Little Italy

Italian-American neighborhoods in the US
Little Italy

https://www.triplemint.com/blog/the-history-of-little-italy-nyc/

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Little Italy is a name used to refer to areas primarily populated by Italians or people of Italian ancestry. At the core is many important aspects of the Italian culture. It essentially is a version of the country of Italy placed in the middle of a large non-Italian city. Italian immigrants entering a new country tended to gather in areas together with other Italian immigrants to share parts of their traditions with each other. Italians brought their traditions, recipes, and language, which crafted the Italian-American lifestyle. 

Donna Gabaccia shares that before 1880, there was no Little Italy anywhere in North America. Once the term Little Italy was invented in the mid-1880s in New York, the phrase captured English speakers’ attitudes toward immigration from Italy. The term first appeared in the New York Times with present-day meaning in 1886 on October 21. For many New Yorkers, Little Italy meant one specific place, whereas for tourists it meant another. It was not until 1990 that the term Little Italy become the most frequently used label for an immigrant Italian residential cluster.

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Media gallery

Sources

Kosta, Ervin. "The Immigrant Enclave as Theme Park: Culture, Capital, and Urban Change in New York's Little Italies," in Simone Cinotto (eds.), Making Italian America: Consumer Culture and the Production of Ethnic Identities. New York: Fordham University Press, 2014.

Becker, Elisabeth. "Little of Italy? Assumed ethnicity in a New York City neighbourhood," in Ethnic and Racial Studies, Vol. 38, no. 1, pp. 109-124.

Gabaccia, Donna. "Inventing Little Italy," in The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, Vol. 6, no. 11, January 2007, pp. 7-41.

Gabaccia, Donna. "Global Geography of ‘Little Italy’: Italian Neighbourhoods in Comparative Perspective," in Modern Italy, Vol. 11, no. 1, February 2006, pp. 9-24.

“Little Italy.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, November 10, 2021. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Italy. 

Team, The Marketing. “The History of Little Italy NYC.” Julep by Triplemint, March 22, 2017. https://www.triplemint.com/blog/the-history-of-little-italy-nyc/. 

Author Dellannia Segreti and Giulia Crisanti