Word: italianized
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Dates: during 1980-1980
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Very little is written about the history of Italian immigrants in Cambridge. Page after page chronicles the arrival and subsequent slow climb of the Irish, the Black and the Portuguese immigrants, with only occasional reference to Italians. And yet, their influence in the city is clear--large parts are predominantly Italian, the sounds and smells unmistakably reminiscent of the Mediterranean...
...experience of Italian immigrants across the country was similar--97 per cent of them got off the boat in New York. Many had been sent for by the Padrone,or labor boss. And the majority were laborers, not skilled professionals...
...first, the Portuguese and Italian populations found politics "uncongenial;" local government was dominated in the first part of the century by the Irish, anyway. But as some Irish became more lace-curtain, othe ethnic groups began to become more involved. The success of latter day politicians like Joseph DeGuglielmo and Alfred E. Vellucci (the dean of Cambridge officialdom) prove that their aversion to government was only temporary...
Most of the Italian population settled in East Cambridge, where it found a well-organized social system. At young men's clubs--there were about 20 at the turn of the century, according to one writer--members would "hire a room that they fit up with card tables and a few posters." Major activities there centered on dances and on elections; large blocks of votes could be bargained for various favors...
Willie and "Phillie," in fact, are almost interchangeable. Willie Kauffman, a Jewish English teacher, wants to find himself. Phil D'Amico, an Italian photographer, wants to be a Jewish intellectual. They both fall in love with the same woman, both accompany her to the hospital when she bears one of them a child, take saunas together and play chess. In short, they are two-thirds of an isosceles triangle. But still, Willie and Phil is not a movie about this menage a trois as much as about the times...