From the Mother

[darkerhorse]

I've heard that Jewish people consider that someone is Jewish only if the mother is Jewish. I suppose they mean Jewish ethnicity rather than Jewish religion.

In my experience, among persons who are half-Italian, the ones with Italian mothers usually seem more Italian to me than the ones whose Italian side is the father.

Yes, half-Italians on the father's side get the Italian identity with the Italian surname but it seems to take an Italian mother to really bring out the Italian flavor in a family.

I'm sure the paternal Italian grandmother lends some spice but the results aren't the same as with an Italian mother, I would think.

Being a father's side half-Italian people readily recognize the surname as Italian but I've sometimes been ignorant on some ethnic topic (language, food, culture, etc) defending myself (half-jokingly) by pleading guilty with an explanation - "my mother's not Italian"!

[MarcuccioV]

I've heard that Jewish people consider that someone is Jewish only if the mother is Jewish. I suppose they mean Jewish ethnicity rather than Jewish religion.

In my experience, among persons who are half-Italian, the ones with Italian mothers usually seem more Italian to me than the ones whose Italian side is the father.

Yes, half-Italians on the father's side get the Italian identity with the Italian surname but it seems to take an Italian mother to really bring out the Italian flavor in a family.

I'm sure the paternal Italian grandmother lends some spice but the results aren't the same as with an Italian mother, I would think.

Being a father's side half-Italian people readily recognize the surname as Italian but I've sometimes been ignorant on some ethnic topic (language, food, culture, etc) defending myself (half-jokingly) by pleading guilty with an explanation - "my mother's not Italian"!

I agree -- this coming from someone with the Italian on the maternal side -- yes, no Italian surname, but I identify & find commonality more with Italians than non-Italians. And yes, the maternal grandparents seem to have a strong effect. I was almost forced to understand & speak Italian from birth.

And I was of course raised Catholic by my mother's & grandparent's insistence (which I have continued to this day).

And without question Italian cuisine was commonly a staple at the dinner table, at least for my mother & I.

My father rarely had any issues with my "Italian-esque" upbringing.

[darkerhorse]

In my case, my father, being a second-and-a-half generation American, might have wanted to down-play his ethnicity a bit in order to melt into the pot. He and several 1st cousins married non-Italians including red-heads and Protestants. By contrast, I don't believe anyone in my grandfather's generation married a non-Italian, and almost without exception they were paisani, or at least Sicilian.

[MarcuccioV]

In my case, my father, being a second-and-a-half generation American, might have wanted to down-play his ethnicity a bit in order to melt into the pot. He and several 1st cousins married non-Italians including red-heads and Protestants. By contrast, I don't believe anyone in my grandfather's generation married a non-Italian, and almost without exception they were paisani, or at least Sicilian.

My parent's generation (in my family, at least) were the first to marry outside of "paisani". My grandfather even returned to his hometown in Italy to marry my grandmother and bring her back...