Throughout the semester out class has been dividing neighborhoods and ethnicities and seeing the mixture between the two, and how the various ethnic groups came to transform their neighborhood into their own, and give it a certain ethnic flavor. Through the two novels, we are given a different way as how one can define a neighborhood; specifically through religion
In Robert Orsi’s, “The Madonna of 115th Street,” religion dominates Italian Harlem to a point that it is impossible to discuss the neighborhood without discussing the importance of Catholicism to the inhabitants’ lives. Orsi describes the Catholicism that the Italian’s practice as “religion of the streets.” This is a powerful term to use when describing religion. It implies that the Catholic religion not only guided peoples behavior in the privacy of their own homes, but that religion dominated their every day life, no matter in public or private.
The Italian’s who came to Italian Harlem and were longing for the life they once knew in Italy found comfort in performing the religious acts they had performed in Italy. It was their reminder of who they were as a community, and maintained their unique identity. The most visual reminder of their identity was the Festa ritual, which was the outward devotion to the Madonna in the streets. The entire community would flood the streets praising the Madonna and serving her with various rituals. The Madonna appeared to them as a “universalization of the community’s inherited tradition.” Madonna connected the Italian-Americans back to their native homeland. It also created a strong community that might have appeared strange from the outside, but made the members feel connected to their roots. This ritual in particular, and the general adherence to Catholicism insured that the members of Italian Harlem were thought of as distinctly Catholic Italian. In this way, the Catholic Italian-Americans defined their neighborhood, but also defined themselves. This self description made them feel connected and not alone in America.
