|
|
|
Inventing "Little Italy"1
by Donna R. Gabaccia, University of Minnesota
Digitized texts open new methodologies for explorations of the history of ideas. This paper locates the invention of the term "Little Italy" in New York in the 1880s and explores its rapid spread through print and popular culture from police reporting to fictional portraits of slumming and then into adolescent dime novels and early film representations. New Yorkers invented "Little Italy" but they long disagreed with urban tourists about its exact location. Still, from the moment of its origin, both visitors and natives of New York associated Little Italy with entertainment, spectacle, and the search for "safe danger." While the location of Little Italy changed over time, such associations with pleasure and crime have persisted, even as the neighborhood emptied of its immigrant residents.
|
|
|
|
Google the phrase "Little Italy,"2 and your computer will tempt you with 5.8 million hits for perusal. Number one on the long list is the "official" New York City webpage featuring restaurants along Mulberry Street and pictures of the 2004 San Gennaro festival. In fact, well over half of Little Italy webpages and almost all webpages containing the words piccola Italia take readers to information about restaurants or food. Roughly a quarter of a million (or about 4 percent) discuss crime, mafia, murder, and criminals; among these, the "official" New York webpage offers a Soprano's tour. |
1
|
|
In this paper, I argue that Little Italy and the phenomenon of urban tourism—specifically the search for a particular kind of safe danger as a form of casual entertainment—were fraternal twins, born in a complex linguistic embrace more than a century ago.3 This association is entangled in complex ways with the racialized "Italophobia" of English speakers that I emphasized in a recent look at the global geography of the phrase.4 Constantly evolving, the associations of Little Italy with both pleasure and danger survived the end of the mass migrations from Italy. By tracing the invention, early diffusion, and changing meanings of the phrase Little Italy, this paper demonstrates the rich possibilities for linking the mobility of people (more typically the focus of social historians) to the mobility of ideas (more typically the concern of intellectual historians). How do ideas travel? Some are carried along with the people who invent or use them. Others travel through disembodied media—newspapers, filmed and photographed images, and most recently the internet. My short history of this simple phrase seeks to demonstrate how these modes of transmission might matter. |
2
|
|
A history of the invention and use of a single phrase such as Little Italy immediately encounters two problems, one philosophical and one methodological. Hostile questioners usually wonder whether or not it matters how we label a phenomenon. Philosophers have written extensively on this issue, and no contribution from an historian is likely to add much. Here, I contend that the terms people apply to phenomena do matter. First, very few labels face no competition. Second, each alternative label for a phenomenon resonates with different associations. Finally, the meanings of terms change over time. Humans, not deep semantic structures or physiological hard wiring, made Little Italy the most popular among many labels for urban neighborhoods of immigrants from Italy. In considering Little Italy, its alternatives, and their differing resonances, we can see the inventions, representations, and constructions that have fascinated cultural historians and the human agency that captivated their predecessors in social history. |
. . . |
There are about 14313 more words in this article.
Please log in (or, if you are not yet an
authorized user, please go to the
User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
|
