This short paper asks three related questions: What factors erode ethnic ties? What factors support ethnic identification? What roles does ethnicity play in the process of assimilation? Data were obtained through a sample survey of registered voters in three wards of Providence and the entire suburb of Warwick, Rhode Island. After a field test, 250 interviews were conducted over a three-month period with respondents whose surnames could be readily identified as being of Italian or Irish extraction. The conclusion which emerges from this study is that psychological attachments to one's ethnic group are very hard. Certain attributes--income, education, occupation, age, perceived ethnic discrimination, and ethnic parental background appear to have little or no direct effect on reducing these attachments, suggesting that certain ecological structures need not accompany an ethnic attitudinal disposition. The factors which appear to exercise the most direct impact on reducing ethnic attachments are generational love, area of residence, suburban environment, and intermarriage. Yet, while respondents who manifest these characteristics have a significantly less intense attachment to their ethnic group, they are still not assimilated. Among these respondents, ethnic attitudes continue to exist at levels above those of assimilation. (Author/JM)