Serving Ethnicity

Author(s):  
Simone Cinotto

This chapter examines how Italian restaurateurs used food to represent Italian American identity and nation outside the community. In the interwar years, the position of Italian Americans in the larger life of New York City was still far from secure and subject to a complicated range of attitudes. The exclusionary Immigration Act of 1924 was filled with fearful allusions to the racial inadequacy of Italian immigrants and their inability to make good American citizens. At the same time, however, Italian immigrant restaurateurs and restaurant workers were beginning to transform cultural differences into highly marketable products for mass consumption. This chapter first provides an overview of the economy of Italian restaurants during the period 1900–1940 before discussing how popular culture, race, and performance converged at such establishments. It also considers customer–worker relations in Italian restaurants and shows that Italian restaurants attracted non-Italian middle-class customers by offering popular Italian food in an original and ultimately appealing ethnic narrative.

1997 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 195-223
Author(s):  
Lillian Taiz

Forty-eight hours after they landed in New York City in 1880, a small contingent of the Salvation Army held their first public meeting at the infamous Harry Hill's Variety Theater. The enterprising Hill, alerted to the group's arrival from Britain by newspaper reports, contacted their leader, Commissioner George Scott Railton, and offered to pay the group to “do a turn” for “an hour or two on … Sunday evening.” In nineteenth-century New York City, Harry Hill's was one of the best known concert saloons, and reformers considered him “among the disreputable classes” of that city. His saloon, they said, was “nothing more than one of the many gates to hell.”


Think India ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 875-879
Author(s):  
M. Thendral ◽  
Dr. G. Parvathy

DeLillo is a well- known American novelist of fifteen novels, who is widely regarded by other critics as an important satirist of modern culture. Throughout his novels, he has picturized the chaos underwent by the society i.e. the effects of media, technology and popular culture on the daily lives of contemporary American society. All of his novels move in and around New York City as a setting. The study attempts to examine the development of New York City and individuals in a post-modernistic perspective.


2016 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 108-128 ◽  
Author(s):  
XI PAN ◽  
JASLEEN K. CHAHAL ◽  
ROSE MARIE WARD

ABSTRACTThe concept of quality of urban life (QoUL) can be interpreted quite differently across different cultures. Little evidence has shown that the measure of QoUL, which is based on Western culture, can be applied to populations cross-culturally. In the current study, we use data from the 2006 Assessing Happiness and Competitiveness of World Major Metropolises study to identify underlying factors associated with QoUL as well as assess the consistency of the QoUL measurement among adults, aged 60 and older, in ten world major metropolises (i.e. New York City, Toronto, London, Paris, Milan, Berlin, Stockholm, Beijing, Tokyo and Seoul). Exploratory factor analysis and multiple-group confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) are used to analyse the data. Findings of the study suggest that the measure of QoUL is sensitive to socio-cultural differences. Community factor and intrapersonal factor are two underlying structures that are related to QoUL among older adults in ten metropolises cross-culturally. Results from the CFA indicate that Toronto is comparable with Beijing, New York City, Paris, Milan and Stockholm in QoUL, while other cities are not. The results provide insights into the development of current urban policy and promotion of quality of life among older residents in major metropolitan areas. Future researchers should continue to explore the relationship between QoUL and socio-cultural differences within international urban settings, while remaining cautious when making cross-cultural comparisons.


Urban Studies ◽  
1977 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 393-394
Author(s):  
Elinor Ostrom ◽  
Stephen Percy

1969 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 78-81
Author(s):  
Salvatore J. LaGumina

A Report on the Proceedings of the American Italian Historical Association Conference held October 26, 1968 at Casa Italiana, Columbia University, New York City, New York.


Author(s):  
Simone Cinotto

This epilogue examines how the distinctiveness of Italian food has been shaped by continuous transformations and adaptations to a changing Italian America and American culture since World War II. From domestic kitchens to luxurious restaurants, Italian immigrants framed a food culture that created a nation and shaped their self-representation as a group. However, Italian American food culture underwent various changes. The meanings of Italian American food were reworked in the neoliberal landscape of deindustrialization, globalization, and a postmodern culture in which “the self” was created through consumption and where cultural difference became just another commodity. A new group of middle-class Italian immigrants to New York City started to reshape Italian food in America by detaching it from its immigrant origins and relocating it within the “authentic” traditions of Italian regional cuisine. Despite all these changes, and even as the ground for Italian American identity has shifted, Italian American food continues to convey a lifestyle, a taste, and a history.


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