Irish (second to Boston).
Italian American and Irish American culture in Philly is massive.
New Jersey has a ton of people who are half Irish and half Italian descent.
And yeah Northeast Philadelphia has/had a huge Irish-American population.
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