Being Italian-American: Mathematical Formula or Creative Process?

In this paper I will focus essentially on the process, rather than the results, of the development of an Italian-American identity. Like all "hyphenated" identities, Italian-Americanness challenges us with several open questions about its very nature. In particular, is becoming an Italian-American a process of adding something American to an Italian identity, losing parts of this supposedly original identity without becoming fully American? Or is it a growing process, a process of becoming something completely different from the Italian identity without just taking on an American identity through Americanization? The construction of national and/or ethnic identities is an extremely complex process, and its results are often ambiguous and heterogeneous. Not unlike other ethnic identities that have emerged in the U.S., the formation of an Italian-American identity was (and still is) complicated by a number of factors connected to Italian history and culture, the history of Italian immigration to the U.S., and relations with mainstream American society and other ethnic groups.