From Little Britain to Little Italy: an urban ethnic landscape study in Toronto

S. Olson and A. Kobayashi, The emerging ethnocultural mosaic, in L. Bourne and D. Ley (Eds), The Changing Social Geography of Canadian Cities (Montreal 1993) 138–152 I use the term landscape to refer to the physical structures of the city as well as their identity and meaning to urban residents. The latter perspective is commonly associated with the notion of place in social and humanist geography, though the marriage of social and cultural geography has brought the concepts of landscape and place closer together. For a recent overview of this approach to landscape, see P. Groth, Frameworks for cultural landscape study, in P. Groth and T. Bressi (Eds),Understanding Ordinary Landscapes (New Haven 1997) 1–24 A. Cameron, The contemporary Italian house in Toronto, Italian Canadiana 4 (1988) 84–93; L. Del Guidice, The “archvilla”: an Italian Canadian architectural archetype, in Idem, (Ed.), Studies in Italian American Folklore (Logan 1993) 53–105 Italian refers to foreign-born immigrants. Italian-Canadians becomes a more appropriate term to refer to the community over time, since many immigrants would have become «new Canadians», but more importantly because subsequent generations come to outnumber the immigrants. I use Italian-Canadian throughout the remainder of the paper, except where I refer to immigrants in the early years. Hundreds welcome Italian president, Toronto Star, 13 June 1986; Toronto's Little Italy salutes the Queen,Toronto Star, 1 October 1984. W. Zelinsky, Seeing beyond the dominant culture, Places 7 (1991) 32–35. This perspective is based on Zelinsky's concept of First Effective Settlement discussed in The Cultural Geography of the United States (Englewood Cliffs, NJ 1974) in which he argues (pp. 13–4; “the first group to effect viable, self-perpetuating society are of crucial significance for the later social and cultural geography of the area no matter how tiny the initial band of settlers may have been.” The same, if more subtle, perspective is found in P. Lewis, Common houses, cultural spoor, in K. Foote, P. Hugill, K. Mathewson and J. Smith (Eds), Re-reading Cultural Geography (Austin 1996) and Allen Noble (Ed.), Migration to North America: before, during and after the nineteenth century and The immigrant experience in the nineteenth century and afterwards, both in To Build in a New Land: Ethnic Landscapes in North America (Baltimore 1992) 3–25; 399–406 Zelinsky Seeing beyond, 34 P. Hugill and K. Foote, Re-reading cultural geography, in K. Foote, P. Hugill, K. Mathewson and J. Smith (Eds), op. cit, 9–23 P. Jackson, Towards a cultural politics of consumption, in J. Bird et al. (Eds), Mapping the Futures: Local Knowledge, Global Change (London 1993) 207–228 D. Cosgrove and S. Daniels (Eds), Introduction: iconography and landscape, in The Iconography of Landscape (Cambridge 1988) 1–10; J. Smith, The lies that blinds, in D. Ley and J. Duncan (Eds),Place/Culture/Representation (London 1993) 78–92 A classic statement of this perspective is, The Modern Urban Landscape, Rational Landscapes and Humanistic Geography, Place and Placelessness S. Olson and A. Kobayashi op. cit, 152–153. See alsoM. Conzen (Ed.), Ethnicity on the land, in The Making of the American Landscape (Boston 1990) 221–248 O. Handlin, The Uprooted, Boston 1951, R. Vecoli, Contadini in Chicago: a critique of the uprooted, Journal of American History, 12, 1964, 404, 417 N. Glazier and P. Moynihan Beyond the Melting Pot: The Negroes, Puerto Ricans, Jews, Italians and Irish of New York City (Cambridge, Mass. 1963); A. Kobayashi, Multiculturalism: representing a Canadian institution, in J. Duncan and D. Leyop. cit, 205–231 L. Cohen Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919–1939 (New York 1990). Jackson, 1988, Landscape as spectacle: world's fairs and the culture of heroic consumption, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 6, 198 D, Upton, America's Architectural Roots, Washington 1986, 14 Lai, 1991, The visual character of Chinatowns, Places, 7, 29 A. Kobayashi, Regional and demographic aspects of Japanese migration to Canada, Canadian Geographer 32 (1988) 356–360;idem, Emigration to Canada and development of the residential landscape in a Japanese village: the paradox of the sojourner, Canadian Ethnic Studies 16 (1984) 111–131 Olson and Kobayashi op. cit. R. Harris Unplanned Suburbs: Toronto's American Tragedy (Baltimore 1996)L. Pursley The Toronto Trolley Car Story, 1921–1961 (Toronto 1961). Goad's Fire Insurance Atlas, 1913. R. Longstreth Main Street: A Guide to American Commercial Architectural (Washington 1987) idem, Compositional Types in American Commercial Architecture in C. Wells op. cit. Although a comparable Canadian study does not exist, Longstreth's work can be applied to the Canadian city and to St Clair. P. McHugh Toronto Architecture: A City Guide (Toronto 1985) 14–15 McHugh op. cit, 14. See also E. Arthur Toronto: No Mean City (Toronto 1994. F. Iacovetta Such Hardworking People: Italian Immigrants in Postwar Toronto (Montreal 1993); F. Sturino, Post-World War Two Canadian immigration policy towards Italians, Polyphony 7 (1985) 67–72 Minorities set to be majority, Toronto Star, 7 June 1998, A1. W. Kalbach, Ethnic residential segregation and its significance for the individual in an urban setting, in R. BretonW. IsajiwW. Kalbachand J. Reitz (Eds), Ethnic Identity and Equality: Varieties of Experience in a Canadian City (Toronto 1990) 92–134; T. Balakrishnan, Changing patterns of ethnic residential segregation in metropolitan areas of Canada,Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology 19 (1982) 92–110; W. Davies and R. Murdie, Measuring the social ecology of cities, in L. Bourne and D. Ley op. cit, 52–75 R. Harney, Italophobia: an English-speaking malady?, Polyphony 7 (1985) 67–72; Sturino op. cit Sturino op. cit. J. Higham Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism (New Brunswick 1963. Sturino op. cit. Sturino op. cit. Iacovetta op. cit, 103–104 J. Bodnar The Transplanted: A History of Immigrants in Urban America (Bloomington 1985) L. Del Guidice op. cit. F. Iacovetta op. cit. F. Sturino, The social mobility of Italian-Canadians: “outside and “inside” concepts of mobility, Polyphony 7 (1985) 123–127 Conzen op. cit. A. Pred, Business thoroughfares as expressions of urban negro culture, Economic Geography 39 (1963) 217–233 Del Guidice op. cit. A. Cameron op. cit. D. Gale, The impact of Canadian Italians on retail functions and facades in Vancouver, 1921–1961, in J. Vincent Minghi (Ed.), Peoples of the Living Land: Geography of Cultural Diversity in British Columbia (Vancouver 1972) D. Noyes Uses of Tradition: Arts of Italian Americans in Philadelphia Philadelphia 1989. The photos from this source were comprehensive. Nearly every property was in the Toronto Real Estate Board's record at different times. The records show that stucco, tile, and marble were the most prevalent changes made to the streetscape. In all, 15 interviews were conducted in the autumn of 1996. Informants were identified from provincial property assessment data and selected based on their length of ownership/rental in the area and the condition that they had renovated their own property. Interviews covered the topics of change in the neighbourhood and community, informants own renovations, and the future of the area. Interviewed on 15 October and 21 October 1996 respectively. Pseudonyms are used except where informants allowed me to report their real names. Interviewed on 6 November 1996 R. Harney, Toronto's Little Italy 1885–1945, and If one were to write a history of postwar Toronto Italia, both in P. Ancitil and B. Ramirez (Eds), If One Were to Write a History. Selected Writings by Robert F. Harney (Toronto 1991) 37–62; 63–89 Based on a classification by business type of Ontario Property Assessment Records for the City of Toronto. Interviewed 29 October 1996. Cameron op. cit. and Del Guidice op. cit, have argued that the archvilla represents boundaries of interethnic tensions. Inside the Italian community, the arch has symbolized ownership and ethnic pride; it is «a genuine art of artisans, an art of the people». But the arch was also an external source of tension for the wider Toronto society for whom the element was decidedly foreign. Because inter-ethnic boundaries are in constant flux, the arch becomes an unstable boundary. Interviewed 30 October 1996. For a definition of vernacular traditions, see H. Glassie, Folk art, in R. Dorson (Ed), Folklore and Folklife (Chicago 1972)DelGuidice op. cit. Interviewed on 12 November 1996. Del Guidice op. cit, 60 Interviewed on 21 October and 15 October 1996 respectively. Interviewed on 9 October 1996. Interviewed on 15 October 1996. Interviewed on 18 October and 16 October 1996 respectively. Although I do not have direct information on opinions of Italians from their predecessors, mainly British and Jewish businessmen, the story probably varies little given the wider context of social relations in the city. Consider the comments of St Clair resident of the 1950s, Harry Rasky: “Much later, after the Jews had departed, the store was obliterated when the Italians moved in and the Mafia apparently wiped out some inconvenient resident”; excerpt taken fromW. Kilbourn (Ed),Toronto Remembered: A Celebration of the City (Toronto 1984) 216. A. Kobayashi, Multiculturalism, op. cit Harney, The immigrant city. D. Hayden The Power of Place: Urban Landscapes as Public History (Cambridge, Mass. 1995. Kobayashi, Multiculturalism, 209.