Text:

“Whenever new furniture was bought, they would immediately be covered in plastic”

Context:

In my dad’s Italian family, when new furniture was purchased and moved into the house, it was immediately encased in plastic. My mother had similar experiences at her Jewish friends’ homes.

Analysis:

The ritual of covering new furniture in plastic is a common, repeated & patterned practice found among Mediterranean immigrants. Many Mediterranean immigrants were fleeing poverty & crime, coming to America with next to nothing. Because of that, new things were a rare commodity. My dad only had hand-me-down clothes, shoes, anything until he was in high school and got his first NEW pair of sneakers. So, whenever something new was bought with hard-earned money, immigrant families wanted to keep it as new and clean as possible. It was a symbol of pride, success, and hard-work paying off, and immigrants wanted to preserve it.