billymac
April 30th, 2007, 08:45 AM
In part 1 of Season 6, and in Kaisha in particular, we were treated to themes from the movie "Casablanca", including Blanca being the only non-italian in the Soprano home on Christmas Eve. Well it looks like Blanca has gotten her exit visa and is leaving the "Casa" Blanca.
Over the past few epiodes we have seen that Blanca is out of place in the Soprano home. The Sopranos talk have a beautiful home, cars, money and are selling investment houses for even more money. Blanca has none of this. She lives in an apartment in a bad neighborhood. She sees the Sopranos as mainstream, as "white" America, even if they do not. This is probably no different than when the Irish, Italian, German, Polish and other immigrants came to America and saw the wealth held by "waspy" white America. Back then, the immigrants proudly held on to their community and culture to define themselves and were admonished by their parents to "stick with their own kind", especially since the "white-breads" looked down on them.
Looks like Blanca, feeling out of place with the wealthy white-bread Sopranos, is going to hold on to her culture, family and roots for self-definition and to "stick with her own" when it comes to love and relationships.
Isn't this all just part and parcel of the bigger picture of assimilation and loss of culture for the Sopranos as an American family and the Sopranos as a crime family? The Soprano family has become American mainstream, losing with each successive generation its proud italian heritage culture and roots. They are blending into the melting pot and are no longer the outsiders/minorities struggling to succeed. Now it is the Russian, hispanic and middle eastern immigrants who are on the outside looking to obtain their sahre of the pie. They all still hold fast to their cultures and traditions.
The younger generation of italian-american children have little, if anything, in common with their ancestors who first came to the US. Vito Jr. is a Goth for crying out loud. Phil Leotrado's "history" lesson to the younger children of his family is lost on them. They don't even grasp the significance of the fact that the family name was forcibly changed at Ellis Island.
By the way, didn't David Chase's family have its name changed also when coming to the US? Perhaps that is what "Chase-ing" it refers to. And it goes hand-in-hand with one of the over-rding themes of the season: "What is Happening to this Neighborhood?"
Over the past few epiodes we have seen that Blanca is out of place in the Soprano home. The Sopranos talk have a beautiful home, cars, money and are selling investment houses for even more money. Blanca has none of this. She lives in an apartment in a bad neighborhood. She sees the Sopranos as mainstream, as "white" America, even if they do not. This is probably no different than when the Irish, Italian, German, Polish and other immigrants came to America and saw the wealth held by "waspy" white America. Back then, the immigrants proudly held on to their community and culture to define themselves and were admonished by their parents to "stick with their own kind", especially since the "white-breads" looked down on them.
Looks like Blanca, feeling out of place with the wealthy white-bread Sopranos, is going to hold on to her culture, family and roots for self-definition and to "stick with her own" when it comes to love and relationships.
Isn't this all just part and parcel of the bigger picture of assimilation and loss of culture for the Sopranos as an American family and the Sopranos as a crime family? The Soprano family has become American mainstream, losing with each successive generation its proud italian heritage culture and roots. They are blending into the melting pot and are no longer the outsiders/minorities struggling to succeed. Now it is the Russian, hispanic and middle eastern immigrants who are on the outside looking to obtain their sahre of the pie. They all still hold fast to their cultures and traditions.
The younger generation of italian-american children have little, if anything, in common with their ancestors who first came to the US. Vito Jr. is a Goth for crying out loud. Phil Leotrado's "history" lesson to the younger children of his family is lost on them. They don't even grasp the significance of the fact that the family name was forcibly changed at Ellis Island.
By the way, didn't David Chase's family have its name changed also when coming to the US? Perhaps that is what "Chase-ing" it refers to. And it goes hand-in-hand with one of the over-rding themes of the season: "What is Happening to this Neighborhood?"