ASSIMILATION, TRANSNATIONALISM, AND EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT: MOLFETTESE ENCLAVE IN HOBOKEN

How do the stories of the Molfettese-Americans who settled in Hoboken, New Jersey between 1945 and 1975 illustrate the theory of assimilation and/or transnationalism?
How did the ethnic enclave experiences of the Molfettese-Americans between 1945 and 1975 affect their educational attainments?
Themes
Assimilation
Transnationalism
Hoboken as a Molfettese ethnic enclave
Feast and cultural associations
Learning English
Education and schooling

Assimilation
Maria:
No. No, I don’t think you were a mix [of American and Italian] at all. [We were just Molfettese back then.]

Emily:
It all depends on who I think about. And I have a male cousin, he’s very proud of his culture and seems to gear towards working with people from Molfetta. He’s a builder. So he would use [the company name of] Molfetta construction.

Emily:
I have cousins that moved out of New Jersey and they were ashamed of their culture because they moved to Smithtown, Long Island where it was very white and Protestant. And she would go to school and feel ostracized and made fun of for what she had brought to eat.

Emily:
When my father came and when he was 13 and my mother was about 21, her… I think my father, he just delved into working. Then he went into construction to earn a living. He got his high school equivalency. My mother came over and what did all the Italian women do? They worked in the coat factories and my mom’s oldest brother was here first. And then it’s like, they bring the family over. They assimilated, but in Hoboken, they were all together. You know? And then I don’t know if my mother really assimilated. She spoke Italian all the time but she tried to learn how to read English. I think she even tried to, she was doing some kind of, it wasn’t a high school equivalency.

Emily:
I think my father assimilated to being an American, plus he was such a young boy. But my mom, she was more, she held strong to her heritage. But not in my father didn’t, believe me. Because he’s the one that carries on the traditions also.

Sergio:
…there was no concept of Americanism or of patriotism or anything like that. It was just, “Let’s see what happens. We are here.” … every day was a surprise, was something new to discover. We discover the food, the hotdog. What the hell is that? They don’t have hotdog in Molfetta. Even the hamburger. But when we got together with the other Molfettese, because some of those Molfettese, they were here in the ’50s, early ’50s and late ’50. So they were Americanized. So they would introduce us to the hotdogs and mustard. And things that probably we never heard of it.

Sergio:
…these shops, they kept the Molfettese busy. Now, many of the women too went to work for the first time. The women, the mothers and the adult women also work the factories. So, the Hoboken factories, they were essentially made up of two groups. One was Molfettese, and the other one, Yugoslavian. Because in Hoboken, there was another big group like the Molfettese, were the Yugoslavians.