When I first started reading about the domus in Chapter 4 of The Madonna of 115th Street, I only saw the family-centered value of Italian-Americans as a good thing. Orsi’s description fit my previous vision of the typical Italian family: large, happy and always together. I thought that their strong family-centered focus was a good thing because it meant that, even in a new country, they would always have a loyal support system and would never lose their culture or identity.
But as I continued reading, I got a more negative impression of the domus. The façade of the “big, happy family” washed away and I couldn’t help thinking that the domus is more like a prison. The children of Italian immigrants were expected to marry other Italians, because if they married a person from any other culture, they would be considered a “blood violator” (Orsi, 82). In some cases, I got the impression that the parents were actually brainwashing their children to do what they wanted them to. One of the people interviewed was bragging about how his daughter “likes Italian cooking and knows herself how to cook. She is eighteen years old now, and by now she has made up her mind what her own home should look like… she knows that it is safer to marry an Italian…” (79). I know that children usually learn their values from their parents, but I couldn’t help but notice a sinister tone underneath the values that were being taught to these children. The early Italian immigrants are portrayed as having at least subtle racist ideas, as shown on page 82: “If one married outside the blood, one might not be able to incorporate his or her children into the domus and this meant that the blood violator and his or her offspring would be doomed to living like ‘animals’.” I definitely don’t think that these kinds of values should be taught to any children.
It is clear that the domus was an important aspect of Italian–American culture, however, whether that was a good or a bad thing is still questionable.
