Nationalism from the Margins: Italians in Alberta and British Columbia (review)

One thing is certain. Multiculturalism has ghettoized migration historians. So much that scholars who write about an ethnic community are afraid that no 'outside reader' (8) will take his or her book seriously. Patricia K. Wood, a human geographer and otherwise the author of articles on nationalism, ethnicity, gender, and historical heritage, makes no exception: 'As soon as anyone hears that I write about Italians ... I am included with those who do immigrant studies or "ethnic" history.' Instead, her main interest is 'the construction of a Canadian identity' (xv). Although Wood is not of Italian origin, but 'a citizen of both Canada and the United States' (8), she has elected to examine 'what it means to be Canadian' through the eyes of the Canadians of Italian origin of Alberta and British Columbia, a community largely created in the twentieth century. Wood's main question is to determine how the idea of a Canadian nation has been influenced by the relocation of Italian culture onto the western Canadian landscape.

By considering Canadians of Italian origin as not only immigrants, but also as 'residents and citizens' (xiv), Wood wants to set herself apart from both national and migration historiography. In her opinion, the former has reduced the building of the Canadian nation to 'a battle between English and French' (6). The latter has mainly emphasized small-scale ethnic heritage. Wood examines the creation of the idea of a Canadian nation with particular regard to western Canada, including Alberta's and British Columbia's own provincial identities. Mainly through their newspapers and a number of personal papers, memoirs, and interviews, she also examines how members of the community of Italian origin in the West created their own idea of a Canadian nation. Theirs was the 'nationalism from the margins' of the title, similar to that of English-speaking western Canadians, and yet different, in that it was based on 'their own environment and experiences' (98). As for environment, for example, western Canadians of Italian origin were seemingly unconcerned by the two main preoccupations of English-Canadian nationalism, the Americanization of Canadian life and Quebec's independence movement. For them, Canada's existence was enough to justify both its present and its future. As for experiences, for example, Catholicism continued to be a main feature of their ethnic identity, even when actual church attendance was reduced or even abandoned entirely. The official policy of multiculturalism (1971) simply reinforced their long-established 'multicultural nationalism' (3), a vague attitude of 'tolerance for diversity' (98) that most of them already practised. Wood's conclusion reflects the masthead of Vancouver's Il corriere del West: 'Truly Canadian, Proudly Italian' (82). In fact, according to Wood, western Canadians of Italian origin became 'distinctly Italian, distinctly Western, and distinctly Canadian' (134). No either/or attitude here (in opposition to prevalent US historiographical models), no monolithism in either Canadian or Italian identity. Rather, a truly post-modern Canadian mixture in which any attitude is, fundamentally, a 'matter of degree' (11).

It is a reviewer's duty to point out a number of minor imperfections in the book, including an unnecessary insistence on theory and the puzzling statement that 'the relationship between Catholic [sic] and modernization in Canada and the United States is an understudied area' (156). An undecided preference for 'Second World War' and 'World War II' (14, 38, 61). Paesi straightly translated as 'regions,' whereas paese means both 'original village' and 'general provenance' (4). Capital letters in titles invariably used according to English style, whereas Italian style calls for lower case except for proper nouns. Newspapers indexed under their initial articles. More than a dozen mistakes and typos, mainly of Italian names (Augustino Ferrera, Vittorio Emmanuele, Antonio Cardasco, Società [di] Mutuo Soccorso, Società Operaio de Mutuo Soccorso, Domenico Charello, commitato sporttivo, Portugese, Società Columbo, Felice Cavalotti, Banchetto dell-Amicizia, Confratellanza Onora Cristoforo Colombo, Salvatore Saracemo, Bettoni Lazzaro [name and...