Table Of Content• Italoamericana
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Edited by Francesco Durante
• Italoamericana
Th e Literature of the
Great Migration, 1880– 1943
General Editor of the American Edition
robert viscusi
Translations Editor
anthony julian tamburri
Bibliographic Editor
james j. periconi
Fordham University Press | New York | 2014
Copyright © 2014 Fordham University Press
Italoamericana: Th e Literature of the Great
Migration, 1880– 1943 was previously published as
Italomericana: Storia e letteratura degli italiani
negli Stati Uniti 1880– 1943, edited by Francesco
Durante. © 2005 Arnoldo Mondadori Editore
S.p.A., Milano.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2014931287
Printed in the United States of America
16 15 14 5 4 3 2 1
First edition
Contents
ix Preface
xiii Ac know ledg ments
xv Introduction to the American Edition
part i. Chronicle of the Great Exodus
3 Introduction
17 carlo barsotti | To the Readers
20 ferdinando fontana | Shine? . . . Shine?
26 luigi roversi | For Humanity
31 rocco corresca | Th e Biography of a Bootblack
40 gaetano conte | Little Italy
51 gino carlo speranza | How It Feels to Represent a Problem
59 alberto pecorini | Th e Children of Emigrants
69 alberto tarchiani | Neither Foreigners nor Americans
74 al capone | Public Ser vice Is My Motto
part ii. Colonial Chronicles
81 Introduction
111 luigi donato ventura | Peppino
131 fanny vanzi- mussini | Th e Destruction of San Francisco,
April 18, 1906
138 adolfo rossi | Th e Five Points
146 giuseppe antonio cadicamo | To Giuseppe Giacosa
154 edoardo michelangeli | Two Stories
167 bernardino ciambelli | A Story, Sketches, and a Play
210 camillo cianfarra | An Emigrant’s Diary
231 thomas fragale | Two Poems
236 antonio calitri | Two Poems
251 angelo rosati | Th ree Poems
257 calicchiu pucciu | Th e Poor Woman
266 paolo pallavicini | Th e Little Madonna of the Italians
284 italo stanco | Bohemian and Detective
294 ernesto valentini | Brunori’s Fortune
303 eugenio camillo branchi | Hold Up!
315 dora colonna | Th e Two Girlfriends
328 caterina maria avella | Th e Flapper
341 severina magni | Seven Poems
346 antonio marinoni | Th e Hula Hula Flag
353 corrado altavilla | Th e Verdict
part iii. On Stage (and Off )
369 Introduction
395 francesco ricciardi | Th e Interrogation of Pulcinella
405 riccardo cordiferro | Four Poems and a Dramatic Play
445 eduardo migliaccio | Five Poems
467 tony ferrazzano | Th ree Poems
475 giovanni de rosalia | Nofrio on the Telephone
488 armando cennerazzo | Child Abductors, or, Th e Black Hand
499 gino calza | Two Poems
502 michele pane | Th e Americanized Calabrian
512 achille almerini | Dante’s Colony
516 pasquale seneca | Th e Pichinicco
522 vincenzo campora | Spaghetti House
524 alfredo borgianini | Two Poems
527 rodolfo valentino | Six Poems
531 silvio picchianti | Domestic Court
536 ario flamma | Leaves in the Whirlwind
vi Contents
part iv. Anarchists, Socialists, Fascists, and Antifascists
551 Introduction
605 giuseppe ciancabilla | Th e First of May
610 simplicio righi | Two Poems
613 luigi galleani | Methods of the Socialist Struggle
626 umberto postiglione | An Editorial and a Dramatic Play
643 ludovico m. caminita | A Letter and a Story
658 giuseppe bertelli | Six Poems
665 alberico molinari | Brief Discourses
675 arturo giovannitti | Four Poems
689 efrem bartoletti | Four Poems
697 vincenzo vacirca | Th e Fire
708 onorio ruotolo | In Union Square Park
715 agostino de biasi | Fascism in America
723 rosario ingargiola | Th e Light house
726 rosa zagnoni marinoni | To Mussolini, the Immortal
728 rosario di vita | Two Poems
731 umberto liberatore | Two Poems
736 armando borghi | Th e Failed Ambush
748 virgilia d’andrea | Remembering Michele Schirru
758 raffaele schiavina | What to Do?
764 carlo tresca | Two Articles
779 ezio taddei | Once Again Tresca
part v. Integrated Apocalyptics
791 Introduction
801 lisi cecilia cipriani | A Story and a Poem
811 angelo patri | A Schoolmaster of the Great City
820 silvio villa | Viola
853 constantine Maria panunzio | In an Immigrant Community
867 emanuel carnevali | Th e Day of Summer
877 pascal d’angelo | Son of Italy
896 francesco ventresca | Incipit Vita Nova
909 louis forgione | Th e Torture of the Soul
Contents vii
914 giuseppe cautela | Miracle
927 edward corsi | A Picture of 1907
939 James J. Periconi | Bibliography
987 Index
viii Contents
Preface
Th is volume is dedicated to the period of the Great Emigration of the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries, and therefore to the experience of the Little Italies, the
Italian ghettoes of America that were its fi rst and most glaring outcome. Th is vol-
ume follows upon my exploration, begun four years ago, of the fi rst literary traces
left by the Italians in the United States1 and completes what might be considered
its most important— and probably its least known— phase. Indeed, this period in-
cludes the main body of the literary works springing directly from America’s Little
Italies. Literary people in Italy systematically ignored— if not openly condemned—
this production, calling it anachronistic, amateurish, and unbearably “wild.” But
these works represent the site where the emigrants’ native culture was contami-
nated by American culture, even if at a generally pop u lar or only partially cul-
tured level. Th e result is an unforeseeably new universe. Th ese works also represent
a moment of passage or, to put it in a better way, the necessary link between the
experience of the fathers who came to America armed only with their cultural
baggage from home, and that of their children who, merely a generation or two
later, would recount their moving saga directly in En glish.
Th e period examined here goes from 1880, the conventional date of the begin-
ning of the transoceanic Great Emigration, to that traumatic and defi nitive divide,
World War II. During the 1940s, the experience of the fi rst immigrant generation
came to a close precisely because of the po liti cal alignments imposed by the war.
By then this generation’s writers had given their best. Th eir contribution is the
1. Francesco Durante, Italoamericana: storia della letteratura degli italiani negli Stati Uniti
(Milan: Mondadori, 2001).
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