Within the immigration history of both Canada and the United States, the contributions of Italian immigrant women are often overlooked or underestimated. Yet the economic and socio cultural roles played by female immigrants belies the stereotype of females frozen in a cultural time warp. Through their unpaid domestic and child-rearing activities, their frugality and cost-cutting practices such as systematically preserving fruits, and canning vegetables at peak harvest times, these women made a substantial contribution to the well-being and viability of the family. In addition, significant numbers of Italian immigrant women in Toronto entered the paid labour force, providing cheap labour as seamstresses, cleaners, and hospital or factory workers. Working outside the home also reaped personal benefits for the Italian immigrant woman: for example, it allowed her to master the transportation system and navigate the city, learn some English language skills, and most importantly, gave her the chance to meet and develop friendships with immigrant women from different parts of the world or other regions of Italy with whom she had a common bond. Ironically, this engendered a degree of independence and socialization that would not have been possible for these women in the isolated villages and towns where they had been born.

The Italian immigrants in Canada, who formed the last great wave of Italian immigration to North America, have remained an urban group, with over ninety percent living in cities and towns. Toronto has by far the largest concentration, easily surpassing that of Montreal. Based on the religious traditions of their home towns and villages, Italian immigrants set out to re-create centuries-old customs in the streets of Toronto by celebrating patron saints or other key events in the Roman Catholic Church calendar. The Good Friday procession of St. Francis of Assisi Church, one of the first of many such religious events held throughout the summer months in the streets of the city, has long overtaken the San Gennaro celebration in New York City as the largest Italian religious festival in Canada or the United States, attracting tourists and pilgrims from southern Ontario, the north-eastern United States and beyond.

But the influence and contributions of Italian-Canadians go beyond the trappings of food and culture. At the same time that Vincenzo Pietropaolo was moving into the world of documentary photography, a sizeable percentage of other young Italian-Canadian adults, who had come to Canada as children but were educated in Toronto, were beginning their careers—either in the growing number of institutions and organizations of the Italian- Canadian community, or in business, industry, and other sectors of the larger English-speaking city. This generation has had a transformative impact on Toronto’s economic, social and cultural infrastructure. It has swollen the ranks of teachers across the province of Ontario, has produced lawyers and legal experts who can serve the community in both languages, has contributed to academic pursuits in post-secondary education, has produced important politicians at the local and national level, and has made significant inroads into the literary and artistic landscape of Canadian society. The children of these young, educated professionals continue to build, develop, contribute and transform their country of birth and allegiance—a path previously trod by the descendants of those Italian immigrants who arrived at Ellis Island at the turn of the century.

The images in this exhibition capture a time and place that no longer exists. Vestiges of the Toronto Italia created by postwar Italian immigrants can still be found in the historic Little Italy area scattered among the newly gentrified houses and laneways which were once so lovingly transformed and maintained to suit the needs of their immigrant owners. In creating a welcoming, lively ambiente to nourish their nostalgia for a way of life they had given up upon immigrating, the postwar Italian generation bequeathed a trendy and much-valued neighbourhood to the citizens of the city of Toronto. Luckily, through his photographs and evocative reminiscences of his own journey from immigrant child to photo artist, Vincenzo Pietropaolo offers us all the opportunity to value the stories and see the dignity of the “little people” whom history often overlooks.

Giuliana Colalillo is Professor, Learning Design at Sheridan Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning. She was born in Italy, and immigrated with her family to Toronto as a child. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto, where she completed a dissertation on the value structures of Italian immigrant families. She has written a number of articles on Italian Canadian immigrants, with a special focus on the role of women. Her latest article, “The Italian Canadian Presence on the Internet: Are we there?” was published in The Virtual Piazza, a special issue of the journal, Italian Canadiana (2006), published by the University of Toronto.