Almost all of Canada’s major cities have neighbourhoods called Little Italy, sometimes more than one. These old settlements came about in a natural way, a result of what is called chain migration—sisters and brothers, nephews and cousins, choosing to follow relatives, establishing themselves where the relatives settled years, even decades, before.
Most other immigrant groups did likewise, creating Chinatowns, Koreatowns, Greektowns and others. But the Little Italies may be more colourfully drawn on the map of our immigration imaginations, perhaps because so many Italians came, about a half-million, to Toronto alone in the 20th century. Or perhaps the Italian influence has to do with Canada being charmed by the enduring optimism and general goodwill of Italian-Canadian culture.
In recent years, the most frequently examined Little Italy in Canada has been a neighbourhood in Toronto south of Bloor Street and west of Yonge, regarded as the heart of Toronto’s...
Kenneth Bagnell is a Toronto writer whose books include The Little Immigrants: The Orphans Who Came to Canada (Macmillan, 1980) and Canadese: A Portrait of the Italian Canadians (Macmillan, 1989). He is completing his first work of fiction.
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