The Feast of San Gennaro, or simply "The Feast", is an Italian American festival that takes place every September in New York City's Little Italy. The Feast originated in 1926 with Italian immigrants from Naples settling along Little Italy's Mulberry Street and began celebrating the Feast Day of the Patron Saint of their city once a year. From the Middle Ages until today saint feast days have been celebrated as a way of releasing the grip of the social order; Mardi Gras and Carnival are other examples of this. Since the original festival, the Feast has turned into an 11 day event that includes street vendors, carnival games, live music, religious festivities, and an all out celebration of Italian American culture.
But New York is not the only American city with an Italian American fueled feast day celebration. Last year I had the pleasure of attending the St. Anthony's Feast in the North End of Boston. This feast actually originated before the San Gennaro feast in 1919, however, it is not as well known due to the presence of the Feast of San Gennaro in popular culture, such as in the Godfather Trilogy of the 1970s. This feast celebrates St. Anthony, the Patron saint of Montefalcione and the finder of lost things (If you lose your car keys, you pray to Saint Antony).
Having visited the St. Anthony's Feast last year in Boston and *loving* the celebration of my own Italian American culture, I was incredibly excited to experience the San Gennaro Feast which had been talked up by my entire family for as long as I can remember. However, upon reaching Mulberry Street with my younger sister and taking the 6 block walk down to Canal, I found myself disappointed. Disappointed by everything this Feast lacked in comparison to the St. Anthony's Feast in Boston. The Feast of San Gennaro was not just an Italian American festival anymore, but rather a multiculturally mixed spectacle (every other vendor sold Hillal food), the blaring sound of Lady GaGa's "Poker Face" permeated the festival, and one would not have know this was even a religious event at all until a half a block from Canal Street where the statue of San Gennaro was enthroned and older parishioners were selling rosary and saint paraphernalia.
The St. Anthony's Feast in Boston, however, featured a band stand playing old swing and jazz standards and Frank Sinatra (Ever Italian- American's dream son/lover), featured only Italian vendors, and had a nightly procession of St. Anthony for the devoted to give offerings and ask for intercession.
Throughout all of the San Gennaro Feast I made these small comparison's in my head until I realized what I was doing. I, myself, had a preconceived culturally constructed notion of what it meant to be an Italian-American. A true idealized notion of what my culture was and aught to be. As one who study's culture and religion in diaspora, I am no stranger to the concept of "authenticity". When a group relocates in a diaspora, often there is an idealization of the "homeland" and an attempt to recreate it in a new place. I have just finished reading John Jackson Jr.'s Harlemworld where he talks of an African-American population removed from any remembrance of Africa and rather idealizing Harlem as the center of their world and their culture. I could say the same for Italian-Americans. When most Americans think of Italian-Americans they surly wouldn't label Boston as the center of "authentic" Italian-American culture, but rather New York (in all Burroughs) and New Jersey. My childhood was filled with these ideals of the Italian-American culture: what we ate, how we practice our religion, how our parents and grandparents grew up; all of this in the attempt to preserve and pass on our culture. My biggest disappointment after hearing miles of stories about the amazingness of the Feast and its celebration of our "authentic" culture, the way it used to be, was to find that what I had built in my mind as "authenticity" was found in Boston rather than New York. How shocked was I!
However, it helped me to reflect on what can be found in any kind of religious and cultural diaspora and that is the attempt to maintain this "authenticity" by any means necessary. Where we can learn is in how any particular culture or religious group attempts to do so, where they succeed, where they fail. How do these groups adapt their culture to a new setting and how do these groups create a new "authentic" culture in America? When does the Italian, African, South Asian culture become the Italian-American, African-American, South Asian-America culture, respectively? In this case, can we ever find "authenticity"? In spite of myself, I'd say no. We can have an ideal. Such as my idealized conception of what a Saint's Feast celebration *should* be or how Jackson's interviewees saw Harlem as a cultural mecca, but none of these things are static. Time and space changes everything. Time and introduction of new cultures into NYC brought on the extra not-so-Italian carts to the feast, as well as Lady Gaga. We need to learn to embrace change, however, I see nothing wrong with still striving to maintain a certain level of "authenticity" within reason. Without an ideal of the "authentic" to at least strive for, how do we attempt to preserve our culture? Or am I just talking via my disappointment?
PS- All of this does not even mention my surprise at surprising lack of religiosity featured in the NYC Feast as compared to the Boston feast. In the Boston Feast, St. Anthony was constantly present and presented and you were to be reminded often of the presence of the Saint and the purpose of the Feast. However in NY, as mentioned, San Gennaro was hidden in the side streets and back alleys as the original purpose for the feast seemed to have shrunk into the background.
Feast of St. Anthony: Official Site
Feast of San Gennaro: Official Site
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