Isn't it odd that Tony and Samantha couldn't speak Italian. I believe Tony's parents and grandparents were Italian immigrants, they probably spoke more Italian than English in their home. He was raised in the Italian section of Brooklyn! Speaking Italian should be second nature to him. Even in the Godfather the Corleones spoke Italian real well. I'm just using them as an example, I know most Italian Americans resent that movie. Sorry If I offended any of them.
shareSome immigrants encourage their children to speak only English so they assimilate more.
shareI was raised in a tri-lingual household ... English, Spanish, and Italian ... and now, in my 40s, I only remember the bad words and some simple phrases, for the most part ...
Languages are like muscles ... if ya don't use 'em, ya lose 'em.
Also... when people came to American way back when... they were forced to give up their original language and learn English.
now we translate freaking mc donalds menus to the masses!!
it's disgusting!
I've started repressed false memory therapy; I'll get something on you yet.share
Sometimes you must "go along" to "get along".
That was the driving force then, and it pretty much still is now.
I don't know about it being "disgusting", but it is more a sign of the present condition of the USA.
IMHO, the USA has become more of a consumer nation than it was formerly a producer nation. When the USA was a producer nation, "buyers" learned the English language to do business in the USA, and raw resources "sellers" learned English for the same reason. Now, so much of what is sold in the USA is produced outside the USA, it has become less necessary for non-English speakers to learn English, and more necessary for business in the USA to be conducted in other languages, even including McDonald's...
*sigh*
FYI, I do not believe immigrants were "forced to give up their native language", but they did choose to be sure their children were not at a disadvantage because they did not speak English. They could have continued their language at home, but that could have limited the children's practicing English.
I have acquaintances that use/have three languages in their home, but both parents speak English, and a different "second" language. They typically spoke their second language to their children, and expected the children to speak to them in English.
That way the children knew and were raised with three languages!
They did discover a little "glitch" in that idea when one of their friends suggested the parents "swap" languages to see what would happen with the children, (BTW, the parent's third language was their spouse's second language). It turned out the children were initially UNABLE to understand the parents when they spoke the language used by the other parent!! Go figure!
(Children being pretty adaptable, they were able to overcome that within two weeks, and the parents switched back to their second language from their third, except once in a while they switched again, to keep everyone "on their toes".)
That, (language as a "context sensitive thing"), does seem to also be true of adults. I had a few words and phrases of Mandarin Chinese as part of my work (Chinese were buying the company's product, so everyone in the company learned greetings and thanks as a sign of respect), and I happened to notice the cashiers in an upscale grocery store wore name tags with their country of origin.
On a whim, I used the Mandarin "Hello" to a cashier from China... she asked me to repeat what I said (she didn't expect to hear a non-chinese customer to speak Chinese), and I repeated it a second, and third time before she realized I had spoken Mandarin, and she jumped out with a lot of Mandarin(?) back then. I had to stop her and explain that I only knew a tiny bit of Mandarin, but it brightened her day...
I got a huge smile as I left, and that made me happy too.
I was raised in an Italian-American household. My parents were born here in the US and two of my grandparents were born in Italy, one in Sicily and the other in Calabria. My mother spoke a little Sicilian as she said her parents only spoke Italian when they didn't want the children to know what they were saying. My grandfather was a designer and he was so proud to be here in the USA and become an American.
Getting to Tony Miceli, he may have only used "expressions" in Italian on the show occasionally. Ironically, Tony Danza speaks fluent Italian. He comes from a neighborhood in East NY, Brooklyn where my father's family lived.
He moved to Long Island as a teen not far from where I live. There are so many Italian-Americans here. None of us speak Italian unless we were enrolled in class in high school. My school only offered Spanish and French. I enrolled in an Italian course in college. It was the Tuscan dialect which is very different (much nicer sounding) dialect. I remember confusing the Italian language with Spanish. (I had started taking Spanish in the fifth grade.) Unfortunately I dropped the Italian course and wish I hadn't done that.)
As any Italian-American may tell you, we try to carry on the traditions that our parents passed to us. I think everyone in America should know their roots and ancestry. Sometimes people are mixed with so many different heritages that it's difficult to identify with just one. I have a baby grand-nephew like that. He is Italian, Irish, Polish, German, Equadorian, Chinese and my niece in law tells me there's more including African American. (the child is absolutely gorgeous and smart too.)
Getting back to "Who's the Boss". What irks me more than anything about the show is the "Who's" as the first word renders the title of the show a question. So where's the question mark?????
My mother spoke a little Sicilian as she said her parents only spoke Italian when they didn't want the children to know what they were saying.You are the first person to ever say exactly what my mom and we experienced. My grandfather bought a 3 family house when he came here from Italy (My grandparents were from Rome and Naples) and all 3 of his daughters raised their families there. When my mom and her sister and cousins where kids they were not taught Italian for that same reason.
Danza and Milano are both Italian Americans. Do they speak Italian? Probably not or very little, just like their characters.
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