La Famiglia: Twentieth-Century Transisitons of the Italian-American Family and the Resultant Changes in Gender and Generational Relationships
Graduation Date
Spring 1999
Document Type
Master's Thesis
Document Form
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Program Name
Humanities
First Reader
Patricia Dougherty, OP, PhD
Second Reader
Philip Novak, PhD
Abstract
In the first half of the twentieth century the United States became the recipient of six million Italian immigrants. These men, women and children arrived with few personal possessions but many Old World cultural values regarding family unity, honor, and tradition. This project, coupling historical fact with anecdotal testimony, first explores the turbulent twentieth century journey of the Italian immigrant family, and then examines the sometimes temperate often tumultuous relationship changes that developed between the genders and generations as the immigrants and their American born children assimilated into an evolving American culture.
COinS