When Raymond Belliotti was twelve, he stole from a local merchant.
After making restitution and apologies, he was faced with his
mother's Italian-American pride and wrath--he had besmirched the
family name, reinforced stereotypical criminal images of
Italian-Americans, and repaid the sacrifices of his parents and
grandparents with disgrace. The message was clear--his
self-indulgent greed had taken down an entire family network. But
later that night his mother symbolically welcomed him back into the
fold by baking his favorite cookies. The family survived and he
never stole again.
In "Seeking Identity," Belliotti combines ethical theory and
personal experience as he explores family and community influences
on individual behavior within an ethnic setting. He scrutinizes the
fine line Italian-Americans and others with ethnic ties must
continually tread between personal freedom and community bonds.
Individuals, he shows, are linked to a variety of often conflicting
groups-family, friends, neighborhood, country, international
alliances, and ethnic, gender, and racial unions. Constantly
influenced by ancestry and affiliation, Belliotti argues, they
simultaneously long for emotional attachment yet are horrified that
their individuality may evaporate once they achieve it.
Outlining the unwritten but deeply ingrained system of moral
rules that Italian immigrants brought to America, Belliotti
examines that system in relation to the current debates on moral
theory between those who argue we owe the most to people close to
us and those who contend we must attach no special weight to our
own interests when determining proper moral action. He also
investigates philosophical, historical, sociological, and political
aspects of government authority, examines conflicting images of
Italian immigrant women, and analyzes war and pacifism.
In some respects, Belliotti contends, the self is deeply
situated, socially embedded in contingent family, ethnic, and
national understandings. But in other respects, it is adrift and
never fully resolved as it struggles to define and redefine itself
during its unremitting journey along multiple dimensions of the
individualism-community continuum.
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