No model or stereotype can ever adequately represent the multiple realities of Italian, or any other, ethnic-America. There is too much in the way of permutations of generations, continuity, and change. But, I hope I show in the following photographs, how Little Italy speaks to the idea of Italian America and how Visual Sociology helps us to understand both its structural and cultural realities. If I may suggest; the idealized ethnic urban spaces, both "Representations of Spaces" as well as "Spaces of Representation", can be summarized as follows: Oblivion, Ruination, Ethnic Theme Parks, Immigration Museums, and Anthropological Gardens.

Semiotically speaking, my models of Little Italies are as follows:
1. Oblivion
Oblivion means "the state of being forgotten." Every day thousands of trucks and cars drive through spaces which once contained vital and vibrant Italian American neighborhoods; communities of homes and businesses which were destroyed in their prime to make way for "improvements". Razing neighborhoods and tearing wide gashes in the fabric of local Italian American life was a common pattern in major cities. For the most part, this "Urban Renewal" merely enabled other, more geographically mobile city residents to flee more quickly to the suburbs.