Saint Joseph’s feast, Texas style: ritual and identity in ‘Texas Tavola’

This chapter is concerned with the contribution made by indexes of traditional Sicilian identity to the sense of self and community found among second and third generation immigrants from Sicily to Bryan, Texas. In this community, the ancient ritual of ‘the altar of Saint Joseph’ (la tavola di San Giuseppe) is carried on, using details taken with them by the immigrants when they left the Poggioreale area, in western Sicily in the early twentieth century. Thus, observance of the festival has become an important marker of personal and collective identity for the members of this American community, who see themselves very much as continuing a cultural and religious tradition with family associations. The annual festival in Bryan is the subject of a documentary by anthropologist Circe Sturm and cultural historian Randolph Lewis, both from the University of Austin, Texas. The viewer of the film, accustomed to all-American festivals like the superbowl or the academy awards, will be struck by a sense of temporal and cultural dislocation of the event with its surrounding social context. The film, in fact, raises delicate questions about cultural integration which are standards of anthropological investigation in this area. How far, for example, is it possible or desirable for immigrants to absorb the cultural practices of the host nation? How far does adherence to social rituals, or linguistic and cultural patterns brought with the immigrant from their mother-country impede successful integration?