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The Madonna of 115th Street: Faith and Community in Italian Harlem, Second Edition

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Robert Orsi's Madonna of 115th Street is a brilliant multi-dimensional research on the meaning of "popular religion" in the Italian community of Harlem in New York. However, to be just, Orsi himself is rather cautious about labeling his study by the term "popular". It is "religion in the streets," Orsi says, that is in the center of his examination: "This study began in a sense of the limitations of the meaning of popular religion and a desire to broaden and deepen our understanding of this phenomenon" (Orsi, 1985:xiv). Robert Orsi raises pertinent and engaging questions regarding the melding of ethnicity, religion, and community values which have implications beyond the scope of the present work.
The study of Italian American religion begins with the people themselves as a story of suffering, conflict, and hope intimately related to Mary. The men and women of Italian Harlem, the Sicilian refugees brought to the United States along with their modest material goods their incredibly rich religiosity and devotion to the Marian cult. The latter, unlike in the case of Polish Catholics (Orsi, 1985:xvi), was hardly controlled by the Church structures. This unique feature of the Southern Italian Catholicism defined people's religion as the totality of their ultimate values, their most deeply held ethical convictions, their efforts to order their reality, their cosmology: "This also could be called their "ground of being", but only if this is understood in a very concrete, social-historical way, not as reality beyond their lives, but as the reason that, consciously and unconsciously, structured and was expressed in their actions and reflections" (Orsi, 1985:xvii). Orsi's analysis resembles Durkheim's research on The Elementary Forms of Religious Life who believes that religion is "a fundamental and permanent aspect of humanity". The reality of religious forces is to be found in the real experience of social life, according to Durkheim (Durkheim, 1995:36). Interestingly enough, in the same way as Durkheim finds the birth of that idea in rites, as moments of collective effervescence, Orsi finds the annual festa of the Madonna of Mount Carmel in the 115th Street in the heart of the socio-religious dynamics of the Italian Harlem.
Symbol, ritual, and myth - the entire experience of Mount Carmel emerged from and referred back to the people's lives; the men and women of Italian Harlem shared and found themselves in the destiny of symbolic meanings when they attended the festa of the Madonna of 115th Street. In turn, their experience of the Madonna shaped their American destiny.

The Madonna of 115th Street is the study of Italian immigrants who settled in East Harlem, New York City. It is additionally, a story of a religious celebration, the annual festa of the Madonna of Mount Carmel on East 115th Street in New York City. The book highlights personal experiences of this particular ethnic group as they adapt to life in America while striving to preserve their heritage. These Italian immigrants use the festa to pass on to the children their deepest, most important values of faith in God, rispetto (mutual respect), and the domus (family).

Above all else, the domus was the most important thing to the Italian immigrants, and everything that they did was related back to concern for their family. Perhaps because of their oppression in the old country, southern Italians understood that first and foremost, they must support and protect their family because that is the only thing that truly matters. "They had traveled by steamship away from the world of la miseria, the great suffering of southern Italy, best translated as slow dying, an emptying of hope and ambition in the face of oppression and neglect. The immigrants themselves knew the spiritual consequences of this economic disease-a numb posture of hopelessness and despair. The world they left was characterized by unemployment, overpopulation, disease, over taxation, and internal colonization. They left to save themselves and their families." The decision to emigrate was a family decision, taken as part of a broader family strategy for survival. Some member or members of the family would leave home and travel to America to make money and send it back to the family."(18) "The family provided for everything. We ate as one family. We had no use for money as individuals."(78) The immigrants memories of the old country were memories of the domus. "The immigrants did not know an Italian nation-they only knew the domus in their paesi. So their memories and images of Italy were memories of strict family order and discipline, of family loyalty and mutual support."(78) "...And when I saw how industrious the Italian girls in the community were, how they brought reverently the weekly paycheck to the mother...I was willing to forgive their layers of lipstick and marry one of the American Italians."(78) Respect for each other within the family was also sacred. "Rispetto indicated a general attitude toward life, affirming the dignity of the person respected as well as the person respecting. This same respect was present in the their relationship with God, the Madonna, the Saint's and their community. "There was not one kind of respect for the Madonna and another for the community and domus; the posture was the same in both cases, and this was recognized and blessed during the celebration."(228)

The annual festa was a visual and spiritual celebration of faith in God and respect for Him as well as respect for the family here on earth. It was a way to preserve southern Italian traditions. The festa was a yearly event that brought all generations together through the celebration of the Mass, the saying of the Rosary, the Magnificant, a grand procession of the statue of the Madonna, and the traditional making of the vows. Heavenly vows of young and old were made during the festa and family vows were passed on from parents to children. Traditional Italian food was always prepared and the preparations for the festa began weeks in advance. "For one week a year, the immigrants could refresh themselves, reestablish their memories, and relocate their stability by returning to their hometowns in religious spirit. The immigrant was able, temporarily, to experience the smells, tastes and sounds of the lost world of his or her past. This annual moral reorientation and resituating could give the immigrants confidence and hope in the face of their fears that immigration had undermined their moral world."(169) "Parents and children together fulfilled vows, usually made by the former, to the Madonna; together they prepared for and welcomed guests into the domus, shouldered the heavy burden of the family's pain, cleaned the apartments and streets of the community."(170) "The invisible cables of rispetto which bound the members of a domus together and which bound one domus to another in Italian Harlem were revealed, celebrated, sanctified, and maintained on the sacral occasions of weddings, baptism, and funerals. These events, clearly important in the life of the domus, were the central public events, along with the religious feste, of Italian Harlem."(100)

The festa represented everything that mattered to the Italian immigrant; the communion of people and saints, the domus, and respect for all. Through popular religion, and the festa, these Italian immigrants shared their heritage with the next generation in America. Orsi succeeds in communicating that the domus was first and foremost to the Italian immigrants and that they took great pains to teach this value to their children here in America. The book contains rich immigrant stories and antidotes of a passionate, deeply spiritual people. "What was valuable about the mezzogiorno and what needed to be passed on to the younger generations in Italian Harlem was the domus."(78)

To all teachers: Orsi's account of Italian culture and the "theology of the streets" is an excellent source for any church history, or urban history courses, even at the high school level. I teach it to seniors at a Catholic high school in New York City, and they love it. Many are able to identify with the family structure and theology of the Italian community Orsi describes. Some critics of Orsi's work state that he fails to deal sufficiently with the culture-religion that he describes. That is, Orsi himself is uncritical of what many neo-orthodox theologians would consider "magic," not religion. I find that Orsi's acceptance of this "theology of the streets" demonstrates a greater understanding of what Catholicism really means both to its adherants and its hierarchy. Again, a great text for upperclassmen/women in high school and in college. It may open their eyes to a new way of looking at religion.

Robert A. Orsi's "The Madonna of 115th Street" examines the Madonna of Italian Harlem, a particularly important figure between the years 1880-1950. Orsi's book is also a study of Italian immigrants, the growth of Italian Harlem, and the concept of domus. Within this mix is Catholicism in America, which stood opposed to many of the customs brought to Harlem from southern Italy with the immigrants. Orsi explores this rich mix of influences and takes a sympathetic view towards what he calls the Italian popular religion and insists that it was a legitimate part of the Catholic Church in America. What was the function of religion in Italian Harlem? Orsi details its function, the role of the Madonna, and the annual festa, in which the people of Harlem revealed their values and understanding of the world.

Orsi describes Italian Harlem as a theater of extremes where immigrants came with great hopes and found a world not much different from the one they left. It was poor, densely populated, troubled by crime and juvenile delinquency, yet it was a place people came to love. Amid these extremes grew the devotion to the Madonna of 115th Street, a symbol of Italian popular religion. The statue of the Virgin, imported from the old country, was a visible link between Italy and East Harlem. The use of the Madonna was controversial in the United States, but received approval from Pope Leo XIII that sealed the presence of a Rome-centered Catholicism in the United States. The Madonna functioned as a protector for Italian women - to guard the body and defend the soul. Women told the Madonna about their troubles: sickness, unemployment, family tension, or unhappy relationships. Then the Madonna would intervene. She would heal the suffering child or parent, find work for the unemployed, and comfort the emotionally troubled. In this way she serves as the ultimate protector of the domus. The Madonna was asked to watch over men on distant battlefields and for reconciliation after World War II. After 1950, Orsi points out, she apparently no longer possessed the same power, the powers she granted became much more private and less public. Additionally, it was the women who went to church to talk to the Madonna. Church attendance and public participation in religious activities was left largely to women in Italian Harlem.

In face of the many difficulties that troubled the poor, ill housed, ethnically diverse, and dangerous community of Italian Harlem, the devotion to the Madonna of 115th Street helped shape cara Harlem. Religious solidarity, within the expressions of popular religion, helped to give the community solidarity. The men and women, Orsi explains, first turned to religious solidarity as a way of expressing community consciousness. In other words, it identified 115th Street in Harlem as an almost sacred place, because the Madonna resided there. It worked against community isolationism, it helped to unite all of Italian Harlem. It summoned people out of their neighborhoods to participate in the life of Italian Harlem. The Madonna functions as the source of the connection between self and community, it is central in the shaping of their public world. Finally, the Madonna and the devotion provided a point of stability in midst of upheaval, both in the early life of the community, and at the end of the community's life when younger people left for better homes elsewhere. Again, Orsi explains, as with the Madonna's powers, the cara Harlem began to disappear in the 1950s and 1960s, but the Madonna remained at the center of people's recollections of their community.

Another function of the devotion to the Madonna was the prominent role it played in the lives of women. Women were the main participants in it and it reflected the special role and position of women in Italian culture. The Madonna offered women great support, refuge, and consolation in their difficult lives there: they were able to identify with the Madonna and draw strength from the identification. Women far outnumbered men in the devotion to the Madonna. They were the primary economic supporters, they wrote to the Madonna, and women were the central figures in the life of the church. If a woman was to fulfill her role as protectress of the family, she needed the assistance of a more powerful and private protectress to whom she could confide the difficulties she was bound to experience. The Madonna's function and participation was essential to their lives. Finally, women were at the center of the annual festa celebration on 115th Street.

Orsi also makes clear that the form of Catholicism practiced in Italian Harlem had little to do with the American Catholic church. Immigrants wanted recreate the type of Catholicism they had practiced in southern Italy and were opposed by the American Catholic church from the start. The American Catholics saw them as outsiders with strange, primitive, and pagan-like customs. The Italians brought an ancient religious heritage to Harlem and the American Catholics of the downtown church were embarrassed by this Mediterranean spirituality spilling onto the streets, and were worried what Americans might hear and learn from listening to the voices of the streets. Thus, the festa became the ultimate expression of in-your-face Italian Catholicism. The festa functioned to sustain the southern Italian heritage and, at the same time, promote what they had established in this little corner of New York City and America. Orsi never doubts the importance of this event in Italian Harlem.

The only main drawback to Orsi's work is his lack of historical context. He is very good at recreating Italian Harlem, but rarely steps back and mentions what is going on in American society as a whole. In this way, the function of religion loses some of it historical context. Yes, he does mention young men being sent off to war, but what about the greater changes in American society as a whole? In the seventy-year period that Orsi covers, a great deal of change took place in American society, including its relationship to the immigrants' home country of Italy. In addition, other questions remain unanswered, for example, how did the Great Depression affect popular religion in American society? Nevertheless, Orsi's work is a fascinating look into the world of Italian immigrants and their religion. It is an excellent study of popular religion and its function in Italian Harlem.

Like the many penitents he renders, Robert Orsi sees all things in "The Madonna of 115th Street."

A scholar of things religious, and connoisseur of matters Italian-American, Orsi combines these two interests so that one defines and explains the other.

To the uninitiated, the Madonna of Mount Carmel is just a statue like countless others throughout Europe and the Americas that interprets the Virgin Mary in plaster relief.

But in Orsi's erudite hands La Madonna (and the faith she engenders) becomes an analytical tool that unlocks doors to discussion on Italian-American family life, the role of work, the trials of immigration, the history of colonization in the old country, and, of course, food.

His base of scholarly operations is the now-vanished Italian East Harlem, but those raised in the culture will recognize themselves, their families, and neighborhood networks in its residents.

The author did years of in-depth research, but found most of his truths on the streets of Little Italy. The resulting interviews may have informed the text, but don't make many actual appearances.

Much of "Madonna" is given over to Orsi's ornate reasoning, and even speculation, about the meanings of the religious icon, and how they can be discerned in the behaviors of mid-century Italian-Americans in urban New York.

That's not necessarily a bad thing. Somebody had to do it and his thoughts mostly ring true. Where they don't, the opportunity for debate and discussion naturally arise, and that is a second service the author rendered.

Don't give this book to your Aunt Rosina in Coney Island unless she's got a college degree and a sociological bent. "Madonna" is a scholarly text that can be dense as a zeppole with academic jargon or leavened as a sfogliatelle with deeply meditative conclusions.

But it is a delightful trove of considerations on the Italian-American and immigrant experience; a beautiful piece of history that might have otherwise been lost to those who care about them.

This book about Iatlian Harlem brought back warm, wonderful memories of my grandparents and all my realatives, our family gatherings at my Granparents' homes, and the pride they all instilled within me. My 93 yr. old mom is enjoying the book( I wish it were available in BIG PRINT) and the photos. She was born in East Harlem in 1918 and her family left Harlem in '32...for the "wilds" of the Bronx! As Orsi shares the stories of the immigrants and their childrens' struggles with being "American" and the conflicts they encountered I realized how "ahead of their time" my Grandparents were! Since Grandma came here in 1900 at 10 years of age...she was pretty "modern"...she stressed education (she was never allowed to attend schooL)...plus her younger siblings were born in Harlem from 1900 until 1908, they were very "American". My mom and her sister and brothers were fortunate to have such Aunts and Uncles!
I am enjoying the book and find the interviews revealing. So glad it was recommended to me!

A fantastic book by Orsi! If you like Italian, Catholic, religious or NYC history, then try this out. Not a typical history book. Orsi adds a great mix of sociology, anthropology, psychology, anecdotes and solid research to create a fascinating read.

In The Madonna Of 115th Street, Robert A. Orsi (Charles Warren Professor of American Religious History, Harvard University) offers a seminal and ground breaking study of faith and community in New York City's Italian Harlem. The focus of this treatise is the annual Catholic festival called "Madonna of 115th Street" and how it has both influenced and reflects the lives of the men and women of the neighborhood. The Madonna Of 115th Street reveals a compelling perspective on how religion plays out in the everyday lives and experiences of American Catholics and the formation of a distinctive immigrant community. This Yale "Nota Bene" paperback edition is highly recommended reading and enhanced with a new introduction by Orsi outlining the changes that Italian Harlem has undergone in recent years and the significant shifts that have occurred in the field of American religious history.

Great book! Covers not only the Catholicism of Italian Americans, but also a great deal about their home and family lives. Neither PC nor arrogant, this book depicts the Italian American world better than anything I have read! I kept nodding in agreement and underlining passages while reading. Forget the movie stereotypes and sentimental recollections; this is the real thing. It helped me understand my own culture a great deal.

The only letdown was the part about a "Theology of the Streets." That section struck me as a tad unrealistic.

This book helped me think in new ways about the place of tradition and authority in the contemporary world. Orsi's reconstruction of the mental and social schemata of the Italian community in East Harlem is a fascinating, compelling story. His research is impressive and his interpretation persuasive. Three cheers for Orsi's "theology of the streets."