ABSTRACT
In addition to job openings, co-ethnic networks encourage the movement of Albanian Kosovars into Little Italy: ‘You will learn that everybody from Kosovo knows each other.’ The longest-standing Albanian Kosovar restaurant workers gained employment in the late 1990s, after fleeing regional conflict, and facilitate job attainment for those more recently migrated from Kosovo. Dardan, an Albanian Kosovar restaurant manager, explained:
Other restaurant staff echoed this network-based process, including Max, the son of a Jewish American restaurant owner, who explained the role of ‘fictive kin’ (close friends, family-like relationships) (Ebaugh and Curry 2000, 189) in the ethnic dominance of the market: ‘The Albanians sometimes bring their “cousins”… if they work in different restaurants and are looking for a change.’As highlighted in interviews with restaurant staff of all backgrounds, co-ethnic networks have led to a proliferation of Albanian Kosovars not only in Little Italy, but within the Italian restaurant market in New York; individuals gain experience, know-how and language that allows them to move up within this specific industry. This is most apparent in the saliency between workers of the Little Italy of Arthur Avenue in the Bronx and Mulberry Street in Manhattan. Additionally, ethnic Albanians own or co-own three of the Italian restaurants on Mulberry Street. While a small population (est. 194,000 in 2010), and thus unlikely to dominate Italian American restaurants across the USA, ethnic Albanians increasingly assume leadership roles in New York’s Italian restaurant industry (USCB 2010).
