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Chapter 5: "Buy Italian!"
- University of Illinois Press
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5 “Buy Italian!” Imports, Diasporic Nationalism, and the Politics of Authenticity Food Importers and Diasporic Italian Nationalism Nearly every one of the many actors involved in the Italian food business in New York between the turn of the twentieth century and World War II tried to make consumers aware of the relationship between Italian food and Italian identities. No other group played a more important role in connecting food consumption with Italian nationalism than the city’s importers of food from Italy. From the time New York Italians constituted in a large immigrant market at the end of the nineteenth century to the declaration of war on December 11, 1941, New York–based Italian food importers worked strenuously to convince Italian immigrants that Italian imported foods, from pasta and cheese to canned tomatoes and olive oil, were essential links with their distant homeland and consuming them was an act of patriotism . The fondness of Italian immigrants for imported foods—which were at the heart of attempts to articulate a diasporic nostalgia, identity, and taste through shopping—helpedmakethefoodimportbusinesscrucialtotheprojectofdiasporic nationalism. It was a large, complex process encouraged by immigrant mercantile elites in New York and their many supporters in the Italian government overseas. In fact, while food importers were just one of the many community institutions active in creating Italian nationalists out of immigrants who “had never been Italians in Italy,” the nature of their business made them obvious nationalist leaders in the developing “Italian colony” of New York.1 The promotion of an Italian identity among immigrants so clearly reflected the economic interests of importers that most invested heavily in it. The importing business required close relations with Italy, motivating second- and third-generation immigrants to learn and use standard Italian. Finally, this transnational trade in food went beyond vague cultural 156 . part ii notions of Italianità to a relationship grounded in the material realities of economic gain meant to benefit an Italian diasporic nation at home and abroad.2 Exporting food to the Americas was a major sector of the Italian national economy. For this reason, first the liberal, then the fascist Italian state supported food importers in New York in all possible ways, making them prominent ambassadors of the uniquely Italian colonialism that was built upon its global proletarian emigration. Much poorer than the other colonial nations of the time, Great Britain and France, Italy set out to reinforce its weak international position by utilizing the communities of Italian migrants abroad as beachheads for its exports , as sources of hard foreign currencies through migrant remittances, and as strongholds of Italian culture around the world. Knowing that this transnational project could succeed only if the millions of Italian immigrants continued to prefer Italian imported foods to the similar products of Italian American entrepreneurs , various Italian governments consistently supported importers against local ethnic producers in the competition for the immigrant market. The Italian state’s most important strategy was to establish Italian Chambers of Commerce in the major cities home to mass Italian migration in order to represent Italian export interests and assist local importers. The Italian Chamber of Commerce of New York was among the first to be opened (in 1887) and continued to be subsidized heavily by the Italian government through the following decades. One of its key functions was to unify the many import businesses that had developed out of local Genoese, Neapolitan, or Sicilian migrations by creating a powerful national import trade aimed at an inclusively Italian market rather than one split across smaller and more vulnerable regional communities.3 In New York City, many of the Italian food importers were immigrants who had started their businesses by catering to small circles of migrants from their own village, hometown, or region. In order to provide “colonial” goods and services to their fellow immigrants, they had developed close commercial relationships with specific places and producers in Italy. These early import businesses were as much informal economies of memory and emotions as they were of money. An example can be found among immigrants from Cinisi, Sicily: “Someone takes his chances in the business world. He writes to his relatives in Cinisi, has olive oil, wine, and figs, lemons, nuts, etc., sent to him, and then he goes from house to house. He does not enter in a business way, but goes to visit some family, talks about Cinisi, then informs them that he has received some produce from the hometown. And sure enough, the people will say, ‘You will...