Eh, Paesan!

In this book Nicholas DeMaria Harney invites us to explore with him the symbols and sites of Italian culture in Canada's largest city. Ethnic identity, we discover, is a process - it is constantly being remade and reproduced. Do Canadians look beyond the stereotypes that picture Italians as peasant construction workers, members of organized crime, and soccer fanatics to see the diversity of Italian life in Toronto? Second-generation Italian Canadians, exposed to Italy's fashion, sports, and design worlds, have new images to confront. In today's global economy, ideas and products arrive rapidly from Italy, targeted at people of Italian heritage and nourishing Italianita, spaces of Italian cultural life. While the familiar greeting 'Eh, paesan!' is commonly used by young Italian Canadians, Harney leaves no doubt that their Italianness and that of their parents is rooted in Toronto.

Nicholas DeMaria Harney is a graduate of the doctoral program in anthropology at the University of Toronto. He is currently a lecturer at the University of Toronto at Scarborough.