|
|
|
| Current Issue |
|
|
| Resources |
|
|
|
The Italian Connection
| Article
# : |
19888 |
|
|
Section : |
BOOK WORLD
|
| Issue
Date : |
4 / 1992 |
3,796 Words |
| Author
: |
Angelo Costanzo
Angelo Costanzo is professor of English at Shippensburg
University. He specializes in slave narrative biography. A
related article, "Living Under Mongibello," appeared in the
May 1990 issue of The World & I. |
UNTO THE SONS
Gay Talese
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992
635pp, $25.00
The full story of the Italians in America has received relatively little attention, but now Gay Talese's book, Unto the Sons, will change this serious shortcoming in our national consciousness. This epic work is Talese' admirable effort to chronicle throughout his own family history the extraordinary experiences of the Italian immigrants who came to the United States at the turn of the century and until the doors were closed to them in the 1920s. These newcomers consisted of tens of thousands of mostly destitute and desperate men, women, and children from the agricultural and impoverished areas of southern Italy and Sicily. The northern Italians from the more industrialized and prosperous parts of Italy came in fewer numbers, and they possessed the financial resources to travel across the continent to the more favorable climate and lucrative opportunities of California.
In the years since the first Italians came to America, there have been accounts written about them in numerous books, magazines, and newspapers; and they also have been shown on movie and television screens. However, most of the stories, sketches, and dramas depict Italians in caricatured fashion as lovers of romantic affairs and of abundant amounts of tasty food. These caricatures sometimes exist side by side with a converse image of the coldly brutal Mafia criminal able to shift with ease from being a dispenser of serious cruelty to a provider of lighthearted family warmth.
What is most unfortunate about these depictions is not only that they distort the truth about Italian Americans, but that they do not take into account the special heritage, achievements and contributions of the Italian generations in the United States. Most Americans probably believe that the Italians have given them only pizza, spaghetti, and the Mafia. Little is known of the different backgrounds of the Italian immigrants, the difficulties they and their children encountered, and the great hardships caused by prejudice and ignorance that Italian Americans continue to face in American society.
Penalties of Assimilation
Part of the problem comes from the fact that the Italians have been penalized for their loyalty to the United States. Like many other European immigrants,
...
Read Full Article
Look for this article in Ask.com
|
|
