L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, APRIL 5, 2018 www.italoamericano.org 26 L'Italo-Americano " It seems sometimes as if San Francisco were about half an Italian city. There are only about 60,000 Italian in the city but they are such a progressive group of citizens that they have made an impression upon the life of the city itself." - San Francisco Examiner, November 25, 1923. We, the Italian-Americans, have come from over there, the boot on the other side of the pond, and many of us know exactly how; the name of the ship and the year our immigrant ancestors were escorted into Ellis Island. It's a big story about an impres- sive journey. Authors Laura E. Ruberto and Joseph Sciorra present, in a two- volume collection, essays explor- ing Italian immigration to the United States. The books are titled, New Italian Migrations to the United States, Volume 1: Pol- itics and History since 1945, and Volume 2: Art and Culture since 1945. Ruberto is a professor of humanities in the Arts and Cultur- al Studies Department at Berke- ley City College. She is the author of Gramsci, Migration, and the Representation of Women's Work in Italy and the US. Sciorra is Director for Acade- mic and Cultural Programs at the John D. Calandra Italian Ameri- can Institute, Queens College, CUNY (City University of New York). He is the author of Built with Faith: Italian American Imagination and Catholic Materi- al Culture in New York City. In these collections, Ruberto and Sciorra edit essays by an elite roster of scholars in Italian Amer- ican studies. The introduction to Volume 1 begins with a Fer- linghetti poem accompanied by these words, "Few poems so lov- ingly capture the everyday culture of Italians in the United States than Lawrence Ferlinghetti's 1976, The Old Italians Dying." How fitting this is! I know Loren- zo will be very pleased when I tell him. Volume 1 continues with essays focusing on leading-edge topics ranging from politics of the McCarren-Walter Act. San Fran- cisco and the Bay Area are men- tioned several times throughout the volumes including references to the work of the Italian Cultural Institute and the Italian Consulate. Volume 2 explores the evolu- tion of art and cultural expres- sions created by and about Italian immigrants and their descendants since 1945. The volume discusses many aspects of Italian-Ameri- can life is eloquently portrayed in dramatic representations and in films like The Midnight Story, filmed in part on Telegraph Hill, CATHERINE ACCARDI New Italian Migrations to the United States Essays on the Italian Experience edited by Laura E. Ruberto & Joseph Sciorra and consumer culture? "The contributors from both volumes discuss a number of inter-related impacts from the last forty years of Italian immigra- tion, across social, cultural, polit- ical, and consumer arenas. An Italian style—first noticeable through the importation of fash- ion, design, food, entertainment, and other habits of everyday life." "Italian style" is depicted in an ad for the New York City Ital- ian-language radio station, WOV-AM. The ad appeared in the 1954 trade magazine Radio Annual, with copy that read in part, "In every phase of Ameri- can life, Italian creativeness plays a leading role in satisfying our demands for better living." Joseph Sciorra & Laura E. Ruberto SAN FRANCISCO ITALIAN COMMUNITY starring Maria Luisa Pierangli. Pierangli's poignant portrayal illustrates the struggle of a lone- ly, Italian immigrant war orphan. In a recent interview by the University of Illinois Press, Ruberto and Sciorra elaborate on their project. That interview is reproduced in part below. For the complete interview, go to the University of Illinois Press blog at https://www.press.uillinois. edu/wordpress/?p=22993. How did you become involved in this project and how did it develop over time? "We first began talking about this collaborative project in 2008. For years we had noticed that the Italian American studies scholar- ship we were both steeped in and contributing to as part of our respective academic careers did not match much of our own per- sonal experiences as Italian Americans with post-World War II immigrant families. We issued a Call for Papers in the spring of 2009 and soon received a signifi- cant number of abstract proposals as well as other inquiries about our project. "Two essays in volume 1 by historians Stefano Luconi and Maddalena Marinari address the ways in which players in both the United States and Italy, from governmental officials to NGOs, worked to change and otherwise undermine the restrictive U.S. immigration law. "James S. Pasto looks at how working-class Italian immigrants integrated into the existing Italian American community of Boston's North End; Donald Tri- carico explores the second-gener- ation youth culture of Guido in Brooklyn; and Ottorino Cappelli and Rodrigo Praino examine the transnational Italian immigrant political brokers operating in Queens. "Volume 2 deals specifically with the culture made by and about Italian immigrants and their descendants from the end of World War II to present." How does the migration period from 1945 to 1973 differ from the 1974 to the 2010 peri- od? "We looked at the last seventy years of Italian immigration to the United States and began map- ping out different trends within this large time span, ultimately recognizing two main groups of Italian immigrants who have arrived since 1945 in the United States—"working class" and "elite"—creating a class-based sociocultural distinction that is suggestive and context-driven. Those who arrived between 1945 and 1973 we call the "working-class" group. We cap- tured the 1974 to the present group with the term "elite," who tend to arrive with college degrees." What impact has Italian immigration from the last sev- enty years had on U.S. popular Advertisement for New York City radio station WOV-AM in the trade magazineRadio Annual, 1954. Photograph courte- sy of Joseph Sciorra

• Cover