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Even where there are large concentrations of Italians in cities, the effective community seldom is larger than a block. For most Italian Americans the ideal residential setting would consist of a few houses on a dead end street. This small scale is related to the accurate stereotype of Italian neighborhoods as multi-generational where vacancies are usually controlled by an almost secretive housing referral system, run primarily by local women (DeSena 1990). In Italian America, the public right of way in front of dwellings is regarded by the owner as a personal (familial) domain. This particularly quaint "village" is less than a hundred yards from a debris-strewn vacant lot which borders the highly polluted Gowanus Canal. In Italian American neighborhoods a great deal of effort is expanded toward shielding the family from the outside world, yet the cues to boundaries are seldom recognized by outsiders who wander across them. Homes are guarded physically by walls and fences, and symbolically by lettered signs which say "keep out." Hostility may also be seen in the stares of old timers who are on guard while sweeping the curbs in front of their houses, or the comments of young men who congregate at the street corner portals into their blocks. |
