Aside from the fact that every minute of every day was a struggle for these immigrants, I couldn’t help but be a little jealous of them. Of course I wasn’t jealous of the hardships they had to face, the journey coming to America and then the hardships of making a new life for themselves here as immigrants. Instead, I was jealous of the sense of culture they had, and the way they lived in tight-knit communities.
As ToniAnn and Jessica mentioned, I was also raised with some of the same values shared by the Italian immigrants, such as the value of being close to your family and respecting elders. However, no matter which way you spin it, it is impossible to say that we live in the type of community that the Italian immigrants lived in back then. Although I am close to my family, we don’t all live right next to each other.
I wish that I had the experience of living in the domus society of the Italians. The domus fostered a close community structure with rispetto for the home, the elderly, etc. Although I think it would be fun to have lived in the Italian domus society for a while, I wouldn’t want to live that lifestyle forever because of the restrictions placed upon everyone, especially young women. For all the closeness shared between family members, it was crazy how easy it was to break that family bond. As a few people mentioned, reputation was a big deal, and some men or women rejected husbands/wives in order to stay in the domus. It was particularly difficult for young women. Although La Madonna was the symbol of female strength, it seemed as though this female empowerment and respect only applied to elder women. Young women had to be careful not to be “too educated” or they would scare away less educated suitors, and they had to put their male relatives’ schedules before their own.
Although I often wish I could go back in time to experience what it was like to live in a small village before money and technology, back when a big outing was going to the market to trade your three chickens for a cow, I have to say that ultimately, I’m happy that I live in the society and time I do now. My nostalgia for living in an Italian domus society is just like my nostalgia for the little village I mentioned above- every type of community has its benefits and its downsides, so although I would have loved to experience life in the domus, I wouldn’t want to live permanently in any other society/time than this one.
