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Italian American

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As the Columbus Day Debate Rages On, So do the Time-Worn Stereotypes

The number of Italian Americans who hold themselves apart from the Columbus standard bearers is substantial. That we do not have a public voice is not for the lack of trying. There are academics, journalists, and independent scholars pursuing the subject in the form of presentations and publications. Yet, when these folks come together to discuss concerns related to Columbus, or other matters pertinent to Italian Diaspora studies, the mainstream media is nowhere to be found.

People -

Are Italian Americans the White’s Clowns? Not Only Columbus Has Failed Us

Italian Americans have become the worst of ourselves. We made Columbus into the representative for the vestiges of a vanishing identity. Interestingly, perhaps subconsciously, we have selected someone whose conquests align with an ultra-masculine identity we deem as authentically Italian American. I came to experience that outsized and outdated machismo first hand. I had just come back from college after coming out...

People -

Meredith, from New York to Cagliari to Study the Italian language of Her Ancestors

The story of Meredith lies a little outside the leitmotif of this column, through which we retrace the steps of Goethe's “Journey in Italy”: "My family has been Italian for at least three generations. The first ones to arrive in the USA were my great-great-grandparents, who emigrated to the United States in 1905. My grandparents and my father, however, did not speak and still do not speak Italian, and today I am the only one in the family who knows the language", she said.

People -

Monongah’s Italian Miners: Mistreated in Life and Death

Nativist culture in West Virginia, oral traditions among 19th Century Italian migrants and faulty US research made difficult reporting and commemorating the centennial of a 1907 West Virginia disaster that killed 169 Italian miners - made difficult in the US, as well as Italy. Since that time, Italian commemoration entrepreneurs echoed myths, created non-facts and embellished tragedy without consulting research and transformed a US-Italian tragedy into farce.

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