Voices Of Italian America

Voices of Italian America presents a top-rate authoritative study and anthology of the italian-language literature written and published in the United States from the heydays of the Great Migration (1880–1920) to the almost definitive demise of the cultural world of the first generation soon before and after World War II. The volume resurrects the neglected and even forgotten territory of a nationwide “Little Italy” where people wrote, talked, read, and consumed the various forms of entertainment mostly in their native Italian language, in a complex interplay with native dialects and surrounding American English. The anthological sections include excerpts from the ethnically tinged thrillers by Tuscan-born first-comer Bernardino Ciambelli, as well as the first short stories by Italian American women, set in the Gilded Age. The fiction of political activists such as Carlo Tresca coexists with the hardboiled autobiography of Italian American cop Mike Fiaschetti, fighting against the Mafia. Voices of Italian America presents new material by English-speaking classics such as Pietro di Donato and John Fante, and a selection of poetry by a great bilingual voice, the champion of the “masses” and Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) poet Arturo Giovannitti, and by a lesserknown, self-taught, satirical versifier, Riccardo Cordiferro/Ironheart. Controversial documents on the difficult interracial relations between Italian Americans and African Americans live side by side with the first poignant chronicles from Ellis Island. This study sheds light on the “fabrication” of a new culture of immigrant origins—pliable, dynamic, constantly shifting and transforming itself—while focusing on stories, genres, rhythms, the “human touch” contributed by literature in its wider sense. Ultimately, through a rich sample of significant texts covering various aspects of the immigrant experience, Voices of Italian America offers the reader a literary history of Italian American culture.

Discover the first-hand accounts and stories of Italian World War II Veterans who answered the call to serve their country, despite being deemed Enemy Aliens by their own government. At the beginning of World War II, Italian citizens living in the United States were referred to as Enemy Aliens. Yet hundreds of young Italian Americans flocked to recruiting stations, and over 500,000-perhaps as many as 1.5 million-served in the military during the war. Despite the difficulties they faced, including the possibility of having to fight against Italians, countless Italian Americans received decorations for bravery, fourteen of whom received the Medal of Honor. Italian Americans in World War II offers their stories, which, for the most part, have yet to be told. Belmonte interviewed almost 50 Italian-American veterans of World War II, from all branches and types of service. Stories of daily life, food, equipment, and training from soldiers, sailors, and airmen are captured. You'll read personal tales about how survivors of D-Day, Iwo Jima, Tarawa, Okinawa, and The Battle of the Bulge felt about entering combat. This fitting tribute also includes photographs from this period in history, bringing the men's stories to life.

This book presents for the first time in English a substantial choice of texts (excerpts from novels, short stories, memoirs, and poems), written in Italian by first-generation immigrants. Marazzi, a specialist in Italo-American cultural relations, introduces here the lives and works of a number of novelists, poets, activists, and journalists, who wrote for the myriad of newspapers published all around the country. There are authors of serialized novels (the "mysteries" of downtown Manhattan), N.Y.P.D. cops, and nationalists extolling the virtues of the Duce, as well as red anarchists, ladies, and "flappers" from the Italian American middle class, and proletarian rhetoricians.

The Italian/American Experience: A Collection of Writings represents a meaningful attempt to inform Italian Americans about their group’s varied experiences in America. This book, unlike many works on the Italian American experience, contains writings that explain why popular negative notions of Italian/American life are inaccurate. The Italian/American Experience lists a number of organizations and journals specializing in Italian American culture and provides brief descriptions of many leading researchers in the field of Italian American studies. This unique text also contains an annotated bibliography of key books that deal with the lives of Italians and Italian Americans. This collection of eleven works offers readers an in-depth view of Italian American culture and heritage.

In By the Breath of Their Mouths, Mary Jo Bona examines the oral uses of language and the liberating power of speech in Italian American writing, as well as its influences on generations of assimilated Italian American writers. Probing and wide-ranging, Bona's analysis reveals the lasting importance of storytelling and folk narrative, their impact on ethnic, working-class, and women's literatures, and their importance in shaping multiethnic literature. Drawing on a wide range of material from several genres, including oral biographies, fiction, film, poetry, and memoir, and grounded in recent theories of narrative and autobiography, postcolonial theory, and critical multiculturalism, By the Breath of Their Mouths is must reading for students in Italian American studies in particular and ethnic studies and multiethnic literature more generally.

This is a study of the St. Peter's Fiesta celebrated annually by the Italian, or better, Sicilian-American community of Gloucester, Massachusetts, USA. The study deals specifically with the fiesta that took place 25-28 June 1970.