Gerald R. Gems. Sport and the Shaping of Italian-American Identity

In this volume, Gerald R. Gems describes and explains the role of sport in the assimilation of Italian immigrants into America society. He narrates their story over four generations, providing a concise overview of how newcomers from northern and southern Italy became Italian Americans. Gems highlights the divisions among the first generation, the lack of sporting practices amid the peasants of Italy, and widespread racial prejudice against southern Italians and Sicilians in the United States and even in northern Italy. He also covers Italian professional athletes and male and female players who competed in neighborhood games or on semi-professional, school, or college teams. Gems's goals are to explain “why sports had a particular appeal for Italian-American youth and what role it played in the assimilation process,” and “to analyze the extent of acculturation, its residual cultural values and practices, and the creation of a persistent hybrid lifestyle that accommodates the old with the new” (p. xiv).

Acculturation · Aesthetics · Appeal · Art · Assimilation (phonology) · Athletes · Cultural assimilation · Ethnology · Identity (music) · Immigration · Political science · Prejudice (legal term) · Sociology · Communism, Protests, Social Movements · Gender Studies · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · Law