Italian Canadians

By Frank Salamone and John Beierle

None.

Italian-Canadians are found in various parts of Canada and come from different areas of Italy. The majority, however, migrated from the MEZZOGIORNO, Italy's poorer southern area, including Sicily. In common with their Italian-American cousins, Italian-Canadian immigrants became aware of their "Italian" identity in contrast to their regional or local one in interaction with other ethnic groups, who used a national identity for self-identification in the ethnic competition of the New World.

Italian-Canadians are found mainly in large cities, such as, Montreal, Calgary, Toronto, Quebec, and Vancouver. As in the United States, some are found in the fishing industry and on farms. There has been the same dual movement of assimilation and the maintenance by many of older Italian customs. Thus, while Italian children in Quebec speak French, there is still a clinging to the old traditions of purchasing bushels of tomatoes and strong family ties.

In 1990 the population of Italian-Canadians was approximately twelve million. The majority of these live in Canada's large metropolitan areas, such as Toronto, Montreal, Quebec City, Calgary, and Vancouver. There are Italian-Canadians engaged in agriculture and the fishing industry, as in the United States. However, as in the United States, Italian immigrants tended to cluster in the big cities where they could be near other people from their own regions and band together for aid and protection in their own Little Italies.

Although the older generation of Italian-Canadians still speaks Italian or some version thereof, the younger generation, as in the United States, speaks the language of the area. In Francophone Canada, French is spoken, and in Anglophone Canada, English is the predominant language There is some return to learning Italian in school by members of the younger generation and an interest in Italian food and culture.

It is too often forgotten that when Italians began to emigrate in large numbers around the 1880s they did not all come to the United States. Other countries received large numbers of Italian migrants as well, including Argentina, Venezuela, and Canada. These migrants entered Canada for the same reason they did other countries; namely, to escape oppression and seek a better life. Italy was a young country and the migrants had little allegiance to it. This lack of allegiance was especially marked among those immigrants coming from the poor South, including Sicily. These migrants viewed the central government as foreign invaders and oppressors. It is true that the standard of living in Sicily, for example, had fallen drastically in the nineteenth century and the new Italian state did little to improve it.

The first wave of immigrants entered Canada in the 1880s and consisted of males who planned to make their fortune and return to their hometowns. Soon, however, these immigrants sent home for their wives and children and settled in. They took whatever jobs offered themselves and supported themselves as best they could. Various self-help groups rose among the immigrants. Some of these were religious; others were regional. Burial societies played a prominent role and ensured that widows would have some money toward raising children.

Immigrants spread rapidly across the country, seeking better opportunities and using the familiar chain pattern of most immigrants. A family and friendship group would move first to one area and others would follow. The movement would be repeated so that most migrants would find familiar faces in new areas.

Italian-Canadians participated in both World Wars with distinction. However, during World War II the Canadian government saw fit to imprison 700 Italian-Canadians, some for four years. These imprisoned people included people from all walks of life - doctors, lawyers, shoemakers, publishers, and others. Mussolini's declaration of war on June 10, 1940 made these otherwise good citizens into "enemy aliens." These 700 who were interned without trial were a portion of the over 7000 Italian-Canadians, most of them citizens, who were taken from their homes, arrested in many cases, fingerprinted, and put under suspicion. Most had taken no part in active politics and were guilty of nothing other than the fact that their parents or grandparents had emigrated to Canada from Italy. In 1990 the Canadian government issued an apology. The incident was a glaring example of the prejudice and discrimination that faced Italian-Canadians.

In spite of these handicaps, Italian-Canadians managed to climb to high positions in Canadian life. As in other countries with other cultural systems, Italian-Canadians entered the professions, accepted much of Canadian culture, learned the language, and became generally accepted into the broad society.

Italian-Canadians are found in all parts of the Canadian economy. They are professionals, bankers, farmers; white-collar workers, blue collar workers, fishermen, politicians, police, and whatever other category may be found. It is hard to imagine an industry or economic activity in which at least some of the twelve million Italian descendants do not participate.

Italian-Canadians are engaged in trade activities on the more local level as well as on the national level. There are over 50 Italian companies involved in trade in Canada, a fact the Calgary committee attempting to get the 2005 World's Fair has stressed. Italian-Canadians are actively engaged in that trade as well as participating in the general trade economy.

Formerly, it was a matter of pride for men to boast that their wives did not work outside the house. Women were proud of their cooking and housekeeping activities. Although women participated in, and even often dominated, the important decision-making, they liked to give the impression that men dominated women and made the important decisions. As economic conditions changed and Italians became more assimilated into the community, women began to take their place in the workforce after marriage as well as before. They also began to attend college and graduate schools, enter the professions, industry, government and other aspects of Canadian life.

In general, Italian-Canadians prize land ownership. In Italy land ownership was concentrated in a very few hands. In Canada, the relative ease of owning land was considered a blessing. Italian-Canadians tend to distribute property equally among their children, often trying to work out potential problems before their deaths.

Italian-Canadians trace descent through both sides of the family. There is a patrilineal bias in that last names or family names are that of one's father and women generally take their husband's family name on marriage. However, both sides of the family are important to an Italian-Canadian. One's mother side, for example, is generally seen as a place of refuge, especially with a person's mother's sisters. A male, especially, treats these women like his mother and generally can do no wrong with them.

Generally, members of the family may be related on both sides of the family, following a general Italian trend. Such arrangements strengthen the marriage and family ties and enables a person to calculate relationship with another to increase or decrease obligations. This strategizing quality is part of the overall kinship system. Multiple ties to another are favored within the Italian system.

Coparenthood and other fictive kinship ties add to the multiple ties that bind one Italian- Canadian to another. Traditionally, asking someone to be a godparent was an honor that could not be refused. It carried with it certain obligations to the child and its parents that most Italians took more or less seriously. It made a relative even more of a relative and a non-relative into a relative. It added to the options available through kinship ties.

Italian-Canadian kinship terminology is generally of the Eskimo variety. A person addresses and refers to both his parents' siblings as "aunts" or "uncles," depending on their sex. cousins are lumped together as "cousins," and no distinction is made in referring to or addressing grandparents. Formerly, it was more common to use Italian terms for relatives, at least when emphasizing the kinship ties. Thus, a grandmother was called "NONNA," a male cousin, "CUGINO," an aunt, "ZIA," and one's godfather, "PADRINO." Such usage is dying out among the younger generation.

Although there is a great deal of intermarriage between Italian-Canadians and other Canadians, a majority of the group still marries within the group. Those who do marry outside the group tend to marry other Catholics. Although marriage of cousins on one's mother's side was relatively common in the past, it has declined under the knowledge of its offending sensibilities and the younger generation's own distaste for the practice. However, there is still a great deal of marrying people with whom one grew up and who meet one's parental approval. The old practice of dowry has long faded into memory but a young girl often brings something to the marriage, even if that is mainly a mere ceremonial today.

The nuclear family is the core of the current Italian-Canadian unit. However, it is not uncommon to have other family members live with that unit. In the early days of marriage, the new family may live with a parent, typically the girl's parent. Later an elderly parent may live with his or her children and unmarried grandchildren. Sometimes an unmarried sibling may live with a family. Various combinations are possible and aid to one's family is still a major value in Italian-Canadian life. If people live together, there is an obligation to help support the unit. Those who shirk their duties are not highly regarded in Italian culture. Children are highly valued and while the typical family has two or less children in contrast to the larger families of the past, these children are carefully watched. Each family member represents the family and woe to the child who disgraces the family. Conversely, the child will be defended in public and aided in succeeding in life to the parents' full power.

Although much has changed in Italian-Canadian life, women still rule the roost. Economic conditions have led to women entering the marketplace and becoming leaders in many professions and occupations. Nonetheless, although Italian-Canadian men may aid in the housework women still do a disproportionate share of the work. They have also kept control of the household economy and raising of the children. Some men still bask in the illusion that they make major decisions but a more egalitarian relationship is emerging in which greater open equality is acknowledged.

Italian-Canadians generally participate in the Canadian political system. They have various political and cultural pressure groups that seek to advance their interests. The Sons of Italy and similar organizations have Canadian branches. Old regional societies that unite people from particular areas still exist. Church organizations that promote old celebrations on St. Anthony's feast day and those of other popular favorites still thrive. There are other celebrations that have political as well as cultural and religious overtones. These organizations, however, function within the general multicultural framework of the Canadian political system.

The overwhelming majority of Italian-Canadians are Catholic. The Italian-Canadians have generally followed the "mainstream" Catholicism of their co-religionists. There are traces of local saints still found in some festivals and processions. The exuberance of these festivals is less likely to offend French sensibilities than it did those of Irish Catholics in the United States. Nonetheless, there is a general assimilation of Italian-Canadians into more common Catholic practices in Canada.

There is a Protestant segment, less than three percent, among the Italian-Canadians. A large number of these Protestants, descend from Waldensians in Italy. Others have been converted to evangelical sects in Canada because of their promise of emotional and economic support. These groups provided a community of people who helped each other in adapting to Canadian society while aiding people get food and jobs.

Documents referred to in this section are included in the eHRAF collection and are referenced by author, date of publication, and eHRAF document number.

The Italian Canadian file consists of 22 English language documents representing a wide range of ethnographic topics with specific reference to immigrant settlements in the major Canadian cities of Toronto (the major focus), Montreal, and Vancouver as well as the smaller urban centers of Fort William and Port Arthur (Thunder Bay). These studies, which range in time from the 1860s to the late 1990s, include information on the history of Italian immigration to Canada, acculturation and assimilation, concepts of ethnicity, social change, religion, and settlement patterns. The file documents contained herein should be used in conjunction with one another to get and overall perspective of Italian Canadian life in Canada, since there is no single comprehensive work providing this information. Some of the ethnographic topics discussed in this file are: "italiese" as a development of a unique variation in the Italian language (Vizmuller-Zocco, 1990, no. 11); architecture and the use of the arch (Del Giudice, 1993, no. 12); a critical review of the use of life history material as a method in anthropology (Eyles, 1993, no. 16); ethnomusicology (Del Giudice, 1994, no. 17); arts and artists (LaCroix, 1992, no. 21); literature (Iannucci, 1992, no. 23; Boelhower, 1992, no. 24); labor and the Italian labor force in Canada (Icovetta, 1993, no. 5; Pucci, 1981, no. 13; Ramirez and Del Balzo, 1981, no. 14; Harney, 1981, no. 15; Ramirez, 1992, no. 19); and Italian and French Canadian relationships in Quebec (Linteau, 1992, no. 22).

For more detailed information on the content of the individual works in this file, see the abstracts in the citations preceding each document.

The Italian Canadian culture summary was written by Frank Salamone in July 1999. Frank Salamone also provided many of the bibliographic suggestions used in compiling this file. The synopsis and indexing notes were written by John Beierle in May 2000.

• boarding houses -- categories 485, 362

• Brandon Union Group -- category 467

• CAMPANILISMO -- parochialism; concept of regionalism -- category 186

• CASA D' ABRUZZO -- category 747

• CASE D' ITALIA -- fascist centers -- categories 668, 575, 747, 529

• CENTRO SCUOLA -- categories 529, 575, 814

• CIRCOLO COLOMBO -- Columbus club -- 575, 456, 795

• Columbus center -- cultural and recreational center build and operated by the ICBC (see Villa charities) -- categories 529, 368

• COMPARAGGIO -- ritual kinship -- category 608

• ethnic brokers -- categories 554, 472

• FASCI -- fascist clubs -- categories 668, 575

• fascism -- category 668

• fascist centers -- see CASE D' ITALIA

• FESTA -- religious observances or ceremonils -- category 796

• Government intervention in strike settlement -- categories 468, 656

• internment camps -- category 697

• Italian Aid and Protective Society -- category 456

• Italian Canadian relations with the host (Canadian) society -- category 629

• Italian Canadian Benevolent Corporation (ICBC) -- category 747

• Italian Immigrant Aid Society (IIAS) -- category 747

• ITALIANITA , concepts of -- category 186

• knife grinders -- categories 463, 445

• labor agents -- categories 464, 466

• MAL'OCCHIO -- the evil eye -- category 754

• mutual aid societies -- category 456

• PADRONE system -- category 466

• "slave children" -- categories 858, 533, 466 (depending on context)

• Sons of Italy, order of -- categories 575, 456

• VILLA charities -- name given in 1995 to the constellation of activities and centers run by the ICBC (Italian Canadian Benevolent Corporation), such as Columbus Center, Villa Colombo, Vita Community Living, etc. -- categories 362, 366, 368

• VILLA COLOMBO -- old age homes -- category 737

Bagnell, Kenneth. Canadese: A Portrait of the Italian Canadians. Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1989.

Del Negro, Giovanna. Looking through My Mother's Eyes: Life Stories of Nine Italian Women in Canada. New York and Toronto: Guernica Editions, 1997.

Harney, Robert F. Italians in North America. Toronto: Multicultural Society of Ontario, 1988.

Harney, Robert F. Little Italies in North America. Toronto: Multicultural Society of Ontario, 1981.

Mastrangelo, Rocco. Italian Canadians (Multicultural Canada Series). Gage Distribution Series, 1979.

Mc Andrew, Bill. Canadians and the Italian Campaign: 1943 to 1945. Montreal: Art Global, 1996.

Sturino, Franc. Italian-Canadian Studies: A Select Bibliography. Toronto: York University and Multicultural Society of Ontario, 1988.