Italian American culture: the story of a dual identity

What does it mean to be both Italian and American? For a century, millions of families have lived in that in-between space. They have been carrying the weight of a double identity, one that is rooted in the family traditions of southern Italy and shaped by the ever-changing culture of the United States. 

It’s an identity that belongs to both places and, at the same time, an identity that never really fits into either. And this is why their experience has always been somewhat complicated. Italian Americans walk a small line between two worlds: the rhythms of the old country and the demands of the new one, the intimacy of Italian traditions and the American individualism. And right there, in the inbetween, something different was born. It’s not Italy transported to a new country, and it’s not a culture that disappeared into the American mainstream. Instead, it’s a hybrid: a culture that bridges differences.

Carrying Italy hidden inside

When Italians first arrived in the United States, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, they arrived with more than just suitcases. With them, they carried a strong tie to their villages and their beloved country: dialects, recipes, festivities, codes of honor… and, above all, a strong loyalty to their origins.

Their fierce loyalty, however, only brought challenges along. Italian immigrants were met with suspicion and hostility. They were seen as untrustworthy and unwilling to assimilate. And in such an hostile environment, Italians stuck to their origin even more strongly. Mothers kept cooking the recipes they learned from their own mothers, fathers spoke of their “house” as if it was paradise. And their children? They were growing up American. They pledged allegiance at school, learned how to play baseball and picked up English much faster than their parents. And so their double life was formed: strongly Italian inside and American on the outside.

“Translating” their culture

Their new life in the United States forced Italians to become “translators of cultures”, whether they wanted to or not. They kept holding on to their own culture but the simple act of living in a new country reshaped that culture in unexpected ways.

Food became very soon the most visible of those transformations. Sunday tables in the United States started to feature dishes that never existed back in Italy. Spaghetti and meatballs, chicken parmigiana, and thick slices of pizza were all born out of the abundance families were experiencing for the very first time in the new country. And while they looked fundamentally different from the tradition, they still carried the flavors of home. Somehow they represented Italian American pride. But even as these new meals became new cultural standards, children carrying garlic-heavy leftovers to school were mocked for eating “weird” food. What was their pride at home became only an embarrassment in the cafeteria.

These same contradictions were true also with public festivities. Those that were solemn religious events back home turned into chaotic street fairs in all the Little Italies across the United States. To the “outsiders” they were simple fun spectacles, but to Italian Americans they were still layered with nostalgia and traditions.

Even in the arts, Italian Americans had to navigate their double role. Figures like Frank Sinatra, while loved by millions of Americans all over the States, were never truly free of their ethnic identities. To some, he embodied success and belonging. But to many more, he was still “Frankie from Hoboken”, a man linked to a working-class and immigrant background, unable to run away from his otherness.

All these moments were not minor details. They really defined the Italian American experience and culture. Living with their double identity was a constant switch between pride and shame, between belonging and exclusion. And for their children, this act would take on new forms as the years passed by.

Shifting identities across generations

The first generation of immigrants always carried Italy inside them. To them, America was only a place they had to be in out of necessity. They never wanted to move there and so, they dreamed of returning back home. Their language, their food, their faith were all anchors that kept them safe and steady in a world that was outright hostile.

Their children, however, grew up with a totally different perspective. They were born in the United States, they went to American schools and grew up surrounded by American peers. And while their parents asked them for obedience and sacrifice, outside their house they were expected to be “free” and ambitious. To them, both values could not co-exist and they had to make a choice: assimilation. They shortened and “Americanized” their names and refused to speak Italian in public to distance themselves from the immigrant stigma. Being accepted as American, for the second generation, meant muting the parts of themselves that felt “too Italian”. But still, even as they yearned for assimilation, they couldn’t completely escape from their “Italianity”.

With the third generation of Italian Americans, the picture changed once again. Their identity, which was once a source of embarrassment, was becoming a badge of pride. Movies like “The Godfather” romanticized traditions and loyalty, television shows brought Italian American identity into houses across the States, even supermarkets began selling pasta and olive oil. Simply put, Italian culture had become fashionable. And for the young Italian Americans, reclaiming their heritage became a way to celebrate their difference. But as they rediscovered Italy, new questions came up: What does it mean to honor traditions that have already been reshaped by the United States? How do you celebrate an identity that is neither fully Italian or American but something in-between?

Returning to Italian heritage

Today, Italian Americans face a brand new set of challenges. In-between all the shifts, the Little Italies have become smaller and the dialects have almost disappeared. Only a few families still hold tight to the traditions that were brought over by the first Italian immigrants. And yet, in the absence of those tight-knit groups and traditions, the desire to reconnect with the culture and other Italian Americans has only grown stronger.

Food is more often than not the very first doorway back. You just have to open your social media to see young Italian Americans filming themselves as they try to replicate family recipes that only live in memory. And some go even further, studying Italian cooking and searching for the original versions of the dishes, the ones before all the changes made inside American kitchens. For them, a simple pot of sauce is a full-on act of preservation.

Language, too, is a bridge to Italy. Very few of today’s teenagers and children grew up learning Italian at home (be it because their grandparents refused to teach it to their own kids or because their parents themselves refused to learn it). But now, most people are starting to learn it once again, not because it’s useful but because it gives them a sense of belonging. Somehow, learning the words their ancestors used makes them feel closer with a past they never fully experienced or knew.

And then, of course, there is travel. More and more Italian Americans make “pilgrimages” to Italy. Not just to visit Rome, Florence or Venice, but to visit the small villages of Calabria and Sicily their great-grandparents left behind. They walk through the squares, try to find the street their hold house was once in, and step in the very same church their relatives used to visit every Sunday. For most of them, these moments bring a sense of wholeness, as if the two halves of their identity can finally live together once again. But for others, they raise brand new questions about their heritage.