Identity in an age of viral caricature
August 20, 2023 3:56 PM Subscribe
Only Italians Will Understand This In a world tipping towards monoculture, it’s not hard to understand the nostalgic appeal of regional accents, local food, and traditions. But when exaggerated to the point of caricature, Italian American culture becomes little more than engagement bait. While Italian Americans have long been generally integrated in the United States, the internet cannot resist the cultural cachet—and hearty follower counts—that comes with emphasizing difference.
Ha! I'm so dumb I never put 2 and 2 together and arrived at meat ball ron being called that because he Italian. I just thought it was the Cheeto being whimsical. Me so not smart.
Oh and I still like Italians even though desantis is one. He is a pretty good test case for racism.
posted by Keith Talent at 4:14 PM on August 20, 2023 [2 favorites]
Oh and I still like Italians even though desantis is one. He is a pretty good test case for racism.
posted by Keith Talent at 4:14 PM on August 20, 2023 [2 favorites]
I still like Italians even though desantis is one.
Please don't say that around any real Italians.
We do not consider him one of us.
Genetics sometimes makes a mistake, creates an error.
He is an error.
Trust us.
posted by Splunge at 4:55 PM on August 20, 2023 [14 favorites]
Please don't say that around any real Italians.
We do not consider him one of us.
Genetics sometimes makes a mistake, creates an error.
He is an error.
Trust us.
posted by Splunge at 4:55 PM on August 20, 2023 [14 favorites]
Even in the 90's when I lived in the Northeast, you had the guys who full throatedly embraced "Italian-American" as an identity (and to hippybear's point how everyone in Boston was a cousin Sully away from being full on Irish). As with all things, social media gives folks a hell of a megaphone.
Most of the Italian Italian reactions I've seen online have been from the angry pitchforks thrown at people who use cream in carbonara and the like. :)
posted by drewbage1847 at 5:20 PM on August 20, 2023 [2 favorites]
Most of the Italian Italian reactions I've seen online have been from the angry pitchforks thrown at people who use cream in carbonara and the like. :)
posted by drewbage1847 at 5:20 PM on August 20, 2023 [2 favorites]
One post about Trump’s “Meatball Ron"
He has some Gaul.
posted by clavdivs at 5:56 PM on August 20, 2023 [10 favorites]
He has some Gaul.
posted by clavdivs at 5:56 PM on August 20, 2023 [10 favorites]
He has some Gaul.
Perhaps he’ll get divided into three parts.
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:42 PM on August 20, 2023 [14 favorites]
Perhaps he’ll get divided into three parts.
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:42 PM on August 20, 2023 [14 favorites]
Also, I'm pretty sure Ms Rhonda Santis is Latina.
posted by hippybear at 7:43 PM on August 20, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by hippybear at 7:43 PM on August 20, 2023 [2 favorites]
The amusing thing about this is how Europeans hear American say "I'm Italian." "I'm German." "I'm Irish" with puzzled bemusement and reply back, "No, you are American. That's it."
posted by zardoz at 1:50 AM on August 21, 2023 [15 favorites]
posted by zardoz at 1:50 AM on August 21, 2023 [15 favorites]
I mean, yes and no, Europe is a land of contrasts, after all. In countries which had very high percentage of emigration to North America in the early 20th Century, there are still family connections to Americans, so the links are fairly clear. For example, in Iceland and Finland, there’s fairly strong cultural awareness of Finnish-Americans and Icelandic-Canadians, and so it isn’t so difficult to make the mental leap to other ethnicities. However, and this is anecdotal, I’ve noticed that in countries where the emigration happened earlier, for instance Germany and the Netherlands, that link is a lot less obvious to people.
posted by Kattullus at 2:59 AM on August 21, 2023 [8 favorites]
posted by Kattullus at 2:59 AM on August 21, 2023 [8 favorites]
I'm the product of a spectacularly failed and dysfunctional Italian-American/WASP cross cultural marriage and I am willing to bet that article was written by someone 1) young, and 2) of Northern Italian heritage. My Sicilian/Neapolitan American grandparents spoke Italian, married Italian, had entirely Italian social circles. My Italian-American parent has trauma from leaving home to an Ivy league university in the 60s and being a bad culture fit. It hasn't been that long.
posted by Rhedyn at 3:22 AM on August 21, 2023 [13 favorites]
posted by Rhedyn at 3:22 AM on August 21, 2023 [13 favorites]
The amusing thing about this is how Australians hear Americans say "I'm Italian." "I'm German." "I'm Irish" with puzzlement and reply back, "Yeah nah, you're American. Get over it."
posted by Thella at 3:22 AM on August 21, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Thella at 3:22 AM on August 21, 2023 [2 favorites]
The amusing thing about this is how Australians hear Americans say "I'm Italian." "I'm German." "I'm Irish" with puzzlement and reply back, "Yeah nah, you're American. Get over it."
Bet they don't say that to Americans who don't look white.
posted by Rhedyn at 3:25 AM on August 21, 2023 [26 favorites]
Bet they don't say that to Americans who don't look white.
posted by Rhedyn at 3:25 AM on August 21, 2023 [26 favorites]
Rhedyn: I'm the product of a spectacularly failed and dysfunctional Italian-American/WASP cross cultural marriage
I wish I could have been a fly on the wall to see the reaction to the phrase “did you eat?” loudly shortened to JEET!?
posted by dr_dank at 3:36 AM on August 21, 2023 [6 favorites]
I wish I could have been a fly on the wall to see the reaction to the phrase “did you eat?” loudly shortened to JEET!?
posted by dr_dank at 3:36 AM on August 21, 2023 [6 favorites]
The amusing thing about this is how Europeans hear American say "I'm Italian." "I'm German." "I'm Irish" with puzzled bemusement and reply back, "No, you are American. That's it."
The amusing thing about this is how Australians hear Americans say "I'm Italian." "I'm German." "I'm Irish" with puzzlement and reply back, "Yeah nah, you're American. Get over it."
Bet they don't say that to Americans who don't look white.
Coincidentally, I was watching a TikTok video just last night from a Korean American woman who was in Italy. She said that, while she was born in America and barely spoke any Korean, and identified herself as American, Europeans insisted she was Korean, while they would insist a white American is just "American."
posted by Fleebnork at 5:30 AM on August 21, 2023 [23 favorites]
The amusing thing about this is how Australians hear Americans say "I'm Italian." "I'm German." "I'm Irish" with puzzlement and reply back, "Yeah nah, you're American. Get over it."
Bet they don't say that to Americans who don't look white.
Coincidentally, I was watching a TikTok video just last night from a Korean American woman who was in Italy. She said that, while she was born in America and barely spoke any Korean, and identified herself as American, Europeans insisted she was Korean, while they would insist a white American is just "American."
posted by Fleebnork at 5:30 AM on August 21, 2023 [23 favorites]
Coincidentally, I was watching a TikTok video just last night from a Korean American woman who was in Italy. She said that, while she was born in America and barely spoke any Korean, and identified herself as American, Europeans insisted she was Korean, while they would insist a white American is just "American."
That darn colonialism, it just gets into everything.
posted by Rhedyn at 5:35 AM on August 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
That darn colonialism, it just gets into everything.
posted by Rhedyn at 5:35 AM on August 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
My father was born in Sicily and my mother's parents were born in Calabria. Italians have a word "Americanatá" that means basically the bastardization of something genuinely Italian. Many Italian Americans I know do this to food and other examples of Italian culture. I have done it myself until I learned otherwise. I believe it stems from the stigma of not fitting into homogenized bland America. We have been fortune to have visited Italy a few times and have seen what Americanization has done to the culture. The proverbial melting pot not only divests an individual from their cultural roots but leaves them without a ground floor on which to build a viable cultural identity.
posted by DJZouke at 5:41 AM on August 21, 2023
posted by DJZouke at 5:41 AM on August 21, 2023
DJZouke I did not know that "Italian sausage" was a strictly Italian American thing until I immigrated to the UK (and it's about the only thing I miss!). But I want to stand up for immigrant cultures that develop into something new as a fine thing in themselves. Italian American culture and food is not a corrupted version of Italian, it's its own thing now. Just like paella became jambalaya in New Orleans, it's not a loss.
posted by Rhedyn at 5:46 AM on August 21, 2023 [21 favorites]
posted by Rhedyn at 5:46 AM on August 21, 2023 [21 favorites]
Just like paella became jambalaya in New Orleans, it's not a loss.
Agreed, but I think a notable difference is that Cajun doesn't try and claim to be French or Spanish, it is proudly its own thing.
posted by Dysk at 5:59 AM on August 21, 2023 [3 favorites]
Agreed, but I think a notable difference is that Cajun doesn't try and claim to be French or Spanish, it is proudly its own thing.
posted by Dysk at 5:59 AM on August 21, 2023 [3 favorites]
Agreed, but I think a notable difference is that Cajun doesn't try and claim to be French or Spanish, it is proudly its own thing.
Well then, American sushi, American Chinese food, there are other examples that don't (to the limits of my knowledge) have their own names to differentiate. Certainly British Indian too. I agree it's good to know that there is a difference though, and to honor the original.
posted by Rhedyn at 6:04 AM on August 21, 2023 [7 favorites]
Well then, American sushi, American Chinese food, there are other examples that don't (to the limits of my knowledge) have their own names to differentiate. Certainly British Indian too. I agree it's good to know that there is a difference though, and to honor the original.
posted by Rhedyn at 6:04 AM on August 21, 2023 [7 favorites]
Sure. I just know how I, as a Dane, react to some of the stuff that Danish-American communities call "Danish" and can imagine it being similar for a lot of other peoples as well. If they owned it as their own thing, that'd be much more fine than the constant attempts to try and legitimise and exoticise it by tying it back to something it is getting to be pretty far removed from.
posted by Dysk at 6:26 AM on August 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Dysk at 6:26 AM on August 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
Italian food in Italy can vary very much from north to south. In general in the north more butter and cream are used as compared to the south where more olive oil. In the USA many people consider Italian food to be spaghetti and meatballs with red sauce and pizza. There is much more to it than that. I have never been north of Rome so I can not speak about the food other than what I have read in cookbooks. However I have friends who have traveled all over Italy. My DNA is southern Italian so I am somewhat prejudiced. I am all for honoring the original. That's why it is called so. Take bread for example. Before we went to Italy I only had Italian American bread. Bread was a revelation as was the pasta. Things have improved in America since we first visited Italy in 1985.
posted by DJZouke at 6:28 AM on August 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by DJZouke at 6:28 AM on August 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
I just know how I, as a Dane, react to some of the stuff that Danish-American communities call "Danish" and can imagine it being similar for a lot of other peoples as well.
For what it's worth, I can tell you that UK supermarkets often have an "American" shelf or end of aisle, and it is always hilarious. Usually marshmallow fluff, Mike & Ike's, and 12 different varieties of BBQ sauce. I do not have it in me to be offended :D
posted by Rhedyn at 6:30 AM on August 21, 2023 [8 favorites]
For what it's worth, I can tell you that UK supermarkets often have an "American" shelf or end of aisle, and it is always hilarious. Usually marshmallow fluff, Mike & Ike's, and 12 different varieties of BBQ sauce. I do not have it in me to be offended :D
posted by Rhedyn at 6:30 AM on August 21, 2023 [8 favorites]
Just like paella became jambalaya in New Orleans, it's not a loss.
The root of jambalaya is jollof rice, not paella. The Europeans deserve credit for all kinds of things, but claiming European roots for foods that come from the forced African diaspora happens too often.
They exist here and there, but living in the west of the US, white ethnic enclaves like the Irish, Italian, Polish, etc. in the east coast and parts of the midwest just aren't such a major thing. The only people I know who are super assertive about their Irish- or Italian-Americanness are from the east coast. Personally, my family has been here for so many generations that it would be silly to claim any special connection to the old country, but I can understand why people lean into that.
The amusing thing about this is how Europeans hear American say "I'm Italian." "I'm German." "I'm Irish" with puzzled bemusement and reply back, "No, you are American. That's it."
Europeans frequently also don't view immigrants who have been there for generations as being legitimately European, so there's that. Making an unkindly gross generalization that isn't true for many people, Europe (which until very recently was a place that exported people) generally has some unfortunate ideas about nationality and race and could serve to take some lessons from countries that have absorbed many waves of immigrants (like Brazil, the US, etc.).
posted by Dip Flash at 6:32 AM on August 21, 2023 [23 favorites]
The root of jambalaya is jollof rice, not paella. The Europeans deserve credit for all kinds of things, but claiming European roots for foods that come from the forced African diaspora happens too often.
They exist here and there, but living in the west of the US, white ethnic enclaves like the Irish, Italian, Polish, etc. in the east coast and parts of the midwest just aren't such a major thing. The only people I know who are super assertive about their Irish- or Italian-Americanness are from the east coast. Personally, my family has been here for so many generations that it would be silly to claim any special connection to the old country, but I can understand why people lean into that.
The amusing thing about this is how Europeans hear American say "I'm Italian." "I'm German." "I'm Irish" with puzzled bemusement and reply back, "No, you are American. That's it."
Europeans frequently also don't view immigrants who have been there for generations as being legitimately European, so there's that. Making an unkindly gross generalization that isn't true for many people, Europe (which until very recently was a place that exported people) generally has some unfortunate ideas about nationality and race and could serve to take some lessons from countries that have absorbed many waves of immigrants (like Brazil, the US, etc.).
posted by Dip Flash at 6:32 AM on August 21, 2023 [23 favorites]
DJZouke interesting that you say it has improved, I was wondering if your experience in Italy was more recent than mine reflecting more American commercialisation. I visited my family's home villages in Campania and Agrigento around 2005 and the issue of Americanisation of Italian things never came up. I do suspect this is an issue of Godfather's Pizza and Chef Boy-R-Dee etc rather than the stuffed clams and braciole my grandparents cooked. I wouldn't blame immigrant subculture for American corporations' commercialisation.
posted by Rhedyn at 6:34 AM on August 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Rhedyn at 6:34 AM on August 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
For what it's worth, I can tell you that UK supermarkets often have an "American" shelf or end of aisle, and it is always hilarious. Usually marshmallow fluff, Mike & Ike's, and 12 different varieties of BBQ sauce. I do not have it in me to be offended :D
Don't forget those goofy "taco" kits, too.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:35 AM on August 21, 2023 [2 favorites]
Don't forget those goofy "taco" kits, too.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:35 AM on August 21, 2023 [2 favorites]
Taco kits have become mainstream enough to not be on the American shelf of the "World Foods" section and have instead moved in next to the jarred curry and pasta sauces.
posted by Dysk at 6:37 AM on August 21, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Dysk at 6:37 AM on August 21, 2023 [2 favorites]
Lidl - McEnnedy - "American Way" (Google image search) - for a great idea of the horrors the European industrial food market lumps under the label "American"
posted by protorp at 6:41 AM on August 21, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by protorp at 6:41 AM on August 21, 2023 [4 favorites]
Dysk: I just know how I, as a Dane, react to some of the stuff that Danish-American communities call "Danish"
Danes emigrated to the US largely in the 1860s and 70s. The traditions modern Danes consider especially Danish were constructed considerably later. I don’t know the particulars of the Danish example, but as a rule European emigres were generally from rural, marginal areas, and their customs tended to lose out when it came to the state sponsorship of recognized national traditions in the late 19th and early 20th century. While I’m not an expert on Danish-Americans, I would guess that they preserve, frozen in time, widespread Danish traditions that were prevalent in rural, 19th century Denmark.
posted by Kattullus at 7:00 AM on August 21, 2023 [11 favorites]
Danes emigrated to the US largely in the 1860s and 70s. The traditions modern Danes consider especially Danish were constructed considerably later. I don’t know the particulars of the Danish example, but as a rule European emigres were generally from rural, marginal areas, and their customs tended to lose out when it came to the state sponsorship of recognized national traditions in the late 19th and early 20th century. While I’m not an expert on Danish-Americans, I would guess that they preserve, frozen in time, widespread Danish traditions that were prevalent in rural, 19th century Denmark.
posted by Kattullus at 7:00 AM on August 21, 2023 [11 favorites]
I didn't get the point of this article. It was basically a buzz feed style scrape from tik tok to yammer on about content that has not much content? I do agree with the "low stakes" point of view. Getting riled up about "meat ball Ron" and mafia allusions is such a reach in this world of synagogue shootings and other hate crimes.
quote from DJ Zourk's comment above:
We have been fortunate to have visited Italy a few times and have seen what Americanization has done to the culture.
Interesting comment. Other than the internet is a cesspool, how does a deli selling their Italian sandwich reverberate to Sicily? Americanization, I get the meaning but is it the best way to put it.
In my experience, folks who are "Proud old world country- Americans" are from families that emigrated after the turn of the century, so it is reasonable they feel closer to that identity, then, say, the way I am connected to my ancestors, most who came to the US before 1850.
posted by rhonzo at 7:28 AM on August 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
quote from DJ Zourk's comment above:
We have been fortunate to have visited Italy a few times and have seen what Americanization has done to the culture.
Interesting comment. Other than the internet is a cesspool, how does a deli selling their Italian sandwich reverberate to Sicily? Americanization, I get the meaning but is it the best way to put it.
In my experience, folks who are "Proud old world country- Americans" are from families that emigrated after the turn of the century, so it is reasonable they feel closer to that identity, then, say, the way I am connected to my ancestors, most who came to the US before 1850.
posted by rhonzo at 7:28 AM on August 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
tying it back to something it is getting to be pretty far removed from
I think this is a situation that Americans of Scandinavian heritage run into pretty often. In many cases, even the language has changed. Today's Norwegian language is not necessarily the Norwegian that great-great-grandmother would have read in family Bibles or little farm-town newspapers in the north-central U.S.
Also, there are rural people in the Scandinavian settlement belt from Michigan to the Dakotas who will tell you how proud they are to be, say, Swedish, and then later in the same conversation warn you about how supposedly "socialist" those countries are.
posted by gimonca at 7:36 AM on August 21, 2023 [3 favorites]
I think this is a situation that Americans of Scandinavian heritage run into pretty often. In many cases, even the language has changed. Today's Norwegian language is not necessarily the Norwegian that great-great-grandmother would have read in family Bibles or little farm-town newspapers in the north-central U.S.
Also, there are rural people in the Scandinavian settlement belt from Michigan to the Dakotas who will tell you how proud they are to be, say, Swedish, and then later in the same conversation warn you about how supposedly "socialist" those countries are.
posted by gimonca at 7:36 AM on August 21, 2023 [3 favorites]
The United States, in particular, has had a profound--albeit underappreciated--impact on Italy and Italian culture. It is estimated that around 50% of Italians who emigrated to the US during the first Italian diaspora (approximately 1880 to 1920) eventually returned to Italy. Meanwhile, many of the "bedrock aspects of Italian culture" arose after the Second World War.
posted by slkinsey at 7:40 AM on August 21, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by slkinsey at 7:40 AM on August 21, 2023 [5 favorites]
I’m an American mutt through and through. One side of grandparents were Sicilian & Lithuanian, though they seemed to carry forward only the Sicilian cooking traditions, and honestly only what they were able to acquire and synthesize living in the US Midwest.
Ricotta cheese on Italian rolls was billed as “wustedde”. It look a bit of curiosity and research to unpack this as a gradual evolution of scarcity from Vastedda ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vastedda ), a street food sandwich of boiled and fried beef spleen, caciocavallo and ricotta.
What was most interesting to me was the near-complete lack of interest by my family in exploring or preparing the more traditional form of the dish. It sounded bizarre, foreign and “wrong” to them. Our specific family tradition was based on the this new thing that had gone through generations of evolution, and that was all that mattered.
These are the kinds of ideas I’m interested in unpacking in terms of the American post-immigrant experience than the article’s focus on TikTok influencers who make their names in olive-face drag.
posted by neuracnu at 7:40 AM on August 21, 2023 [4 favorites]
Ricotta cheese on Italian rolls was billed as “wustedde”. It look a bit of curiosity and research to unpack this as a gradual evolution of scarcity from Vastedda ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vastedda ), a street food sandwich of boiled and fried beef spleen, caciocavallo and ricotta.
What was most interesting to me was the near-complete lack of interest by my family in exploring or preparing the more traditional form of the dish. It sounded bizarre, foreign and “wrong” to them. Our specific family tradition was based on the this new thing that had gone through generations of evolution, and that was all that mattered.
These are the kinds of ideas I’m interested in unpacking in terms of the American post-immigrant experience than the article’s focus on TikTok influencers who make their names in olive-face drag.
posted by neuracnu at 7:40 AM on August 21, 2023 [4 favorites]
Many Italian Americans I know do this to food and other examples of Italian culture.
You should tell them that many of Italy's supposed proud culinary traditions are in fact recent inventions.
posted by praemunire at 7:42 AM on August 21, 2023 [3 favorites]
You should tell them that many of Italy's supposed proud culinary traditions are in fact recent inventions.
posted by praemunire at 7:42 AM on August 21, 2023 [3 favorites]
Tu vuo fa l'Americano sung by Renato Carosone, I think the original version, from 1956.
posted by gimonca at 7:47 AM on August 21, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by gimonca at 7:47 AM on August 21, 2023 [3 favorites]
DJZouke I did not know that "Italian sausage" was a strictly Italian American thing until I immigrated to the UK (and it's about the only thing I miss!).
You should be able to buy meats at local markets and the spice/herb/salts mail order. 15 mins of your audio time.
posted by rough ashlar at 8:01 AM on August 21, 2023
You should be able to buy meats at local markets and the spice/herb/salts mail order. 15 mins of your audio time.
posted by rough ashlar at 8:01 AM on August 21, 2023
While I’m not an expert on Danish-Americans, I would guess that they preserve, frozen in time, widespread Danish traditions that were prevalent in rural, 19th century Denmark.
A single Lundegaard of the Midwestern prairies will consume more marshmallow-laden Lime Jello-and-Cool-Whip flavor than an entire congregation in the Old Country saw all year.
19th century Marshmallows were not bought in the store, but fished from the ocean by brave men who risked their lives to follow the fluffy shoals to their spawning grounds in the North Sea. Once dried for winter preservation, the marshmallows enlivened Lent.
I am given to understand that cream-of-mushroom soup was made in vast kettles by strong-armed farm maidens, but chow mein noodles were traded overland via the Finns, in exchange for reindeer skins and amber.
From my perusal of the Icelandic sagas, it appears that the peanut butter kringle was unknown to the ancestors, and was probably introduced by Irish monks.
posted by Hypatia at 8:02 AM on August 21, 2023 [28 favorites]
A single Lundegaard of the Midwestern prairies will consume more marshmallow-laden Lime Jello-and-Cool-Whip flavor than an entire congregation in the Old Country saw all year.
19th century Marshmallows were not bought in the store, but fished from the ocean by brave men who risked their lives to follow the fluffy shoals to their spawning grounds in the North Sea. Once dried for winter preservation, the marshmallows enlivened Lent.
I am given to understand that cream-of-mushroom soup was made in vast kettles by strong-armed farm maidens, but chow mein noodles were traded overland via the Finns, in exchange for reindeer skins and amber.
From my perusal of the Icelandic sagas, it appears that the peanut butter kringle was unknown to the ancestors, and was probably introduced by Irish monks.
posted by Hypatia at 8:02 AM on August 21, 2023 [28 favorites]
You should be able to buy meats at local markets and the spice/herb/salts mail order.
Thanks rough ashlar, the key spices are really just chili/red pepper and fennel seed, so I approximate it by buying loose pork sausagemeat and mixing in the spices before cooking. Haven't had the time to do the full on sausage making, too many sheep to take care of ;)
posted by Rhedyn at 8:14 AM on August 21, 2023
Thanks rough ashlar, the key spices are really just chili/red pepper and fennel seed, so I approximate it by buying loose pork sausagemeat and mixing in the spices before cooking. Haven't had the time to do the full on sausage making, too many sheep to take care of ;)
posted by Rhedyn at 8:14 AM on August 21, 2023
I don't think the "performative caricature" aspect is limited to or indicative of something unique about Italian-Americans. This is something that seems to be the case for many cultures and identity groups in the United States, plenty of which aren't based on ethnic/national origin. Which is to say that there can be a performative caricature aspect to, say, being Dominican-American, but also to being from a big city in the Boston-Washington Corridor, or being from the American South, or the Midwest, or being one of the self-proclaimed "real Americans" from a small town, or whatever. It can be interesting to observe how the shibboleths of these various groups changes when a television show or movie popularizes something that had not previously been an identifying characteristic. Like, I'm not so sure how many Italian-Americans outside the NYC area said "gabagool" before The Sopranos, whereas now they've all been saying it back to their great-great grandparents from the Old Country. This all may have something to do with the difficulty of finding common ground in a country as large and diverse as the United States.
posted by slkinsey at 8:21 AM on August 21, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by slkinsey at 8:21 AM on August 21, 2023 [7 favorites]
Danes emigrated to the US largely in the 1860s and 70s. The traditions modern Danes consider especially Danish were constructed considerably later. I don’t know the particulars of the Danish example[...]
This is all true, and if what Danish Americans call Danish was simply the old culture I would have no problem. Instead it's weirdly bastardised versions of the food and culture developed in the early 20th century.
(My background in Denmark is also rural as it comes, and while I recognise Jysk dialect as clearly being the basis for some fruity pronounciatons for example, it does not explain the high weirdness or what to me reads like misunderstandings of how the food culture works.)
posted by Dysk at 8:31 AM on August 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
This is all true, and if what Danish Americans call Danish was simply the old culture I would have no problem. Instead it's weirdly bastardised versions of the food and culture developed in the early 20th century.
(My background in Denmark is also rural as it comes, and while I recognise Jysk dialect as clearly being the basis for some fruity pronounciatons for example, it does not explain the high weirdness or what to me reads like misunderstandings of how the food culture works.)
posted by Dysk at 8:31 AM on August 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
Today's Norwegian language is not necessarily the Norwegian that great-great-grandmother would have read in family Bibles or little farm-town newspapers in the north-central U.S.
To be fair, I think the Nordic-American communities have drifted near as far from whatever ancient common ground as modern Nordic societies have.
posted by Dysk at 8:33 AM on August 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
To be fair, I think the Nordic-American communities have drifted near as far from whatever ancient common ground as modern Nordic societies have.
posted by Dysk at 8:33 AM on August 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
Instead it's weirdly bastardised versions of the food and culture developed in the early 20th century.
I think you misstated "new developments of Danish people imaginatively incorporating new readily available foodstuffs and new cultural influences."
posted by praemunire at 8:43 AM on August 21, 2023 [7 favorites]
I think you misstated "new developments of Danish people imaginatively incorporating new readily available foodstuffs and new cultural influences."
posted by praemunire at 8:43 AM on August 21, 2023 [7 favorites]
This is all true, and if what Danish Americans call Danish was simply the old culture I would have no problem. Instead it's weirdly bastardised versions of the food and culture developed in the early 20th century.
I don't know that "bastardized" is quite the best way to characterize this sort of thing. Culture continues to evolve. Just as Danish culture has continued to evolve in Denmark, so has Danish-American culture in the United States. Its unrealistic to suppose that Danish-American culture should or could be some kind of "frozen in time" snapshot of late 19th century rural Denmark. That ignores the influence of other American cultures around them, the physical environment and foodstuffs available to them, the influence of evolved Danish culture from visits as well as continued emigration, etc. What we should expect, rather, is for Danish-American culture to have largely evolved out of late 19th century rural Danish culture rather than reproducing or preserving late 19th century rural Danish culture.
posted by slkinsey at 8:45 AM on August 21, 2023 [9 favorites]
I don't know that "bastardized" is quite the best way to characterize this sort of thing. Culture continues to evolve. Just as Danish culture has continued to evolve in Denmark, so has Danish-American culture in the United States. Its unrealistic to suppose that Danish-American culture should or could be some kind of "frozen in time" snapshot of late 19th century rural Denmark. That ignores the influence of other American cultures around them, the physical environment and foodstuffs available to them, the influence of evolved Danish culture from visits as well as continued emigration, etc. What we should expect, rather, is for Danish-American culture to have largely evolved out of late 19th century rural Danish culture rather than reproducing or preserving late 19th century rural Danish culture.
posted by slkinsey at 8:45 AM on August 21, 2023 [9 favorites]
Dysk: My background in Denmark is also rural as it comes, and while I recognise Jysk dialect as clearly being the basis for some fruity pronounciatons for example, it does not explain the high weirdness or what to me reads like misunderstandings of how the food culture works.
Time makes a mockery of all, and yeah, it’s always odd for me, as an Icelander, to encounter Icelandic-Canadians who have a very particular image of Iceland in their heads, which can be fairly alien to my experience.
On the other hand, in recent years there’s been a revival in Iceland of traditional vínarterta, which had been slowly falling out of fashion in Iceland. It hadn’t vanished, I remember it from my youth, but the version that developed in the 19th century had changed radically over the decades, first due to post-great depression trading restrictions, and then when trading patterns were globalized. But the original still has a fairly unique flavor, and that had been almost lost in Iceland, but preserved by Icelandic-Canadians.
posted by Kattullus at 8:47 AM on August 21, 2023 [2 favorites]
Time makes a mockery of all, and yeah, it’s always odd for me, as an Icelander, to encounter Icelandic-Canadians who have a very particular image of Iceland in their heads, which can be fairly alien to my experience.
On the other hand, in recent years there’s been a revival in Iceland of traditional vínarterta, which had been slowly falling out of fashion in Iceland. It hadn’t vanished, I remember it from my youth, but the version that developed in the 19th century had changed radically over the decades, first due to post-great depression trading restrictions, and then when trading patterns were globalized. But the original still has a fairly unique flavor, and that had been almost lost in Iceland, but preserved by Icelandic-Canadians.
posted by Kattullus at 8:47 AM on August 21, 2023 [2 favorites]
Like, I'm not so sure how many Italian-Americans outside the NYC area said "gabagool" before The Sopranos
My Italian-American family is Brooklyn/Long Island and I have never heard the word "gabagool" ever.
posted by Rhedyn at 8:49 AM on August 21, 2023 [5 favorites]
My Italian-American family is Brooklyn/Long Island and I have never heard the word "gabagool" ever.
posted by Rhedyn at 8:49 AM on August 21, 2023 [5 favorites]
We have been fortunate to have visited Italy a few times and have seen what Americanization has done to the culture.
I was lucky enough to live in Rome for a few yers in the late 80's early 90's, then I avoided the country for over a decade and half before I visited again. The changes were dramatic. Near my apartment share in Trastevere was a bread bakery where you could just walk into this nondescript door and find yourself in the middle of a giant room filled with ovens and flour dusted workers to buy a loaf of some of the chewiest, flavorful bread you could imagine. This was the typical bread you'd be served in any restaurant or trattoria, so chewy and filled with craters that I thought I'd break a tooth on it one day. Go a few blocks in the other direction and there was a place that supplied cornetti to many of the area espresso bars. After hanging out in a local bar at night you'd go there in the wee hours of the morning, smelling the amazingly tantalizing aroma of the baking cornetti, and buy one or several straight from the baker. Travelling all around the country throughout those years there were many similar small localized food traditions that I was introduced to.
Last time I went back I was saddened to see that that bread in the restaurants wasn't the same and had more in common with the fluffy white bland bread that passes for italian loaves in your local supermarket, and that many of the other more local food traditions that I was looking forward to experiencing again were just gone in favor of the easier/cheaper to produce globally generic foodstuffs. This was true for everywhere I travelled that trip, from Rome and environs to Calabria where I'd spent a lot of time and Sicily, where I would go to visit family.
I mean I'm sure I could find the same quality and flavor that I had experienced way back when, but, at least to my memory, in the past you didn't have to search it out, it was the only thing that existed (except for in the most commercial/crappiest type of touristy places or fast food joints).
I haven't been back there in over a decade, and I can't even imagine what it's like now.
posted by newpotato at 8:54 AM on August 21, 2023 [2 favorites]
I was lucky enough to live in Rome for a few yers in the late 80's early 90's, then I avoided the country for over a decade and half before I visited again. The changes were dramatic. Near my apartment share in Trastevere was a bread bakery where you could just walk into this nondescript door and find yourself in the middle of a giant room filled with ovens and flour dusted workers to buy a loaf of some of the chewiest, flavorful bread you could imagine. This was the typical bread you'd be served in any restaurant or trattoria, so chewy and filled with craters that I thought I'd break a tooth on it one day. Go a few blocks in the other direction and there was a place that supplied cornetti to many of the area espresso bars. After hanging out in a local bar at night you'd go there in the wee hours of the morning, smelling the amazingly tantalizing aroma of the baking cornetti, and buy one or several straight from the baker. Travelling all around the country throughout those years there were many similar small localized food traditions that I was introduced to.
Last time I went back I was saddened to see that that bread in the restaurants wasn't the same and had more in common with the fluffy white bland bread that passes for italian loaves in your local supermarket, and that many of the other more local food traditions that I was looking forward to experiencing again were just gone in favor of the easier/cheaper to produce globally generic foodstuffs. This was true for everywhere I travelled that trip, from Rome and environs to Calabria where I'd spent a lot of time and Sicily, where I would go to visit family.
I mean I'm sure I could find the same quality and flavor that I had experienced way back when, but, at least to my memory, in the past you didn't have to search it out, it was the only thing that existed (except for in the most commercial/crappiest type of touristy places or fast food joints).
I haven't been back there in over a decade, and I can't even imagine what it's like now.
posted by newpotato at 8:54 AM on August 21, 2023 [2 favorites]
However Moonstruck, if you take away half the glamour, would be pretty close to 100% accurate.
posted by Rhedyn at 8:55 AM on August 21, 2023
posted by Rhedyn at 8:55 AM on August 21, 2023
Like, I'm not so sure how many Italian-Americans outside the NYC area said "gabagool" before The Sopranos
My Italian-American family is Brooklyn/Long Island and I have never heard the word "gabagool" ever.
I grew up calling it "capacol".
I think there are regional differences in the Italian American experience WRT the bastardization of names. I remember getting into a unnecessarily heated argument with a friend in the late nineties about whether it was "sauce" or "gravy". We grew up with sauce in my Sicilian dialect speaking Western NY household. My friend, who was more familiar with NJ and New England Italian Americans insisted it had to be called gravy or it (or I) wasn't legit
posted by newpotato at 9:00 AM on August 21, 2023 [9 favorites]
These "bastardized" dishes often have to do with using old world cooking techniques on what could be had in the USA. Sushi in the USA has avocado in so many of the rolls because... avocado is there to be had. Corned beef and cabbage is a thing because that was the inexpensive salt meat available and cabbage was often cheaper than potatoes. They're not "inauthentic" -- they're adapted.
posted by Karmakaze at 9:00 AM on August 21, 2023 [9 favorites]
posted by Karmakaze at 9:00 AM on August 21, 2023 [9 favorites]
A bit further afield, there's been a lot more acknowledgment within the wider American Jewish community that a lot of the "universally Jewish" touchstones that a lot of us here use as common cultural ties (bagels, deli, Yiddish) are actually just common Ashkenazi cultural ties, especially with Sephardi Jews making up at least half of the world Jewish community (though granted, only about 20% of the US). "Ashkenormative" is the descriptor that's usually used. The flip side being that it's harder to point to any one Sephardic Jewish cultural norm, since those communities were so dispersed (even the standby of eating rice on Passover isn't true for all groups). And it's simultaneously awesome that we're getting to a fuller sense of representation, and saddening, that in a time when the widespread Jewish community is fracturing along religious and political lines (just as the US as a whole is), it also means letting go of one of the things that had held so many disparate groups together in a sense of being one people.
posted by Mchelly at 9:02 AM on August 21, 2023 [10 favorites]
posted by Mchelly at 9:02 AM on August 21, 2023 [10 favorites]
This will be my last comment since I lost my sense of smell and taste in early 2020 from an ear infection. I had lost my sense of smell and taste from 2013-2015 due to a severe neurosis. However through some great therapy I regained them both. So it gives me no pleasure to even think about food. So bear with me. The best food that we have ever had was in Sicily period.
We have been fortunate to have traveled to Spain, Ireland (where we found the food surprisingly good!, Guadeloupe and Martinique.
Sicilian cuisine is a mix of Norman, Greek, Arabic, North African and other influences. The last time we were there was 2000. We have been to restaurants in NYC that compare favorably but there is nothing like Sicily itself. The wines are now more well known in the USA than in the 1970's when I first started to drink wine. This also pains me even to write about. To go to touted American restaurants that claim to prepare authentic Eye-talian cuisine I was and remain very skeptical. When I could smell and taste there was no need to go to Italian restaurants. We made it at home. When we dined out it was Indian, Moroccan or Thai.
posted by DJZouke at 9:03 AM on August 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
We have been fortunate to have traveled to Spain, Ireland (where we found the food surprisingly good!, Guadeloupe and Martinique.
Sicilian cuisine is a mix of Norman, Greek, Arabic, North African and other influences. The last time we were there was 2000. We have been to restaurants in NYC that compare favorably but there is nothing like Sicily itself. The wines are now more well known in the USA than in the 1970's when I first started to drink wine. This also pains me even to write about. To go to touted American restaurants that claim to prepare authentic Eye-talian cuisine I was and remain very skeptical. When I could smell and taste there was no need to go to Italian restaurants. We made it at home. When we dined out it was Indian, Moroccan or Thai.
posted by DJZouke at 9:03 AM on August 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
I grew up calling it "capacol".
I think it just wasn't a favourite in my family, we were pretty much all salami all the time.
posted by Rhedyn at 9:03 AM on August 21, 2023
I think it just wasn't a favourite in my family, we were pretty much all salami all the time.
posted by Rhedyn at 9:03 AM on August 21, 2023
Time makes a mockery of all, and yeah, it’s always odd for me, as an Icelander, to encounter Icelandic-Canadians who have a very particular image of Iceland in their heads, which can be fairly alien to my experience.
I have a Korean-American friend who speaks Korean, but it's an extremely old-fashioned Korean that his grandparents brought over. So when he speaks Korean, it's like he's using "forsooth" and "prithee" and "thee/thou" and so on.
posted by slkinsey at 9:20 AM on August 21, 2023 [6 favorites]
I have a Korean-American friend who speaks Korean, but it's an extremely old-fashioned Korean that his grandparents brought over. So when he speaks Korean, it's like he's using "forsooth" and "prithee" and "thee/thou" and so on.
posted by slkinsey at 9:20 AM on August 21, 2023 [6 favorites]
The question of Scandanavian immigrants to the US (and Canada) is interesting, but is somewhat tangential to the question of Italian-American identity specifically. Although early Scandanavian immigrants faced some discrimination, they are at this point completely assimilated in to "white Americanness" and never faced the longstanding "are they really white?" level of discrimination that Italian-Americans did. The small clusters of Scandanavian-American identity culture (like that little town near Grinnel college, or the yearly festival in Ballard, Seattle) are more like themeparks (fun to visit and take on that identity for a moment) rather than a totalizing cultural identity like being from an Italian neighborhood in the NY metro area.
posted by Dip Flash at 9:26 AM on August 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Dip Flash at 9:26 AM on August 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
Small clusters? Millions of Minnesotans will react to that with chilly, passive-aggressive disdain.
That said, there probably is a difference between the rural experience versus the urban one. (But Swedes in this part of the country participated in both.)
posted by gimonca at 9:37 AM on August 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
That said, there probably is a difference between the rural experience versus the urban one. (But Swedes in this part of the country participated in both.)
posted by gimonca at 9:37 AM on August 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
I listened to this podcast conversation on “Can you appropriate your own ancestral culture?”, specifically within the Italian American context. The show notes include a link to Ethnic Options: Choosing Identities in America by Mary C. Waters.
And here's an earlier convo with an Italian American herbalist on cultural transmission in the Italian diaspora. The podcast host Lisa Fazio wrote this thoughtful essay on ancestral revival and cultural gatekeeping.
posted by spamandkimchi at 9:42 AM on August 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
And here's an earlier convo with an Italian American herbalist on cultural transmission in the Italian diaspora. The podcast host Lisa Fazio wrote this thoughtful essay on ancestral revival and cultural gatekeeping.
posted by spamandkimchi at 9:42 AM on August 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
The amusing thing about this is how Europeans hear American say "I'm Italian." "I'm German." "I'm Irish" with puzzled bemusement and reply back, "No, you are American. That's it."
In person, this would be like hearing some Star Trek forehead alien roll their eyes and say "You're an Earthling." I know it has to be infuriating to have a bunch of drunk sentimental Americans come over and act like they own the place, and I'm truly sorry to anyone who has had to deal with that or with the equivalent. When I have been to Ireland, I have been careful to keep my hands inside the car, culturally speaking, and not pretend to be anything I'm not. But no random European is the arbiter of cultural experience in a place they aren't from.
posted by Countess Elena at 9:45 AM on August 21, 2023 [5 favorites]
In person, this would be like hearing some Star Trek forehead alien roll their eyes and say "You're an Earthling." I know it has to be infuriating to have a bunch of drunk sentimental Americans come over and act like they own the place, and I'm truly sorry to anyone who has had to deal with that or with the equivalent. When I have been to Ireland, I have been careful to keep my hands inside the car, culturally speaking, and not pretend to be anything I'm not. But no random European is the arbiter of cultural experience in a place they aren't from.
posted by Countess Elena at 9:45 AM on August 21, 2023 [5 favorites]
slkinsey, re your Korean American friend, I definitely know other Korean Americans who have retained some old-fashioned vocabulary due to grandparents or parents! I don't know if it has the "forsooth" vibe, per se, but definitely is anachronistic. Some of it is regional dialects, but in my case, it's that my parents' Korean includes a lot of words from the Japanese colonial period, words that were purged after they immigrated to the U.S.
posted by spamandkimchi at 9:46 AM on August 21, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by spamandkimchi at 9:46 AM on August 21, 2023 [5 favorites]
They're not "inauthentic" -- they're adapted.
Sure - they're authentically a cuisine of the place they're adapted to. Cajun cooking is not French. Danish-American traditions are not Danish, they're American.
posted by Dysk at 10:08 AM on August 21, 2023
Sure - they're authentically a cuisine of the place they're adapted to. Cajun cooking is not French. Danish-American traditions are not Danish, they're American.
posted by Dysk at 10:08 AM on August 21, 2023
I have a Korean-American friend who speaks Korean, but it's an extremely old-fashioned Korean that his grandparents brought over. So when he speaks Korean, it's like he's using "forsooth" and "prithee" and "thee/thou" and so on.
When I went to Italy I took my father and his oldest cousin, who had been raised by their grandmother (Sicilian, lived all the rest of her life in NYC and never learned English). We started our trip in a little hotel in Rome where the clerk was a young guy from Sicily. My cousin's Italian blew his mind, he said it was incredibly disorienting to hear the voice of an old lady from his village back in Sicily coming out of an American who had never been to Italy before.
posted by Rhedyn at 10:32 AM on August 21, 2023 [2 favorites]
When I went to Italy I took my father and his oldest cousin, who had been raised by their grandmother (Sicilian, lived all the rest of her life in NYC and never learned English). We started our trip in a little hotel in Rome where the clerk was a young guy from Sicily. My cousin's Italian blew his mind, he said it was incredibly disorienting to hear the voice of an old lady from his village back in Sicily coming out of an American who had never been to Italy before.
posted by Rhedyn at 10:32 AM on August 21, 2023 [2 favorites]
It may have been the case that your cousin wasn't speaking Italian, per se, but rather the local dialect his grandmother had spoken. It was only in the mid-1980s that Italian became the most commonly spoken language in Italian homes.
posted by slkinsey at 10:45 AM on August 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by slkinsey at 10:45 AM on August 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
Dysk: Sure - they're authentically a cuisine of the place they're adapted to. Cajun cooking is not French. Danish-American traditions are not Danish, they're American.
That’s one way of looking at it, certainly, but to tie it back into the differences between the conceptions of Italians and Italian-Americans of what constitutes Italianess, in the long, messy process that was the transition from monarchies to nation-states, European governments used soft and hard power to mold a centralized conception of what constitutes a given national identity. Emigrants to the Americas didn’t go through that. So from the point of view of the long arc of history, an Italian’s idea of Italianess, a Danes idea of Danishness, or indeed an Icelander’s idea of Icelandicness, is probably more fundamentally warped by outside forces than the the emigrant community’s idea of national identity.
posted by Kattullus at 10:46 AM on August 21, 2023 [3 favorites]
That’s one way of looking at it, certainly, but to tie it back into the differences between the conceptions of Italians and Italian-Americans of what constitutes Italianess, in the long, messy process that was the transition from monarchies to nation-states, European governments used soft and hard power to mold a centralized conception of what constitutes a given national identity. Emigrants to the Americas didn’t go through that. So from the point of view of the long arc of history, an Italian’s idea of Italianess, a Danes idea of Danishness, or indeed an Icelander’s idea of Icelandicness, is probably more fundamentally warped by outside forces than the the emigrant community’s idea of national identity.
posted by Kattullus at 10:46 AM on August 21, 2023 [3 favorites]
It may have been the case that your cousin wasn't speaking Italian, per se, but rather a local dialect.
Undoubtedly, but I think the question of whose local dialect counts as "Italian" is a painful one.
posted by Rhedyn at 10:47 AM on August 21, 2023 [2 favorites]
Undoubtedly, but I think the question of whose local dialect counts as "Italian" is a painful one.
posted by Rhedyn at 10:47 AM on August 21, 2023 [2 favorites]
the long, messy process that was the transition from monarchies to nation-states
Notably, some of the original immigrants in the southern Italian side of my family were born in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.
posted by Rhedyn at 10:51 AM on August 21, 2023
Notably, some of the original immigrants in the southern Italian side of my family were born in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.
posted by Rhedyn at 10:51 AM on August 21, 2023
Sure - they're authentically a cuisine of the place they're adapted to. Cajun cooking is not French. Danish-American traditions are not Danish, they're American.
As an American, this seems like a strange formulation. Danish-American traditions are just that, Danish-American. They contain elements from Denmark, both ye olde Denmark from when people immigrated, and also modern elements from cultural interchange with contemporary Denmark, blended with elements from US culture, both of the time of immigration and now. It's not one or the other, it is its own thing. Places with lots of complex immigration (like the US, Canada, Brazil, etc) have a lot of synchretic elements which are, in my very biased opinion, a huge positive. And, as was noted by someone above, lots of immigration waves had a pattern of people coming here, and then a bunch of them eventually moving back to the old country. It's not a unidirectional movement. (Example typical claim that 1/5 of Swedish immigrants returned, for example.; Wikipedia just says "many" Danish immigrants returned.)
Like in my comment above, I'm recognizing that this is a broad generalization, but from the outside (meaning, I have visited, have lived there, consume lots of culture from there, but am not from there except in a general ancestral sense), Europe seems to be really struggling with the decades-long transition from being a place people emigrated from to a place where people immigrate to.
posted by Dip Flash at 10:59 AM on August 21, 2023 [5 favorites]
As an American, this seems like a strange formulation. Danish-American traditions are just that, Danish-American. They contain elements from Denmark, both ye olde Denmark from when people immigrated, and also modern elements from cultural interchange with contemporary Denmark, blended with elements from US culture, both of the time of immigration and now. It's not one or the other, it is its own thing. Places with lots of complex immigration (like the US, Canada, Brazil, etc) have a lot of synchretic elements which are, in my very biased opinion, a huge positive. And, as was noted by someone above, lots of immigration waves had a pattern of people coming here, and then a bunch of them eventually moving back to the old country. It's not a unidirectional movement. (Example typical claim that 1/5 of Swedish immigrants returned, for example.; Wikipedia just says "many" Danish immigrants returned.)
Like in my comment above, I'm recognizing that this is a broad generalization, but from the outside (meaning, I have visited, have lived there, consume lots of culture from there, but am not from there except in a general ancestral sense), Europe seems to be really struggling with the decades-long transition from being a place people emigrated from to a place where people immigrate to.
posted by Dip Flash at 10:59 AM on August 21, 2023 [5 favorites]
vínarterta, which had been slowly falling out of fashion in Iceland
They can send it all here, thanks.
posted by praemunire at 11:19 AM on August 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
They can send it all here, thanks.
posted by praemunire at 11:19 AM on August 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
Everything I, an Italian, thought I knew about Italian food is wrong is a piece about how many "classic" Italian dishes are fairly recent innovations. That a lot of what's promoted as authentic tradition - even in Italy - is a matter of cultural gatekeeping.
I think of this as being a part of the difficult process of establishing clear identity in an increasingly connected world where more of us go through a homogenization of culture by being exposed to a lot of the same global media; and, also, in the commercialization of identity for a significantly increasing tourism market.
I recall going to Iceland in the aughts, had a great time. When I went there a few years ago, a decade later, I felt like I was bombarded with advertisements go to on an authentic viking game of thrones reality experience or whatever - and that some 8 million visitors per year must really do a number on the less than half a million Icelandic people. The place, identity, and everything else gets packaged, commodified, marketed, sold, and distorted pretty thoroughly.
I'm pretty comfortable with cultural shifts and changing norms, but there are also places and instances where this happens because of money and power, which circles things back to people feeling the need to establish and retain a sense of identity in an increasingly weird world.
posted by entropone at 11:29 AM on August 21, 2023 [4 favorites]
I think of this as being a part of the difficult process of establishing clear identity in an increasingly connected world where more of us go through a homogenization of culture by being exposed to a lot of the same global media; and, also, in the commercialization of identity for a significantly increasing tourism market.
I recall going to Iceland in the aughts, had a great time. When I went there a few years ago, a decade later, I felt like I was bombarded with advertisements go to on an authentic viking game of thrones reality experience or whatever - and that some 8 million visitors per year must really do a number on the less than half a million Icelandic people. The place, identity, and everything else gets packaged, commodified, marketed, sold, and distorted pretty thoroughly.
I'm pretty comfortable with cultural shifts and changing norms, but there are also places and instances where this happens because of money and power, which circles things back to people feeling the need to establish and retain a sense of identity in an increasingly weird world.
posted by entropone at 11:29 AM on August 21, 2023 [4 favorites]
Facebook (which maintains its hold on me via special interest groups) has for some reason been feeding me these stupid Italian-American videos and I find them so crude and offensive. Nobody in my family acted or spoke the way these people imply we all act and speak. I’m mystified as to why anyone would want to identify with this caricature. I get the desire for ethnic identity, but why this coarse, loud, garish one? There were definitely a few people leaning toward this cartoonish identity when I was growing up in New Jersey but it’s so exaggerated now. I don’t get it.
posted by HotToddy at 12:00 PM on August 21, 2023
posted by HotToddy at 12:00 PM on August 21, 2023
Danish-American traditions are just that, Danish-American. They contain elements from Denmark, both ye olde Denmark from when people immigrated, and also modern elements from cultural interchange with contemporary Denmark, blended with elements from US culture, both of the time of immigration and now. It's not one or the other, it is its own thing.
I don't disagree with that, except that I note that I read Danish-American as a modifier in American - it is fundamentally American. Just as chicken tikka masala is British, and banana pizza is Swedish. When something becomes its own thing, it is of the place where that happens.
posted by Dysk at 12:14 PM on August 21, 2023
I don't disagree with that, except that I note that I read Danish-American as a modifier in American - it is fundamentally American. Just as chicken tikka masala is British, and banana pizza is Swedish. When something becomes its own thing, it is of the place where that happens.
posted by Dysk at 12:14 PM on August 21, 2023
Learning of banana pizza has caused me to reconsider any interest I've had in visiting Sweden. Which had quite strong because of a lifelong love of ABBA and wanting to see Benny Anderssons Orkester sometime.
posted by hippybear at 12:20 PM on August 21, 2023
posted by hippybear at 12:20 PM on August 21, 2023
I agree re. reading the modifier, but one thing that this thread has made me really notice is that there's a distinct a difference in the order on either side of the pond.
As in it's always e.g. Danish-American, Italian-American, Chinese-American vs. e.g. British-Indian, British-Caribbean, or indeed Franco-Brittanique, Franco-Espagnole...
I don't know how widely this pattern extends or to what extent it shows something about the underlying linguistic formation.
Also makes me think, what's the Italian-Italian language phrase for Italian-American ?
posted by protorp at 12:26 PM on August 21, 2023 [4 favorites]
As in it's always e.g. Danish-American, Italian-American, Chinese-American vs. e.g. British-Indian, British-Caribbean, or indeed Franco-Brittanique, Franco-Espagnole...
I don't know how widely this pattern extends or to what extent it shows something about the underlying linguistic formation.
Also makes me think, what's the Italian-Italian language phrase for Italian-American ?
posted by protorp at 12:26 PM on August 21, 2023 [4 favorites]
As a fourth generation Norwegian-American who is very definitely Norwegian in a way that I am not Irish-American or Finnish-American, despite having more recent ancestors from Ireland and Finland, I have... feelings about this. But all I can really get down right now is the short version.
For me the "Norwegian" and "American' parts of Norwegian-American are referring to fundamentally different things. "Norwegian" is an ethnic identity and "American" is a political identity.
Yes, there are people who want to see "American" as an ethnic identity, to make it an ethnic identity. But that is a very political act. And it is politics that I do not care for, to put it lightly.
posted by Zalzidrax at 2:49 PM on August 21, 2023 [5 favorites]
For me the "Norwegian" and "American' parts of Norwegian-American are referring to fundamentally different things. "Norwegian" is an ethnic identity and "American" is a political identity.
Yes, there are people who want to see "American" as an ethnic identity, to make it an ethnic identity. But that is a very political act. And it is politics that I do not care for, to put it lightly.
posted by Zalzidrax at 2:49 PM on August 21, 2023 [5 favorites]
Also, I think Bret Devereaux's blog post My Country Isn't a Nation is relevant here. Though I'm having trouble finding the words to frame it. Hopefully it's not too long winded for some.
posted by Zalzidrax at 2:51 PM on August 21, 2023
posted by Zalzidrax at 2:51 PM on August 21, 2023
I don't disagree with that, except that I note that I read Danish-American as a modifier in American - it is fundamentally American. Just as chicken tikka masala is British, and banana pizza is Swedish. When something becomes its own thing, it is of the place where that happens.
This emphasis on place is very strange to me, as if the geographical point of origin is the most fundamental thing about any cultural practice, more-so than the origins, beliefs or context of the people who practice it. It seems to position a modern Danish office worker and a 19th century Danish farmer (presumably alongside a 14th century Danish peasant and a 9th century Danish thrall) as part of one unbroken tradition of Danishness, while asserting that Danes who traveled to America fundamentally broke with that tradition the moment they started adapting their customs to their new environment.
If we found a Dane who raised two children in the 1840's, one who traveled to America and one who stayed in Denmark, and we magically whisked them to 2023 and introduced them to their descendants in both countries, they would presumably find the cultural practices of both to be quite alien, so it seems very strange to me to assert that one set is fundamentally Danish, while the other is fundamentally Not Danish.
posted by firechicago at 3:03 PM on August 21, 2023 [5 favorites]
This emphasis on place is very strange to me, as if the geographical point of origin is the most fundamental thing about any cultural practice, more-so than the origins, beliefs or context of the people who practice it. It seems to position a modern Danish office worker and a 19th century Danish farmer (presumably alongside a 14th century Danish peasant and a 9th century Danish thrall) as part of one unbroken tradition of Danishness, while asserting that Danes who traveled to America fundamentally broke with that tradition the moment they started adapting their customs to their new environment.
If we found a Dane who raised two children in the 1840's, one who traveled to America and one who stayed in Denmark, and we magically whisked them to 2023 and introduced them to their descendants in both countries, they would presumably find the cultural practices of both to be quite alien, so it seems very strange to me to assert that one set is fundamentally Danish, while the other is fundamentally Not Danish.
posted by firechicago at 3:03 PM on August 21, 2023 [5 favorites]
This emphasis on place is very strange to me
Not if you take the inherent racism of the US into account. Everyone always has to prove they're the Most Best White out of everyone, and anyone who has come after has had to find a way toward whiteness across generations or else fail and remain second class people.
My comment earlier about Irish and Italians being white but not quite is very literal. They were utterly Not White when they first came to the US, and it took decades and a lot of rebranding on a lot of levels for either of these European subgroups to be considered "white" in the US, and even then they remain ethnic subgroups easily picked out from the masses and subjected to ridicule if that's what the joke requires.
There are entire doctoral dissertations written about how different European groups have or have not been assimilated into the nebulous umbrella of "white" within US culture. I could argue that Spanish [from Spain] largely has been, while Greek, supposedly the foundation of Western Culture, still has not been. The more you move from southwest toward northeast across Europe, the less there's a question about whether a given European-founded minority might be "white" in the US.
Except for Belgium, which for people in the US basically doesn't exist.
But then, after Scandinavia heading back south and east, people become somehow both more foreign and maybe more white. Is a Czech person in the US ever seen as non-white? Maybe quite foreign, but certainly white, as far as I know.
Anyway, I'm not speaking for everyone, I'm certainly biased in my own ways. But there is a thing about whiteness and European origin that is very tangled, and we're only marginally better at it now than we were 100 years ago.
And yes, whiteness is a construct. Proven by how Italians and Irish were treated when they first moved to the US.
posted by hippybear at 3:28 PM on August 21, 2023 [2 favorites]
Not if you take the inherent racism of the US into account. Everyone always has to prove they're the Most Best White out of everyone, and anyone who has come after has had to find a way toward whiteness across generations or else fail and remain second class people.
My comment earlier about Irish and Italians being white but not quite is very literal. They were utterly Not White when they first came to the US, and it took decades and a lot of rebranding on a lot of levels for either of these European subgroups to be considered "white" in the US, and even then they remain ethnic subgroups easily picked out from the masses and subjected to ridicule if that's what the joke requires.
There are entire doctoral dissertations written about how different European groups have or have not been assimilated into the nebulous umbrella of "white" within US culture. I could argue that Spanish [from Spain] largely has been, while Greek, supposedly the foundation of Western Culture, still has not been. The more you move from southwest toward northeast across Europe, the less there's a question about whether a given European-founded minority might be "white" in the US.
Except for Belgium, which for people in the US basically doesn't exist.
But then, after Scandinavia heading back south and east, people become somehow both more foreign and maybe more white. Is a Czech person in the US ever seen as non-white? Maybe quite foreign, but certainly white, as far as I know.
Anyway, I'm not speaking for everyone, I'm certainly biased in my own ways. But there is a thing about whiteness and European origin that is very tangled, and we're only marginally better at it now than we were 100 years ago.
And yes, whiteness is a construct. Proven by how Italians and Irish were treated when they first moved to the US.
posted by hippybear at 3:28 PM on August 21, 2023 [2 favorites]
s a Czech person in the US ever seen as non-white? Maybe quite foreign, but certainly white, as far as I know.
There are a number of things in that comment that I disagree with, but I don't think a back and forth would be productive and fun for anyone to read. I'll just say to this specific item that there is a reason there were specific slurs for immigrants from Czechoslovakia/Bohemia, as well as other parts of central/eastern Europe, that served to mark them as different and emphasized their low status. They got discriminated against just like many other groups of what now might be called "ethnic whites," and just like with those other groups, that largely but not entirely faded away with time.
posted by Dip Flash at 3:46 PM on August 21, 2023 [4 favorites]
There are a number of things in that comment that I disagree with, but I don't think a back and forth would be productive and fun for anyone to read. I'll just say to this specific item that there is a reason there were specific slurs for immigrants from Czechoslovakia/Bohemia, as well as other parts of central/eastern Europe, that served to mark them as different and emphasized their low status. They got discriminated against just like many other groups of what now might be called "ethnic whites," and just like with those other groups, that largely but not entirely faded away with time.
posted by Dip Flash at 3:46 PM on August 21, 2023 [4 favorites]
The difference between how Roma people have been received in the US and other people from that same area that are not considered Roma is a subject equally worth examining, IMO.
posted by hippybear at 3:49 PM on August 21, 2023
posted by hippybear at 3:49 PM on August 21, 2023
Defonte’s is for real, they kept me fed during lockdown, so I hope their TikTok is bringing in the Youth because I certainly have never seen anyone in the Kids These Days demographic there.
I didn't know what a "parm" was, then they put a meatball parm on an eggplant parm and I still don't know what a "parm" is, but it took me three days to eat and I recommend the experience.
posted by betweenthebars at 4:10 PM on August 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
I didn't know what a "parm" was, then they put a meatball parm on an eggplant parm and I still don't know what a "parm" is, but it took me three days to eat and I recommend the experience.
posted by betweenthebars at 4:10 PM on August 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
Undoubtedly, but I think the question of whose local dialect counts as "Italian" is a painful one.
In this case we have an answer to that question: The Florentine dialect of Dante Alighieri became the language known as "Italian."
posted by slkinsey at 6:24 PM on August 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
In this case we have an answer to that question: The Florentine dialect of Dante Alighieri became the language known as "Italian."
posted by slkinsey at 6:24 PM on August 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
This emphasis on place is very strange to me, as if the geographical point of origin is the most fundamental thing about any cultural practice, more-so than the origins, beliefs or context of the people who practice it.
There is, as you point out, comparatively little that unifies people across time. Place unifies. I am Danish, but live in the UK. If I had kids here, they would likely not be meaningfully Danish, they would be British. Because of living in Britain. I have my own preferences, trad foods, and (more importantly) ways to eat, but I have to adapt to my environment. I live more British than Danish, and that is what my kids would inherit from me. I'm some practical ways, I am more British than Danish, now (though my passport disagrees).
Danish is not a race. Scandinavian arguably is. My siblings were born in China and Vietnam, but have lived most of their lives in Denmark. They are Danish. Nasser Khadar is Danish. My cousins in Canada, born and lived all their lives there? Canadian.
It is not about an ongoing unbroken connection to 14th century peasants, or vikings, or whatever. It is not blood and soil. It is the simple fact that Danish means "of Denmark" and Denmark is a place that still exists, so what "Danish" means it's a moving target, it is the culture of Denmark as it is now.
It is not "the old country" it is in fact a currently existing, modern place, that continues to have its own culture, and if you lose touch with that as it develops, you lose touch with Danishness. It can be just as much because the culture changed away from you as the reverse (though I see every indication that Danish-American identity and habits owe at least as much to American culture as a dead Danish one).
posted by Dysk at 10:20 PM on August 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
There is, as you point out, comparatively little that unifies people across time. Place unifies. I am Danish, but live in the UK. If I had kids here, they would likely not be meaningfully Danish, they would be British. Because of living in Britain. I have my own preferences, trad foods, and (more importantly) ways to eat, but I have to adapt to my environment. I live more British than Danish, and that is what my kids would inherit from me. I'm some practical ways, I am more British than Danish, now (though my passport disagrees).
Danish is not a race. Scandinavian arguably is. My siblings were born in China and Vietnam, but have lived most of their lives in Denmark. They are Danish. Nasser Khadar is Danish. My cousins in Canada, born and lived all their lives there? Canadian.
It is not about an ongoing unbroken connection to 14th century peasants, or vikings, or whatever. It is not blood and soil. It is the simple fact that Danish means "of Denmark" and Denmark is a place that still exists, so what "Danish" means it's a moving target, it is the culture of Denmark as it is now.
It is not "the old country" it is in fact a currently existing, modern place, that continues to have its own culture, and if you lose touch with that as it develops, you lose touch with Danishness. It can be just as much because the culture changed away from you as the reverse (though I see every indication that Danish-American identity and habits owe at least as much to American culture as a dead Danish one).
posted by Dysk at 10:20 PM on August 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
In conclusion: to argue that the Danishness of 100, 200 years ago is still somehow relevant is absurd to me, exactly the same as when it comes out the mouths of Dansk Folkeparti to attack immigration.
posted by Dysk at 10:24 PM on August 21, 2023
posted by Dysk at 10:24 PM on August 21, 2023
I also have a hard time figuring out what the point of this article is, besides, ‘Italian-American culture exists and is subject to the same market forces as every other subculture’. Do Americans not know that Italian-American culture is unique and forged in the tenements? (That’s not a rhetorical question).
The article also contains an ethnic slur, which I’m not thrilled about.
There’s no question which dialect of Italian is ‘real’ Italian, it’s Florentine. My Florentine tutor was say that Florentine is the most pure and elevated form of Italian, and she was making fun of that attitude, but also…not really disagreeing with it.
posted by bq at 6:56 AM on August 22, 2023
The article also contains an ethnic slur, which I’m not thrilled about.
There’s no question which dialect of Italian is ‘real’ Italian, it’s Florentine. My Florentine tutor was say that Florentine is the most pure and elevated form of Italian, and she was making fun of that attitude, but also…not really disagreeing with it.
posted by bq at 6:56 AM on August 22, 2023
lot of the "universally Jewish" touchstones that a lot of us here use as common cultural ties (bagels, deli, Yiddish) are actually just common Ashkenazi cultural ties
There are a few interesting dynamics like this. I am of Italian and Ashkenazi descent (the jokes write themselves) but the Italian side is really the other (northern, Alpine) Italy. Which of course was the more “respectable” Italy, and I think the members of the immigrant generation in my family definitely saw themselves that way to an extent, but it also wasn’t possible to totally avoid subsuming their identity to the larger, Southern dominant Italian-American identity.
posted by atoxyl at 10:13 AM on August 22, 2023 [3 favorites]
There are a few interesting dynamics like this. I am of Italian and Ashkenazi descent (the jokes write themselves) but the Italian side is really the other (northern, Alpine) Italy. Which of course was the more “respectable” Italy, and I think the members of the immigrant generation in my family definitely saw themselves that way to an extent, but it also wasn’t possible to totally avoid subsuming their identity to the larger, Southern dominant Italian-American identity.
posted by atoxyl at 10:13 AM on August 22, 2023 [3 favorites]
Coincidentally, I was watching a TikTok video just last night from a Korean American woman who was in Italy. She said that, while she was born in America and barely spoke any Korean, and identified herself as American, Europeans insisted she was Korean, while they would insist a white American is just "American."
If a European tells you they don't consider you American, for any reason, it's meant as a compliment.
posted by Reyturner at 3:55 PM on August 22, 2023
If a European tells you they don't consider you American, for any reason, it's meant as a compliment.
posted by Reyturner at 3:55 PM on August 22, 2023
If a European tells you they don't consider you American, for any reason, it's meant as a compliment.
That’s a really bizarre interpretation of what seems to just be clear-cut white supremacist racism.
posted by not just everyday big moggies at 4:41 PM on August 22, 2023 [7 favorites]
That’s a really bizarre interpretation of what seems to just be clear-cut white supremacist racism.
posted by not just everyday big moggies at 4:41 PM on August 22, 2023 [7 favorites]
And even when it's intended as a compliment, it generally comes across as a backhanded one, sort of like gushing over how someone from an underprivileged minority is "so articulate!"
posted by firechicago at 5:11 AM on August 23, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by firechicago at 5:11 AM on August 23, 2023 [5 favorites]
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