In discussing the domus community of the Italians in Harlem, Orsi delineates the codes and norms the immigrants maintained and distinguishes their lifestyle from the way of the native Americans. I found this tension of immigrant life very interesting in that while the Italians actively came to settle in America, they came not for ideological, but rather for practical, reasons and thus they attempted to transplant themselves proudly in America while refusing to be American; instead seeking to keep every bit of their roots maintained, done through the method of Italian domus lifestyle. Even while living in America, “when immigrants wanted to criticize their children’s new ideas … they accused them of being American,” a jab at the very country in which they chose to reside (78). And in describing the lifestyle they expected for their future generations, planted in American soil, descriptions were based upon Italian circumstances, such as one woman’s “warning to her children to be faithful to Italian ways,” wherein she expected them to “have a house like [her] grandfather had in Italy” (78).

Even then, the notable characteristics of being American were independence, individualism and rejection of traditional nuclear family life, and the first-, and even second-generation Italians chaffed at such American ways. They, instead, relied upon the constraints of domus life to keep them all in line with Italian morals, claiming that Italians were the only ones who knew how to raise a family properly. I found it quite interesting as to how such an open, fluid and vibrant domus community could flourish on the shores of a foreign and counter environment. Orsi gives countless pages of description of the vibrancy of the domus and comments that “the life of the domus spilled out into closely watched streets and hallways” (92). Both private and public life for the immigrants were influenced by their heritage, and while the fourth chapter offers some harsher, more critical perspectives of domus life, it yet admits that “American-born generations … always remained bound by the demands and values of the domus” (129). Somehow, the first-generation immigrants were able to create a tight enough community life that the following generations still maintained ties to whatever extent, even while dabbling in integrating into their American identity.