"As the twig is bent, the tree's inclined": growing up Italian in Toronto, 1905-1940
Keywords: Italians, Canada
Immigrants, Canada

While the Italian first generation in Canada has been studied extensively, little has been done on the second generation experience. The dissertation treats the second generation Italian youth experience in pre-World War II Toronto in the context of familial, peer and host institutional relationships. The study is divided into two parts. Part A, examines the primary socializing influence of family and home in the lives of the second generation young. Here, the children were imbued with the core values and value systems of their elders, instructed in their importance as "traditions" and their currency as functional, ongoing strategies of survival. The integrity of these values remained even as their "boundaries" were "pulled and hauled by cultural contention." Moving beyond the confluence of home and ethnic ambience, the study examines the larger urban and peer associational influences of the "streets" on Toronto's second generation youngsters. Though the streets comprised a "separate world" for the children, the adolescent young in particular incorporated and adapted many of their elders' values in the very "independence" of their peer associational life. Italian Canadian youngsters, however, were far from mere clones of their elders. They developed a vibrant street culture based partly on inter-ethnic associations, and a distinctive sense of identity bearing little a resemblance to the ethnic "marginalization" and "alienation" theories of the day. Part B examines the Canadianization efforts of four host agencies (each an important "outreach" presence in the enclaves), i.e, the elementary school, the settlement house, the Protestant mission, and the Catholic parish. Each of these institutions is dealt with separately. Three broad questions frame the analysis: (i) what were the host institutional impressions of the foreign element, the immigrant young in particular? (ii) What were the achievements and limitations of the work as defined by the workers themselves? and (iii) What was the immigrant response to the institutional outreach; in what way and to what extent did first and second generation Italians participate in organized institutional activities? While differing in their approach, the agencies essentially agreed on the necessity of "moulding" the foreigners into "Christian Canadian citizens of the right type." In seeking to implement this ideal, however, the agencies faced a variety of problems, chief among them the foreigners' unwillingness to act as subservient or ancillary players in the relationship. Like their elders, the immigrant young had their own agendas and their own perception of the institutions' usefulness. In the case of the settlement and mission houses especially, many simply made use of the facilities and resources provided without the least regard for formal ideals. The children's familial, peer and street culture was not easily "remoulded". Indeed, Italian youngsters were more successful in "bringing the streets" into the mission and settlement houses than the house workers were in "taking the streets out of the children". In locating the "voice" and "agency" of the immigrant young in pre-War Toronto, the dissertation contests the usefulness of imposition and social control theories as models of historical explanation.