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I've heard Toronto has quite a large Italian population, mostly Italian Canadians, yet it doesn't seem that Italian Canadians in general stand out as much as those in America or Australia. I mean most here are Australian, but they often have their own sort of sub-culture, sometimes a slightly different accent - the 'wog' accent, are a bit more extroverted, live in certain areas, and stereotypically are involved in the Mafia and stuff (the last bit is really an old stereotype that isn't so common). In Melbourne there are tons of Italians and it's given the city a cafe/coffee culture. Is there much of that in Toronto? Is there much of an Italian identity there?
Very little influence.
Little Italy practically has nothing to do with Italy. Many Italian restaurants but hardly anyone working there speak any Italian. Without the language, the culture ceases to exist.
Little Italy is unfortunately not very Italian anymore. As the city gentrifies, many ethnic groups do end up moving out of the city and are replaced with well to do locals who restore their older homes and hipsters who move into such neighborhoods in droves. Happens in many cities. Look at what Little Italy in Manhattan has become, a tourist trap. The Italians in Toronto have moved up to the suburbs mainly in Woodbridge. There is another strip on St. Clair West that has more of an Italian feel, but it seems like mostly older Italians live there.
Overall, Canadians of Italian decent do add up to a decent number as their families were part of a big immigration wave in the 50s/60s. Sometime in the 1970s, Canada began allowing immigrants from non-European nations and even larger waves are now from the Caribbean and Asian countries like China, HK and India. I went to school with some Italians growing up and they did play up the accent, style, and mafia persona (it was highschool...) but I'm not sure most of them could really speak Italian being second generation. But I'd say Italians are quite alive and kicking as a ethnic group, just not so much downtown anymore. Nowadays, I'd say Chinese and Indian (being the biggest ethnic groups) seem to have the most presence in Toronto, even though they too are not centered downtown as well.
Last edited by johnathanc; 06-01-2015 at 12:23 PM..
There are over 475,000 people in the Toronto census metropolitan area who identified their ethnic origin as Italian as of the 2011 census -- of those, 166,415 identified Italian as their mother tongue.
Clearly there are quite a lot of people in the Toronto area who actually do speak Italian.
Corso Italia on St. Clair Ave. is a more authentic Little Italy than the gentrified stretch along College Street, and Woodbridge in suburban York Region is heavily Italian.
Yeah demographically Toronto seems similar to Melbourne. We have a lot of southern Europeans: Italians, Greeks, Croatians, a few other Europeans like Polish, German, but now Asians are dominating: Chinese, Indians, Vietnamese, Malaysians, Thais, Filipinos, and Middle Easterners like Turks and Lebanese all represent heavily. Walk around Melbourne CBD and indeed many suburban areas and it's like 80% Asian. The main wave of immigration from Italy was in the 50s-60s, and you still see a lot of old Italian people speaking Italian, but it's getting rarer.
There are over 475,000 people in the Toronto census metropolitan area who identified their ethnic origin as Italian as of the 2011 census -- of those, 166,415 identified Italian as their mother tongue.
Clearly there are quite a lot of people in the Toronto area who actually do speak Italian.
Corso Italia on St. Clair Ave. is a more authentic Little Italy than the gentrified stretch along College Street, and Woodbridge in suburban York Region is heavily Italian.
In 2011, 35,000 people speak Italian at home, 1.5% of the population and a drop of 21% from 2006, ranked number 7 (although 1-3 are all Chinese dialects).
There is definitely a vibrant community of Italians there with a distinct sense of being Italian, though Toronto's overall character definitely feels mostly Anglo-Scottish.
In 2011, 35,000 people speak Italian at home, 1.5% of the population and a drop of 21% from 2006, ranked number 7 (although 1-3 are all Chinese dialects).
For the sake of comparison, Montreal has 50,000 people who speak Italian at home.
I find Montreal has a more perceptible Italian influence than Toronto does, due to somewhat less diversity in its immigration make-up, and also a greater predominance of Mediterraneanesque influences within the city (French, Italian, Greek, Lebanese, North African, Hispanic, etc.), all of which rub off on one another.
There is definitely a vibrant community of Italians there with a distinct sense of being Italian, though Toronto's overall character definitely feels mostly Anglo-Scottish.
This.
Toronto definitely feels as you say like a city with a well established Anglo-Scottish character but where a whole bunch of other people from all over the world have come to live. Italians are one of those groups but they don't stand out any more than any of the other larger groups in the city.
Toronto definitely feels as you say like a city with a well established Anglo-Scottish character but where a whole bunch of other people from all over the world have come to live. Italians are one of those groups but they don't stand out any more than any of the other larger groups in the city.
it is the Asians (Chinese, Koreans and Indians) that stand out in Toronto.
It also depends on how recent those immigrants are. White third generation immigrants or older have already become Canadianized.
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