by Rylie Kirk
Table of Contents
Introduction
The purpose of this project is to record, preserve, and analyze an oral history that highlights the enduring legacy of Italian immigrants to Canada. Through this interview with Robert Cino, a first-generation Italian Canadian born in Hamilton, Ontario, the project explores how migration, language, and family traditions shape identity across generations. Oral histories such as this serve as living archives, capturing cultural nuances often absent in official historical records.
The interview focuses on how Mr. Cino’s family originally from Racalmuto, Sicily adapted to Canadian life after immigration in 1959, balancing the hardships of industrial labour and assimilation with the preservation of Sicilian customs. Using methods of oral documentation, transcription, and critical reflection, this project situates Mr. Cino’s personal narrative within broader patterns of Italian diaspora in Canada discussed in HUMN 3800. The process of conducting and analyzing this interview deepened understanding of how community, food, and language function as pillars of cultural continuity. By connecting one individual’s lived experience to collective memory, this assignment reinforces the value of oral history in safeguarding heritage and identity for future generations.
Analysis
Robert Cino’s interview provides a compelling portrait of Italian Canadian heritage, illustrating how post war immigration from southern Italy reshaped local communities while transforming family life. His parents’ decision to leave Racalmuto in 1959 reflects the broader historical wave of Sicilian migration driven by economic hardship and political instability under post fascist conditions.Cino’s recollection of their journey marked by sickness crowned ship conditions, and limited possessions mirrors narrative found in Italian Canadian oral archives that portray migration as both sacrifice and hope.
Once settled in Hamilton, the family’s experience demonstrates how Italian immigrants forged a sense of belonging through labour and community networks. Cino’s father worked at Dofasco Steel Mill, a central hub for immigrant employment, while his mother joined other Italian women in a food processing plant. These occupational pathways exemplify what historian Robert Harvey termed “little italics” microcosms of homeland cultures sustained through neighborhood solidarity, Catholic parishes, and ethnic clubs. Cino noted that Hamilton alone hosted over twenty Italian social clubs, each representing distinct regional identities within Italy.
Equally significant is the role of language and food as vessels if identity. The Cino household spoke Sicilian daily, a dialect he described as “frozen in time.” This linguistic preservation aligns with cultural theorist Stuart Hall’s concept of “diasporic identity” a fluid sense of self shaped by both memory and transformation such as homemade pasta, bread, and wine- making functioned as sensory rituals of remembrance. These practices connected generations and acted as informal archives of cultural memory.
Gathering when he won a festival
competition in Racalmuto, Sicily
Finally, the interview highlights the dual sense of belonging characteristic of a first generation Canadian. While Mr. Cino identifies Canada home, Sicily remains a spiritual homeland, a site of ancestry and emotion. His reflections reveal the hybrid identity of Italian Canadian identity, where assimilation coexists with nostalgia. This balance between adaptation and preservation embodies the resilience of immigrant heritage within Canada’s multicultural fabric.
Reflection
Conducting this interview was both a personal and academic learning experience that illuminated the power of storytelling in preserving cultural identity. Speaking with Robert Cino demonstrated how heritage is not a static inheritance but a living process, continually reshaped by migration, memory, and everyday practice. His vivid descriptions of his mother rising at dawn to bake bread, of family gatherings filled with laughter and food, of Sicilian dialect echoing through the home, brought theory to life. The reflected how ordinary routines become acts of resistance against cultural erasure.
As an interview, I learned to listen beyond words to the emotional undercurrents of memory, pride and loss that define diasporic experience. This project also fostered empathy and professional skills in communication, documentation, and cultural interpretation. It reminded me that oral history is both research and relationship: a collaboration built on trust.
Academically, this experience reinforced course concepts on immigration, international transmission, and the politics of cultural identity. Personally, it depended on my appreciation for the sacrifices made by immigrant families who balanced survival with the preservation of culture. The interview with Robert Cino stands as a testament to the strength of community, the endurance of language, and the unbreakable tides between memory and belonging.
Photo Gallery
Interview summary
| Questions | Interviewee |
| Date of Interview | October 8, 2025 |
| Name of Interviewee | Robert Cino |
| What age group/generation are you in? | 56-76 ears old- baby boomers |
| Do you identify with a cultural background and heritage? | Yes. Robert identifies strongly with his Italian- Sicilian heritage. His parents emigrated from Racalmuto, Sicily, and he was raised within a close-knit Italian Canadian community in Hamilton Ontario. |
| Were you born in Canada or abroad? Did you or your parents or grandparents in any generation emigrate to Canada? | Robert was born in Hamilton, Ontario, in 1962. Hi parents immigrated to Canada from Sicily in1959-1960, bringing three of his older brothers with them. His mother’s side remained in Italy while his father’s sibling also immigrated to Hamilton. |
| Did you grow up speaking a language or dialect other than English or French at home? | Yes. Robert’s family spoke Sicilian at home. He explained that their dialect “froze in time,” trying unchanged in Canada while modern Italian evolved overseas. He later learned formal Italian, French, and Spanish, noting that Italian made learning other Latin languages easier. |
| Have you gone back to visit your family? | Yes, multiple times. He first visited Sicily as a child, spending a summer on his others farm. As an adult he returned several times to reconnect with relatives and experience farm life again. He described the landscape, the. Family’s agricultural traditions, and the feeling of reconnecting with his roots. |
| How often was the language spoken or was it only spoken at holidays with extended family or grandparents? | Italian was spoken daily in the household and during family gatherings. English as used with imbibing and at school, while Sicilian was reserved fr seating with parents and relatives. |
| Did you grow up in or live currently within an ethnic community of your own heritage or of a different heritage? | Robert grew up in Hamilton, which had a large Sicilian and Italian community, specially near the steel industry. His family was part of several Italian octal clubs. When they later moved to Stoney Creek, the neighborhood became more diverse, with families of Japanese, Greek, and Eastern European backgrounds. |
| What was the journey to Canada like? | His parents traveled by ship across the Atlantic in 1959. The crossing took seven or eight days and was rough; many passengers came seasick. His mother described the experience as very difficult, with few comforts during the voyage. |
| What was your families first impression of Canada? | His parents loved Canada and were deeply grateful for the opportunities it offered. They viewed it as a land of freedom and cues after years of hardship in past war Sicily. They believed Canada allowed them o prosper through hard wok. |
| Did your family have any trouble finding work or housinng? | Initially, yes. His dad Gaspare, lived with relatives and worked labor jobs before securing stable employment at Dofasco Steel Mill, where he sent his career. The Italian community in Hamilton supported each other by sharing housing and job leads. His mother Anna, later worked in a food processing land with towers Italian women. |
| Did your family bring any items of. Importance with them when they came to Canada? | Very few, since travel was limited to what they could carry. Most belongings stayed behind on the family farm. Later relatives in Sicily mailed some sentimental items, such as wedding gifts, to Canada once the family became more established. |
| Did you exchange any letter with relatives in Italy? | Yes. The family maintained contact through letters and later phone calls. Today they use email and text messages to stay connected. Some cousins now live in northern Italy and Germany, but the extended family remains close. |
| Where is home for you and why? | Robert considers Canada his home but remains emotionally tied to Sicily through heritage and memory. He describes Hamilton as his “true home,” where his parents built their lives and where the Italian community flourished. Sicily, however, remains a spiritual home- “where our roots are buried.” |