Why are New York's Italians more Republican?

[Indy Texas 🇺🇦🇵🇸]

     In many parts of the Northeast, the Democratic Party machines were controlled by the Irish-Americans. As I understand it, Italian-Americans gravitated to the Republican Party because it gave them a means of gaining political power and representation.

I've heard this too. I also wonder if Fiorello LaGuardia had anything to do with it, or if he was more a symptom of this phenomenon than the cause.

[Indy Texas 🇺🇦🇵🇸]

Have you ever talked to one?

There ya go, oh young, over-analyzer. 

Being in California, he probably hasn't.

Nor have I - the Eye-talians who made it this far west largely ditched the ethnocentric culture of various Tri-State suburbs.

[Indy Texas 🇺🇦🇵🇸]

Haha. I have indeed been to New York and have talked to Italians there.

I'm of Italian descent and have relatives in the Tri State area who I see once every few years. I know they're Republicans but it isn't something we have ever discussed.

I don't think I'm over-analyzing, just curious.

You're missing out on a good opportunity to go right to the source. Ask them about their political views the next time you see them (respectfully, not in a judgmental or critical way).

[Indy Texas 🇺🇦🇵🇸]

Speak Italian at home:

New York MSA 242,396
Chicago MSA 38,001
Boston MSA 37,068
Philadelphia MSA 32,651

I wonder if they're speaking a "frozen in time" variant of late 19th/early 20th century Sicilian that has largely ceased to exist in Sicily. You occasionally read media stories about young Italian-Americans studying Italian in college to connect with their roots only to find that when they try to speak to their old great-aunt, she can't understand them.