Becoming Italian, becoming American: ethnic affinity as a strategy of boundary making

ABSTRACT

Based on the case study of Albanian immigrant incorporation in a Little Italy in the Bronx, this paper develops the concept of ethnic affinity. It argues that boundary-work between ethnic Italians and Albanian immigrants resulted in intergroup relations that coupled Albanian occupational incorporation with the (re)construction of respective group identities as culturally similar – and distinct from Latino and African-American groups in the neighbourhood. Engaging recent literature on ethnic boundary making, I argue that ethnic affinity constitutes a new strategy of boundary reinforcing, in addition to established strategies of boundary crossing, blurring, and shifting (Zolberg and Woon 1999; Wimmer 2008). Developed in the context of shifting ethno-racial neighbourhood makeup, this affinity between ethnic Italians and Albanian immigrants relied on American constructions of shared European whiteness, overturning contemporary divides between Italians and Albanians in Europe. Ethnic affinity provides a conceptual framework that goes beyond notions of ethnic succession, passing, or assimilation.

KEYWORDS:

• Ethnic boundaries
• ethnic affinity
• boundary making
• immigrant incorporation
• little Italy
• Albanians

Acknowledgements

The author extends his gratitude to colleagues at HWS’ Social Science Research Colloquium and the Fisher Center, and especially the anonymous reviewers of ERS for their detailed, productive feedback. The author is grateful to his research subjects who shared their views and experiences with him. The author takes full responsibility for interpreting what they told him.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 In Farsi Passare per Italiani (“Passing for Italians”), Romania (2004) claimed that Albanians avoid intense stigmatization in Italy by employing a strategy of social mimesis. Becker (2015) claimed that Kosovar Albanians engage in assumed ethnicity by passing as Italian in the restaurants of Manhattan’s Little Italy.

2 In migration studies, “ethnic affinity” has referred to the relationship between diaspora groups and their homelands, such as Japanese-Brazilians to Japan and Bosnian-Serbs to Serbia (Hawrylyshyn 1977; Tsuda 2001; Cook-Martin and Viladrich 2009). This paper redeploys the term to capture the dynamics between two putatively different groups and describe the negotiation of that difference.

3 For a history of Albanian immigration to Michigan, and more generally to the United States, see Trix (2001).

4 Becker (2015) describes links between Albanians working on Arthur Avenue and Mulberry Street in Manhattan. She limits her discussion to Kosovar Albanians, but indicates a similar, if more significant, sense of Albanian “ownership” of the restaurant niche.

5 All names have been anonymized to protect confidentiality.

6 Though Father Rizzo is specifically talking about the integration of Catholic Albanians into the church, he does not distinguish between them and Muslim Albanians in a lengthy interview.

7 As King and Mai (2009, 121–122) note, Italy’s problematic response to Albanian migration in the 1990s unfolded in conjunction with Italy’s renewed efforts to gain credibility as a member of European Union, pursuing “a new national identity – ‘efficient’, ‘European’, ‘global’” while Albania and Albanians were becoming its “other”.