YorkSpace has migrated to a new version of its software. Access our Help Resources to learn how to use the refreshed site. Contact diginit@yorku.ca if you have any questions about the migration.
 

Can Italian-Canadians have their cannoli and eat it too? Representations of Race and Italian-ness in Canada's Printed Media

Simple item page
dc.contributor.advisorHaig-Brown, E. Celia
dc.creatorPandolfi, Krysta Robin
dc.date.accessioned2018-08-27T16:33:16Z
dc.date.available2018-08-27T16:33:16Z
dc.date.copyright2018-03-15
dc.date.issued2018-08-27
dc.date.updated2018-08-27T16:33:16Z
dc.degree.disciplineEducation
dc.degree.levelDoctoral
dc.degree.namePhD - Doctor of Philosophy
dc.description.abstractIn 2009, Dina Pugliese, co-host of a popular daily television show in Toronto, stated in an interview that she was hesitant to pursue an on-camera career because she worried that she was too spicy-Italian. Her words speak to long-standing stereotypes of Italians, developed out of eighteenth and nineteenth century representations of Italy. Clearly, hers is not an identity that has been uncomplicatedly subsumed into Whiteness. In this dissertation, I examine the concept of Italian-ness in two culturally specific Italian-Canadian magazines, Panoram Italia and Accenti. Thematic data was collected to explore how the magazines construct the image of the Italian-Canadian in their editorial discourses and how this discourse analysis may serve to reveal existing racialized power relations. I identify parallels between Italy as Europes south and the Italian-Canadian community, and the ways they serve to function as a filter to understanding Italian-Canadian migration and ongoing concepts of difference within Canada. The empirical chapters, based on my discourse analysis of both magazines, focus on the Italianization of John Cabot, Italian-Canadian internment during World War II and the politics of redress, and the space and place of Italian-Canadians within Canadas social and political life. I show that attempts on the part of Italian-Canadian media to legitimize the presence of Italian-Canadians in Canada often result in identities that collude and collide in the construction of Italian-ness as Whiteness. I discuss how critical Whiteness studies, as a theoretical framework, continues to omit differences between White ethnics, particularly in terms of a European continental north-south divide impacting Western thought. By critically analyzing the ways Italian-ness is constructed in printed media, I highlight the general considerations of critical Whiteness studies as obscuring certain identities, which remain peripheral (Satzewich, 2000) within its project, and the paradoxical implications this oversight may have for groups like Italian-Canadians. I note the need to de-universalize the processes of racialization within the construction of Whiteness by unpacking the field from an Anglo-British and Anglo-American dominance. That way, it may anchor the field of Whiteness by acknowledging how localized forms of cultural expression elicit a particular Canadian and Italian understanding of race and belonging.
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10315/34975
dc.language.isoen
dc.rightsAuthor owns copyright, except where explicitly noted. Please contact the author directly with licensing requests.
dc.subjectEthnic studies
dc.subject.keywordsItalian-Canadians
dc.subject.keywordsWhiteness
dc.subject.keywordsRace
dc.subject.keywordsCanadian studies
dc.subject.keywordsIdentity
dc.subject.keywordsCritical Whiteness Studies
dc.subject.keywordsDiscourse Analysis
dc.subject.keywordsMediterranean
dc.subject.keywordsColonialism
dc.subject.keywordsItalo-Canadians
dc.subject.keywordsItalian Studies
dc.subject.keywordsItaly
dc.subject.keywordsSouthern Italians
dc.subject.keywordsCanada
dc.subject.keywordsInternment
dc.subject.keywordsJohn Cabot
dc.subject.keywordsGiovanni Caboto
dc.subject.keywordsRedress
dc.subject.keywordsEthnicity
dc.subject.keywordsWhite Ethnics
dc.subject.keywordsRacialization
dc.subject.keywordsMedia
dc.titleCan Italian-Canadians have their cannoli and eat it too? Representations of Race and Italian-ness in Canada's Printed Media
dc.typeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation

Files

Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Thumbnail Image
Name:
Pandolfi_Krysta_R_2018_PhD.pdf
Size:
1.02 MB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Description:
Download
License bundle
Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
No Thumbnail Available
Name:
license.txt
Size:
1.87 KB
Format:
Plain Text
Description:
Download
No Thumbnail Available
Name:
YorkU_ETDlicense.txt
Size:
28.36 KB
Format:
Plain Text
Description:
Download

Collections

Education

All items in the YorkSpace institutional repository are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved except where explicitly noted.