American Woman, Italian Style: Italian Americana's Best Writings on Women

Narratives of Nine Italian-American Women: Childhood, Work, and Marriage

Narratives of Nine Italian-American Women Childhood, Work, and Marriage elizabeth g. messina 1992 During a period of six months in 1990, I was a participant-observer of some first- and second-generation Italian-American women in New York City. The experience proved to be both rich and rewarding. The thematic content of the life stories of these women, who had lived all of their childhood and adulthood in Little Italy, New York, emerged and unfolded spontaneously during our meetings. Our discussions centered on what these women remembered, thought, and felt about their relationships with their families of origin as well as their remembered work, courtship, sexual, and marital experiences. The selection of topics arose from the group’s evolving relationship with me over time and the dynamics of that process. As I listened to the women at the Mott Street Senior Center, where the interviews took place, it appeared that none of them had been educated in their families of origin to put their feelings into words. Yet, in their interactions in the group, their fluency in the language of feelings and their skill in communicating those feelings to one another were striking. Their statements were powerful, particularly with regard to their mature acceptance of their harsh lives, as well as for how hostile they felt about the many deprivations they had suffered. Their stories are the source of a rich psychological narrative that gives insight into the intrapsychic and interpersonal dynamics of these women. This narrative describes their struggle to make lives for themselves within the parameters of their social class and the sexual, legal, and religious mores set for them by tradition. The participants were nine women then residing in Little Italy and ranging in age from seventy-two to ninety. All except two women were widowed . The participants had all been born into large families, ranging in size 15 16 Elizabeth G. Messina from seven to sixteen children, who immigrated to New York. Most of the immigrants came from Naples and Sicily. Of the nine women, two completed high school; two, the third grade; and five, the eighth grade. All of the women worked outside the home intermittently while they were married and raising families. Their children moved out of Little Italy and reside in the suburbs and other boroughs of New York. The narrative histories of these women and the themes that emerged from the data of my observations and interviews will be used to discuss some of the significant features of their psychological lives. These themes were developed by identifying recurring topics and patterns in the data. Theme 1: Work was the center of our experiences. Our parents worked hard, and we learned to work hard in order to survive. Theme 2: Our parents’ marriages worked because there were no other options open to them. Theme 3: When we were growing up, emotional sexual intimacy in our parents’ marital relationship was hidden from view and surrounded by secrecy. Theme 4: We had our own ways of handling our problems with our husbands but we paid dearly for those solutions psychologically. Theme 5: Looking back, we are not too happy with our lives, but we did the best we could with what we had. I shall present each theme with some quotes from the women with my own comments and analysis that may also reference other relevant psychological studies. Theme  Work was the center of our experiences. Our parents worked hard and we learned to work hard in order to survive. Heroic sacrifice and hard work by parents to ensure their children’s survival was an outstanding characteristic of each woman’s descriptions of her childhood. An ethic of heroic suffering and personal sacrifice dominated the expectations of how one fulfilled family obligations, which, as we will see shortly, began at a very early age. Parental example taught the values of hard work, self-deprivation, and the assumption of multiple social responsibilities. In the words of Anna, a seventy-eight-year-old woman: Parents were so good to the child. They got up at five in the freezing cold to go to work. . . . Narratives of Nine Italian-American Women 17 My father was happy just to have children [seven boys and two girls]. He used to say, ‘‘I’m rich in blood.’’ He was so proud of his children and he worked hard to take care of us. He...