During our last class, we wondered whether or not each family in Italian Harlem knew of the other families’ public-privaty dichotomy of power concerning men and women. Prior to this reading, I had thought strongly that everyone had to know about the dynamics in each household, since the community’s people had to be at least somewhat similar. When I read this chapter, it became even more clear to me how much the families knew about one another, especially during the time of the festa. Who are the people worshipping? A woman. Coincidence? Not entirely. The worship of a woman as opposed to a man is quite symbolic of the women’s (somewhat hidden) power. The men put on a show of having power outside the home when the most important day of the year in Italian Harlem is dedicated to worshipping a woman. As Orsi describes, the festa is the moment when a woman’s power is most obvious to the entire community.

Like many other aspects of life in East Harlem, Orsi asserts that a woman’s “power” is nothing more than a paradox. This power is also her constraint. The so called power is put upon the women in the community and they are expected to display it. So, it isn’t as if the women have a choice about whether or not they have power. Maybe they would actually prefer not to have this “power” as the title comes with much burden and pressure. The power is more akin to a trap than actual authority. Furthermore, these women are resented by the rest of the community for having this power. In other words, power is forced upon them and they are then chastised for something they have little control over. Overall, women in East Harlem, like most of the community, were essentially powerless. It amazes me that a word (power) we normally think of as meaning that a person is above the “masses” can actually mean so much more in a negative way. The women in East Harlem could certainly attest to that.

It is no secret that the festa was a time when community came together, when “individual domus and the neighborhood” (178) combined to become one large entity and domus.  In Italy, celebrations of this sort were not Italian celebrations, but regional celebration of a town’s saint (an example is the May festival of Saint Ubaldo in Gubbio).  When different regions came together in Italy, however, they could not celebrate in unity individual saints, and instead celebrated la Madonna – the saint of the domus.  The festa emphasized the fact that “no one existed only in the domus” (182) for street life was also extremely important – everyone watched everyone else.

What was the true purpose of the festival, though?  Was it actually to strengthen the community domus?  At first, the festa “was a brave declaration of presence” (182) against the Irish and German Catholics that lived nearby.  It later “defined the boundaries of the community” (183) as the procession marched through all the streets of Italian Harlem.  The true importance of the festa, though, was it’s symbolic representation of the “divine domus.”  It represented stability that perhaps the individual domus lacked.  It represented the power of women – though Orsi goes on to state that the festa also defined women and confined them even more into the definition of a “good woman.”

I agree that there are always several sides to a story, but perhaps Orsi is trying too hard to prove that women were powerless.  Yes, men happened to be in charge of the organizational aspects of the festa, but Orsi doesn’t neglect to tell us that some women were as well.  Does it diminish the fact that these women were more socially mobile than most?  Does this make them less womanly and hence prove that women were still powerless?  I think not.  The entire procession was a celebration of the mother and the woman.  Yes, perhaps la Madonna is a perfect example of a “good woman” and therefore makes it hard for real women to live up to her, but isn’t this true for all women of the time?  The 1930s-1950s were a time of idealized women in general, especially in white America!

Marina B. Nebro

The society of Italian Harlem was a matriarchy—both in the domus and in the wider, more explicit religion of the people. Though the father was traditionally established as the head of the domus, his domain of the family was merely superficial. It was the mother who truly held the power. Orsi emphasizes that in many ways the Italian mother was someone to be feared by her relatives. Undoubtedly, it was the mother who lay down the law; though she required the help of her husband or oldest son for enforcement, she almost always had the final word on a matter. Sons or daughters wishing to marry would have to first introduce his or her beloved to the mother for approval. From there, it was up to the mother to decide if the marriage would occur or not.

At the same time, Orsi writes about the struggle that women faced in the domus. Paradoxically, he speaks of the powerlessness that accompanied their great influence in the family. One of the main focuses of the chapter is the entrapment and lack of space that many unmarried Italian women felt. They were very closely supervised by the males of the family and were rarely, if ever, allowed to leave the home on their own. Orsi portrays a sense of suffocation and greatly emphasizes the limits this placed on the women. I do believe, however, that he was overlooking many factors. For one, it seemed to be this way only because of the deep contrast between the values of the traditional Italian family and the emerging American culture. The more boundless and frivolous the American way of life became, the more it became a necessity for the Italian family to tighten its grip on new generations. The American way of life was indeed a large threat to the establishment of the domus, which, undeniably, contained within it certain elements of happiness for the Italians and other peoples—this included the longevity of marriage, family intimacy and solidarity, and simple living. Back in Italy, it is quite possible that the women did not feel constrained at all, because the intense juxtaposition of culture would not have been present.

I found it interesting how Orsi expanded the discussion to include the spiritual worship of the Italian immigrants. In this dominating Catholic tradition, the people of Italian Harlem worshipped the Virgin Mary, praying to her in their times of need and thanking her in their fevers of gratitude. They honored the statue of the Virgin on 115th Street, which was a physical reminder of the Virgin’s feminine characteristics. By being faithful to such an honorable and spiritual mamma, many immigrants alleviated the sense of guilt they felt for leaving their Italian mothers back at home. The Virgin was the focal point of the moral code and value system of Italian culture, just like the mother was the bond that held family members together in the domus.

In my response to this particular reading I want to focus on a very specific aspect of Orsi’s writing. At one point in his book, Orsi focuses on the women of Italian Harlem and their independence (or lack thereof) during this time period. What most interested me was the dynamics of interactions between the men and women. Although I am looking at this from a much more modern and perhaps feminist perspective, I found it strange that not only was a woman’s reputation much more easily tarnished, but if a man had anything to do with said tarnishing, there was no blame placed on him. It was not uncommon – in fact, fairly universal – that women were expected to have a chaperone when going out on the streets. That was a trait present in many societies. However, this was one of the many repressive aspects for women in Italian Harlem.

Another expectation for women was that they would stand by their husbands, no matter how awful the state of their relationship. I was particularly struck by the story of Theresa, who for many years denied that her husband was committing adultery, despite gossip to the contrary. The anger and resentment that filled her left her unable to produce milk for her second baby, and when she went to care for that baby, she was filled with guilt for leaving her other children behind. It was a vicious downward cycle, and pride was the only reason behind it. I have heard of complicated family politics, but this one seemed to beat many others I’ve heard.

However, there was one segment I read that I actually found slightly empowering, though others may find this logic strange. Of course it would make sense that girls would be respected for refusing a boy’s advances – but girls could even physically stick up for themselves. I remember being quite amused reading that a boy, boasting about his girlfriend, “felt that wallop good and proper, and no sick girl can deliver a punch.” (p. 138) Although it does not seem fair that a girl should need to be prepared for this manipulative courtship ritual, it gave the girls a chance to defend themselves, which I feel is important.

It is clear that though women had power within the households, they had very little power in the outside culture. So despite the fact that time tends to erase hardship from memory, women had to deal with a lot of repression in Italian Harlem.

Orsi’s book in general focuses on contradictions. The domus is a source of both extraordinary pride and bitter resentment for its inhabitants—not in turn, but at the same time. It is this psychic mingling that Orsi most enjoys describing, and it is at its apex when Orsi describes the role of women in the domus.

Italian women in East Harlem were part of a comically complex system. They were indirect power brokers: it was they who determined how money was spent and who could call the domus theirs, but at the same time they had to remain publicly subservient to men. An unmarried woman, who was a member rather than a leader of a domus, had it the worst. Her condition was one of unending and unfair submission, to her brothers, her father, her mother, and the obsessive eye of the community.

I found it strange that East Harlem allowed women to play these opposed roles. Why did the matriarch, who ran the central unit of Italian life, have to express her power in indirect ways? It was no secret that women ran the domestic show, and the public subservience of the matriarch was therefore an elaborate and wholly unnecessary spectacle. Men futilely attempted to show that they had power, and the roots of their actions were in vindictiveness.

For while matriarchs were revered for their wisdom, they were also despised for their cunning. An effective matriarch oppressed her daughters, undermined her husband, and pitted her sons against each other. Thus, whenever men were given control over women’s lives, men’s decisions seem to have been guided by a repressed pool of resentment. Thus we see the men of East Harlem ruining the reputations of young women, and demanding ridiculous public displays of obeisance. These actions were often ridiculous means of compensation, but they were born in bitterness.

In the last class, we discussed the bitterness in the father’s role in the domus. This section now described how the women were not spared bitterness, either, despite their central roles in the domus. While women were revered as the pillars of domestic life (and domus life was focused on domestic life), at the same time they were oppressed by that role. Women did not report feeling any sense of empowerment; rather, they were controlled by the “distant” presence of of their male counterparts. The males only were distant and “helpless” because they were “spoil[ed]” and “wait[ed] upon” by the “silent” mothers. And before they even were mothers, the single girls were in essence bullied and controlled by their brothers in their dating lives. Thus the role of the woman wasn’t even the “neck” (as described by a student last class) of the family, but was the limbs of the male brain. This is not to say that the males were happy and content, either. While they were empowered, they were also viewed as peripheral figures in domus life. In this powerfully family-oriented society, I wonder how it survived for so long with such unsatisfied members. Neither group expressed satisfaction, nor fulfillment, with their gender roles. The women saw it as “burdens” (139), the men sighed “if only I had the power” (133). I can understand a matriarchal, or patriarchal, society in which the members feel content and fulfilled within their roles, but if that is not the case, it surprises me that were was as much adherence to the ways of the past as their was. The second section, however, offered me more insight into the continuity and structure of the domus. A major theme of the Madonna celebration was ‘generation’ and passing of the heritage to the next generations who were growing up in a foreign land. It was this ceremony, I think, more than the actual family life, that connected people to the domus. All of the family members convened at this time, journeying from near and far, to feel unified in turning to a common belief. This lasted for generations, and was subject to less resistance within the people. The mothers had someone to turn to with their struggles, the men were reconnected with their maternal affections, and the children were actively and tangibly connected to the ways of their grandparents. I can understood how this event could smooth the conflicts and arising discomforts within domus life.

I started off this reading with the idea that women were a respected figure in Italian Harlem and received the most power of all, especially in the domus (specifically in the home).  I also knew the hard life that young women – girls, adolescents, and unmarried women – lived, with abuse from brothers (older and younger), fathers, comari and compari, as well as neighborhood young men.  That being said, I believed that these hardships were just stepping stones in becoming powerful adult women and mothers.

1. Mothers exacted all the power in the family.  Often times, fathers felt snubbed by his children’s fidelity towards their mother.
2. Everyone looked towards the mother or the older woman of the family for advice.  Eldest sons were at their mother’s beck and call.  The matriarchal elders held all of the Italian traditions and values, ready to give advice and help anyone in need.
3. Though their power was mainly in the home, they had no problem exerting power outside in the form of punishment towards misbehaving children.
4. Women “controlled the family finances, and the various members of the household were expected to hand their paychecks over to them” (133).

The list of admiral qualities of an Italian-American woman’s life goes on and on, but then Orsi turns the tables.  He says “our task now is to explore the consequences of the power of women in Italian Harlem, to go deeply into their power in order to find there the real nature of their powerlessness” (143).  He uses Theresa as an example – a single mother with a hard life who in the traditional Italian system is not seen as a “good woman.”  I’d rather ignore this form of argumentation because it is extremely specific and doesn’t address the life of all Italian-American women.  Her case is special, and though I feel for her, Theresa’s example is just one of many various stories.  There were some things, though, that Orsi mentions that I think do represent some powerlessness for women.  They were kept in “great and deep silence” (145), not allowed to speak up against injustices within the domus (mainly, I believe, he is talking about domestic abuse here).  That being said, most women who are subject to domestic abuse feel powerless, and this is not unique to Italian culture.  Because women were the center of the domus, all “frustration, anger, and resentment” (147) was focused towards them.  As we’ve discussed before, fathers acted out against mothers in a power rivalry, as did daughters and sons.  Women, within close knit communities, even “viewed each other as rivals for power and love” (148).  In a traditional culture, though, I believe that these women were given a lot that others have been prohibited from.

Marina B. Nebro 

The Power and Fragility of the Domus

The thing that stood out to me the most when reading these two excerpts was the constant reference of the domus and how it connected to other topics. In each excerpt, Orsi picks one major topic to explore: the first being the role of women and the second being the significance of la Madonna herself. Each section described these topics in great depth, yet both revealed just how powerful yet fragile the domus can be.

For instance, women in Italian Harlem were seemingly subservient and were “dominated by men”. This was somewhat true in the sense of public persona as well as in the strict upbringing and pressure women experience to get married. However, once a woman managed to reach her pinnacle of being married having children, they became the sheltered and secret center of the domus. Ultimately, it was the woman who had total control of whether or not the domus would thrive. The domus was dependent upon the ability to maintain and respect traditional Italian views and cultures, and the woman of the household was believed to be the only one with such authority to make sure these values were instilled in the posterity.

Connections to the domus are also seen in the discussion of the festa for la Madonna as well. La Madonna was seen as a “beacon of light” for many Italian immigrants who would pray to her for all sorts of miracles. For the actual festival, the most important thing was true devotion to la Madonna. What did this devotion serve? Well, for one thing, it helped to ease immigrant guilt for leaving home, it helped to maintain some spiritual ties with Italy, and a sense of community was felt during the ceremony. Members of the domus were brought together during the festa, once again highlighting the importance of community.

We can draw from these two excerpts that the preservation and veneration of the domus had a significant impact on Italian-American culture. It had the power to affect gender roles and to bond a community together, and it had the influence to instill certain values and morals to future generations. However, there was always a constant threat to the domus both from the world outside Italian Harlem and the physical distance from Italy (distance was a common problem and struggle immigrants dealt with, according to Orsi). The only way the domus could truly survive would have to be through devotion to common icons/community festivals (la Madonna) and through the power to sustain traditional Italian beliefs, which women exuded.

-Cassandra Price

Once again, Orsi brings to light the complexities of gender roles within the domus. Although married women with children served as a source of power and authority within the domus, they were also confined by the community’s definition of the “good woman.” As Orsi writes, “Their power, although it is real, is also their powerlessness.” Despite their private role as an all-powerful matriarch, women (both single and married) were subject to a much higher authority: the demands of Italian culture. By threatening the reputation of women, especially those who were unmarried, men were able to use this public ideal to wield control over those who dominated the life of the home and, therefore, the domus. To call this system a “private-public dichotomy” seems like an oversimplification of what is truly going on here. The authority of men may have been merely theatrical, but it is important to note that power within the domus was actually quite diffuse. Power was everywhere, yet it was also nowhere at the same time.  

The Madonna served an important role for women by providing a means of expression for their fears and concerns. For the entire Italian community, however, the Madonna provided much more than a means of expression.  It reflected their home values, helped them overcome distance, and overall maintained their sanity. Contrary to the idea that the devotion was merely an act of self-deception, the festa was actually a reorientation of Italian tradition and values. Perhaps the devotion can be considered self-deception in the sense that it gave Italian immigrants the illusion of still being in their hometowns. More accurately, however, the festa was a way in which people were able to resituate themselves morally and reintegrate themselves culturally. It was a process of rejuvenation.  One may even be so bold as to describe it as a process of purification. It purified people of thoughts and emotions that threatened their fundamental beliefs. This not only refers to conflicting thoughts originating from American culture, but also to feelings of resentment that originated from within the domus itself. As Orsi explains, healing stories were “cathartic,” ultimately evoking feelings of attachment to the domus, despite people’s frustration with it.