A Private Affair by Anthony Julian T amburri Tamburri In his ground-breaking essay, “Breaking the Silence: Strategic Imperatives for Italian American Culture,” Robert Viscusi championed an articulation of history that includes a collective purpose. While much progress has been made on numerous issues, many Italian American associations seem to work in a vacuum, moving forward alone on issues whereas, within groups working in unison, the community at large would benefit, thus encountering greater success in bringing forth a variety of projects that would contribute to an Italian/American agenda. What is – or, what should be – that rallying point around which the greater Italian/ American community might find some sense of commonality? Indeed, both African Americans and Jewish Americans have their one issue, as tragic as it may be, that coheres the group. I have in mind, of course, slavery and its dreadful sister of outright discrimination that has resulted from it, for the former; two millennia of diasporic existence and the more recent horrific holocaust, for the latter. What then can we identify as that cohesive force for Italian Americans? Can we look to something as immigration, that timespan 1880 to 1924, those forty-four years that have now become an historical marker for contemporary Italian Americans? There may indeed be specific tragedies that come to mind: the 1891 New Orleans lynching, for which we hold the dubious distinction of having been victims of the largest group lynching. One might even underscore historical discrimination, dating back to the nineteenth century and culminating, to date, in something like The Sopranos. Though valid points of discussion, these last two examples do not constitute, in an encompassing manner, that one issue that can unite the Italian/American community in the same way in which other groups cohere. We might thus ponder what is that allencompassing issue that unites, for instance, Hispanic Americans. In addition to a strong sense of belonging they may have with regard to their culture(s), it may very well be the migratory experience, a sense of not belonging to the host country, that coheres Hispanics. Surely, I do not want to be naïve in thinking that Hispanics from any and all Latin countries have an equal sense of allegiance to the “old country.” Nor do I want to imply that all Hispanics have an automatic sense of belonging to that group comprised of Hispanics/Latinos, as categorized in the United States. Nevertheless, we would not err in perceiving a certain sense of commonality that has its origins in the migratory experience insofar as they perceive themselves as outsiders, and, as such, hold on to their culture of origins. This combination of difference and cultural specificity – based in part on the migratory experience – surely figures as a cohering agent. A similar formula might prove valid for Italian Americans. Immigration can figure as that cohesive agent, however tenuous. A strong sense of commonality is that necessary ingredient for the community to progress, for the study of all things Italian/American to become part and parcel of the dominant culture, as it is for other United States hyphenated groups. cont‘d. page 2
Italian American Blogging The First Wave
Media Synergy for a Global Community
This special issue presents just a few of the dozens of blog posts, articles, and opinions that have appeared on www.i-Italy.org to date. It is, so to speak, an experiment in "reverse publishing": it goes from Internet to printed paper, rather than the other way around. What we are trying to prove is that, contrary to popular belief, "old" and "new" media need not conflict, but can cooperate – provided that no one tries to impose a pre-determined hierarchy upon them. Bloggers are not killing newspapers and the Internet is not killing radio or television. Rather, what is taking place is a global media revolution which works at its best when synergy is the catch-word. This is why i-Italy tries to ride the wave of media interaction and intends to be on the Web, on paper, on TV and radio "at the same time". That this is attempted by a group of Italian/American journalists and "public intellectuals" seems particularly significant, for Italian America – large as it is in numbers and cultural energies – has not had, until now, a firmly established presence in the media world. At least three prestigious exceptions stand out, as far as the United States is concerned: “America Oggi”, the largest Italian-language daily printed in the U.S.; “ICN Radio”, broadcasting in the TriState area; and the TV Magazine “Italics”, produced by the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute, Queens College, CUNY, and broadcasted bi-weekly by CUNY TV. No wonder that i-Italy – the first web-based editorialand social network for Italian America – has developed partnership relations with all three of these important actors in the media world. contd. page 8
di Patrizio Di Nicola
E.USIC / i-Italy Giunti a fine di un percorso durato 15 mesi, viene da chiedersi cosa si è fatto, cosa si poteva fare di più e a cosa è servito tanto lavoro. Il progetto E.USIC doveva, oltre che garantire una idonea formazione a 12 giovani, anche – forse soprattutto – favorire lo sviluppo e il rafforzamento delle comunità degli Italiani residenti nell’area di New York e del New Jersey, aumentandone il senso di appartenenza e creando un più forte collegamento con l’Italia tramite una community online. Operazione titanica, se si pensa che secondo le statistiche elaborate dall’U.S. Census Bureau un americano su dieci è in qualche modo “imparentato” con l’Italia, che circa 16 milioni di persone si dichiarano italoamericani, e quasi 13 milioni di cittadini americani individuano nell’Italia la loro discendenza. E’ evidente, quindi, che esiste una ampia “sensazione” di essere parte di una comunità, quella degli Americani di origine italiana. Lo confermano i dati dell’Osservatorio sulla stampa italiana all’estero, una iniziativa del Ministero degli esteri e dell’Ordine dei Giornalisti, che lo scorso giugno ha censito ben 810 testate italiane nel mondo, molte delle quali, le più antiche e diffuse, negli Usa e in particolare a New York. Eppure la Comunità Italiana a NY aveva pochi strumenti online che permettessero di “fare rete”, strumenti certo non adeguati all’altissimo livello della cultura che essa esprime. E.USIC, quindi, si è assunto il compito di fornire alla Comunità gli strumenti “di Community”: un insieme di blog che interagiscono con una redazione online, la quale a propria volta collabora con le redazioni offline di testate partner (prima fra tutte la storica America Oggi) e con un importante parterre di intellettuali che si sono avvicinati al progetto. Su questo fenomeno vorrei richiamare l’attenzione: solitamente coinvolgere le intelligenze locali su un progetto che viene da fuori è estremamente difficile. Nel caso di E.USIC, invece, nelle nostre tematiche si è riconosciuto un gruppo di ricercatori e docenti che ruota attorno al prestigioso John D. Calandra Italian American Institute della CUNY, consigliandoci e in molti modi costringendoci a farlo migliore. Per questo, al di là dei ringraziamenti dovuti a tutti coloro che hanno partecipato a E.USIC sin dall’inizio, la nostra gratitudine va proprio a coloro che si sono aggiunti strada facendo: la loro partecipazione è la misura del nostro successo.
1
Photographs in this issue by Luca Fantini and Stefano Giannuzzi
The Editors: Ottorino Cappelli Fred Gardaphè Stefano Giannuzzi Letizia Airos Soria Anthony J. Tamburri Stefano Vaccara Robert Viscusi
from page 1 All of this is dependent on an Italian/American commitment (impegno) to the appreciation of our culture. This entails an active participation in cultural activities of all sorts; it requires that Italian/American groups make a concerted effort to go beyond those one or two activities they have identified as their own, and make attempts to expand their agenda to include a new, more encompassing form of cultural integration. All of this, as we shall see, is dependent on a combination of cultural awareness and appreciation: namely a new sense of the Italian/American self that ultimately leads to an appropriation of one’s cultural legacy. A concerted conversation (i.e., coming together) on cultural philanthropy among/by Italian Americans is, I would submit, something necessary to bring to the table. The concept has yet to be discussed beyond those few occasions among a small number of individuals. We need only turn to (1) names on libraries, colleges of arts and humanities, and privately endowed professorships, (2) the lack of a free-standing museum, and (3) graduate programs in Italian Americana for us to realize how far behind we are in cultural appreciation. Education is the only way we can change people’s minds. Italian Americans must step up to the plate and support grand projects such as an Italian/American museum, endowed professorships and centers, and other entities and/or institutions dedicated to imparting knowledge of our history and culture. This ultimately brings us to the dire need of private, cultural philanthropy; there is a lack of Italian/American names on (1) college and university libraries, (2) colleges of arts and humanities, and (3) endowed professorships, just to name a few areas. Less than a dozen names comes to mind when discussing private, cultural philanthropy vis-à-vis Italian and Italian/American studies: Baroness Mariuccia Zerilli-Marimò’s donation in perpetuity for the Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò at New York University; the Joseph and Elda Coccia Institute for the Italian Experience in America (Montclair State); the Charles and Joan Alberto Italian Studies Institute (Seton Hall); the Joseph M. and Geraldine C. La Motta Chair in Italian Studies (Seton Hall); the Valente Family Italian Studies Library (Seton Hall), a collection of Italian books second to none; the George L. Graziadio Center for Italian Studies and its George L. Graziadio Chair of Italian Studies at California State University Long Beach; the Amelia V. Gallucci-Cirio chair at Fitchburg State College; the Esposito Visiting Faculty Fellowship at UMass Dartmouth; the Dr. Neil Euliano Chair in Italian Studies at the University of Central Florida; and, dulcis in fundo, the Westchester Italian Cultural Center. While the above tends more toward Italian than Italian/American Studies, the majority of these programs does include Italian Americana as a field of intellectual inquiry. But these are just the beginning. Italian/American Studies has progressed magnificently over the past thirty years at the college level. There are numerous programs or parts thereof at both the undergraduate and graduate levels nationwide. Indeed, for this to filter down to the public school system (where it is most needed in order to create future thinkers in this regard), access to Italian/American Studies for more graduate students needs greater facilitation. This, simply, will not happen through public funding alone. There needs to be a significant articulation between the academic world and those of Italian America who can readily underwrite any and all of the above-mentioned entities, centers, and institutes. This includes graduate fellowships so that those in history, sociology, literature, cinema, and the like can dedicate themselves fulltime to earning their degrees, and not be distracted by having to work parttime. Because many of us have had to follow this second path, it does not mean our children and grandchildren should do the same. Anzi! It is a great challenge that lies ahead, but it is surely a feasible accomplishment: The ten above-mentioned centers and professorships are proof positive. We thus need to talk, talk, and talk in order to do, do, and do… Alla riscossa!
Who Are We
One of the great pleasures, and an endless subject of discussion (or at least speculation) among Italian Americans generally (or at least, among intellectuals), is the extraordinary variety within Italian America. The fact is, there are more than one, two or three “types” of Italian Americans, and we’re always seeking for ways to describe those markers of an individual’s personality that help us figure out who she is. What kind of Italian American was Frank Viola, a champion pidgeon breeder who died not long ago? Or Anthony Lo Frisco, an attorney who complained about severe reductions in his $2.3 million salary from his law firm, based on billings of $10 million a year, reductions due to his age (74). Or Vin Ferrara, the ex-Harvard quarterback, a doctor who also holds a M.B.A. from Columbia, who developed a radically new football helmet that will dramatically reduce brain concussions in football players. I have no idea how much any of these considered or considers himself an Italian American. (Fiction readers, take note: read Anthony Giardina’s fiction if you want to get a nuanced idea of the variety of late 20th century Italian Americans, and read our “classical” writers, like Pietro Di Donato or Bernardino Ciambelli or Jerre Mangione or John Fante, to get a feeling for Italian Americans closer to the immigrant experience.) Most Italian Americans I know aren’t like any of these three I picked pretty much at random; some but not many
2
are like characters from one of the classic writers I mentioned. Let’s start with my perspective: neither a professor nor a journalist, I’m a second or third generation Italian American, – both Grandpas born in Italy, both Grandmas born here but of Italian parents – a New Yorker, principally an attorney, as my Dad was, though he wasn’t like me a literature Ph.D. “dropout.” I’m also a serious book collector and bibliographer of ItalianAmerican books, and former book dealer (in ItalianAmerican and other categories). I believe fiercely that the secret to our discovering who we are comes about largely by reading great writers, Italian American and otherwise. Even more to the point, I myself am not even the same Italian American now that I was 10, 20, 30 or 40 years ago! When I first read Rose Basile Green’s typology of Italian American literature about 10 years ago, I saw parts of myself at different stages of my life in each of the descriptions, including a “revulsion” period. I admit my mother asked me frequently when I was in my early twenties (more than 30 years ago), “are you ashamed of being Italian American?” One of my favorite punchlines now in conversations with my recently deceased 91-yearold mother, after telling her about some Italian American literary or cultural activity I’m involved in, or
by James Pericon Periconii
something I’m writing about, was: “Mom, you should get closer to your Italian American heritage,” at which remark she laughs. When my lawyer father, a co-founder of the Columbian Lawyers Association (a social professional group of Italian American lawyers) urged me, as a newly minted lawyer 30 years ago to join, I looked at him disdainfully – what good could that possibly do for me in any way? Well, about 5 or 6 years ago – almost a decade after Dad passed away – I joined the Columbian Lawyers Association and I go quite regularly (and enjoy it), in this same period of my life when I also regularly haunt rather WASPy precincts like the Grolier Club (whose members are book collectors, dealers and librarians), thanks to Vic Basile, as enthusiastic an ItaloAmericanophile as you’ll find, who sponsored me. What kind of Italian American does that make me? I see these vast changes in my perception of my own Italianità reflected in changes, albeit very different ones, in Italian America generally over these years. As I see it, Italian America is unimaginably different in 2008 from the country it was in 1948, when I was born; in 1970, when I graduated from college; or even in 1977, when I began my law practice. At the last of those dates – just 30 years ago, in the span of about 125 years since the Great Migration began – the idea that the U.S. Supreme Court would have not one but two Italian-American members would have been regarded as absolutely impossible, a fantasy. Virtually
no Italian Americans were part of the upper reaches of American law, either in law firms or law schools. The idea that so many Italian Americans would be highly respected partners of major U.S. law firms – which once regarded Italian Americans, like Jews and African Americans, as anathema – was unthinkable in 1977, but no longer. For someone with my politics, at times it seems more a nightmare than a dream that these two Italian American lawyers made it to the top – two brilliant guys, Justices Scalia and Alito, but hopelessly conservative, hopelessly out of touch with the progressive spirit that was an integral part of early Italian America. (I’m more pleased that they’re smart, by the way, than I’m sad they’re so conservative.) One of the idées fixes in my life, let me be clear, is this: Italian Americans, who haven’t disappeared as distinct from other Americans, who haven’t completely assimilated, need to overcome their historical amnesia before they’ll ever truly be comfortable about who they are. We now have an extraordinarily rich imaginative and historical literature about who we were and who we are. Yet that literature has touched surprisingly few lives even among the most educated and successful of us. That is the enigma of Italian America, that is the poignancy and the heartbreak of our situation – that we are seemingly constitutionally unaware of who we are, even at the “upper” ends.
A Question of Food & Values by Maria Laurino At the end of February, a group of Italians representing the international Slow Food movement came to Union Square Park in Manhattan to promote its mission: “To counteract fast food and fast life, the disappearance of local food traditions and people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from, how it tastes and how our food choices affect the rest of the world.” They found a sympathetic audience. The area adjacent to the park is the regular spot for upstate farmers who come to New York City several times a week to sell their local produce to loyal customers who want to buy organic. Slow Food was founded in Italy (perché no?) in 1989. For me, its mission hits home – probably because the goals of the movement sound awfully similar to the life that my grandparents brought with them to the United States. A life that was abandoned a century ago as the giant wheels of progress turned, and immigrants, happy to have left the grinding poverty of their homeland, traded agrarianism for industrialization. It’s always amusing for a third-generation Italian-American like me to see the ways of my grandparents reemerge in this new millennium – this time as a life to be imitated rather than looked upon with pity. Their customs, which I once believed were musty relics of the Old World, are now entwined with a movement that tells us how to seek a better, healthier life. I grew up wondering why my mother tipped heavy tins of olive oil when all the neighbors used Mazola; why we ate dishes like escarole and beans when everyone else was mixing Hamburger Helper into ground beef. I begged my mother to serve Chef Boyardee instead of Celentano frozen ravioli. How strange my requests must have seemed to my mother, who grew up watching her own mother spend all morning in the kitchen. My grandmother stretched the ravioli dough and rolled it nearly the length of the table, moist yellow sheets which she spread with a thin layer of ricotta cheese before placing another sheet of dough on top. No wonder years later my mother felt guilty buying frozen ravioli. And to make matters worse, her daughter begged for limp, canned squares. But I didn’t want to be associated with any Old World traditions, New World daughter that I was. I believed that anything modern, anything American must be infinitely better. My ancestors, those original Slow Foodies, were intimately connected to the land. After my grandfather settled in Maplewood, New Jersey, he dug a large garden next to the apartment building that he owned. He’d grow the vegetables and my grandmother would come down each morning to choose the day’s selection, which she would cook for dinner that evening. A few years ago, when I visited my mother’s family in southern Italy, my cousin drove my husband and me to the city of Avellino, where we planned to catch a bus to Naples and subsequently a train to Rome. Along the route, my cousin stopped at a gas station. I used the time to call our hotel in Rome to confirm our reservation; meanwhile another one of my cousins wandered off. I spotted him far in the distance, stooping on the black pavement. He walked back displaying a large grin and a bunch of wild arugula that had grown
between the cracks, fresh-picked for his dinner salad. This connection to the land; this desire to pick edible food wherever it was available had always seemed to me – product as I am of a New Jersey suburb — an embarrassing peasant mentality. The Ultimate Peasant, as the writer Julian Barnes dubbed this type of fellow in rural France: “ancient, rubicund, and toothless.” But today as once distinctive cultural customs bow to the homogenized goals of the European
by Natasha Lardera
Union, I miss the Ultimate Peasant and the agrarian traditions that were lost once he disappeared. Although he had little choice – his way of life was determined at birth – and although only a naïve romantic wouldn’t admit that modernity improved his lot, I agree with the Slow Food proponents who argue that not all is well with the aggressive, market driven, technologically obsessed New World. My friend Edvige Giunta remarked to me that she likes to take her children to Sicily
Muffuletta Online
Leafing through the mouth-watering pages of one of my favorite food magazines, Saveur, I was proud to see an Italian American specialty, muffuletta, among its “100 favorite foods, restaurants, drinks, people, places, and things.” It was unexpected as Italian American cuisine is not really “cool” or trendy as many of the things portrayed in this magazine usually are. Muffuletta stands at # 89, not at the top, but it still, it’s on the list… “This is the hero to beat all heroes,” the magazine reports, “an ItalianAmerican New Orleans classic…Man, is it good.” What’s the story of this great sandwich? This is what I found out on Wikepedia: “The muffuletta (with numerous alternate spellings) is a type of Sicilian bread, as well as a sandwich in New Orleans, Louisiana, which is made with that bread. The bread is a large, round, and somewhat flat loaf, around 10 inches (25 cm) across. It has a sturdy texture, and is described as being somewhat similar to focaccia. The muffuletta sandwich originated in 1906 at Central Grocery, which was operated by Salvatore Lupo, a Sicilian immigrant. The sandwich is popular with city natives and visitors, and has been described as ‘one of the great sandwiches of the world.’ Central Grocery still serves the sandwich using the original recipe. A typical muffuletta consists of one muffuletta loaf, split horizontally. The loaf is then covered with a marinated olive salad, then layers of capicola, salami, mortadella, emmentaler, and provolone. The sandwich is sometimes heated through to soften the provolone. The olive salad is considered the heart of the sandwich, and consists primarily of olives, along with celery, cauliflower, and carrots. The ingredients are combined, seasonings are added, covered in olive oil and allowed to combine for at least 24 hours. Prepared olive salad for muffulettas can also be bought by the jar in New Orleans grocery stores.” Personally I have never tried it, but all this information makes me crave one, so off I go to buy all the ingredients and try to make the New York version of it…and if you have a recipe or a variation, please share it with me...with us.
3
every summer so they can see lemons grow on trees. Her daughter once believed that lemons grow in dirt. “When you are disconnected from how things grow, you are disconnected from how people grow,” Edvige wisely told me. Unfortunately, I can’t get to Sicily right now. But I did go to Union Square to see how an alternative movement chooses to articulate values that my grandparents lived and never thought to question.
The Editors: Ottorino Cappelli Fred Gardaphè Stefano Giannuzzi Letizia Airos Soria Anthony J. Tamburri Stefano Vaccara Robert Viscusi
“Off the Boat”
Then & Now by Tom Verso Recently, a fellow Italian American club member said to me: “In Italy I was an Italian. In Rochester, I’m Neapolitan. When I came to America, I was surprised to hear people referring to themselves as: Sicilian, Neapolitan, etc”. I asked him when he came to the U.S. He told me 1960. This raises an interesting question about the contemporary “Italian American State of Mind” (i.e. our self concept and group identity). Actually, there are two generic categories of Italian American states of mind: that of the descendants of the pre-WW I immigrants and that of the postWW II immigrants. During the years surrounding 1900, millions of southern-Italian immigrants got “Off the Boat” at Ellis Island. Keeping in mind Garibaldi unified Italy in 1860, at the time of this great migration Italy had been a unified country for more or less 50 years. Accordingly, most of the immigrants did not think of themselves as Italians per se. They identified more with their provinces and towns, as their ancestors had for centuries. There were vast differences between provinces. For example, the Sicilian dialect was much different from the dialects spoken in northern Italy. A Sicilian could hardly carry on a conversation with a Roman. At that time, when an Italian came to America, he or she did not just get “off the boat” and start looking for a place to live and work. Often they would locate near a family member or others from their town already settled in America. Immigrants from previous years would help the new arrivals get started and adjust to their new country. For example, Samira Leglib, in her “i-Italy” magazine section article (“Snapshots of Sacred Images and Local Pride”), writes: “Until World War II a concentration of immigrants from Calatafimi lived on Knickerbocker Avenue in Brooklyn”. Immigrants who came from the same provinces or towns also formed societies to help with new arrivals and facilitate socialization. In Rochester NY the “Regina Elena Societa” was organized in 1904; the “Celanese Societa” in 1907; the Marinai Elenesi Societa in 1911; etc. By the1930s there were 55 such societies in Rochester. By then, the immigrants had stopped coming. But when the Great Depression led to job losses and financial stress, the societies helped the Italian community cope with the economic hardships. That neighborhoods and societies were organized by regions and towns of Italy resulted in the traditions of those places being preserved and passed on to the children and grandchildren of the immigrants. Meanwhile in Italy, Italian nationalism was taking hold: Mussolini fanatically preached Italian nationalism; children in schools learned the Italian language and history; Italian language radio came into existence and people heard about national issues. Dialects and regional identities faded and people began thinking of themselves as Italian. By 1960, people who got “off the boat (airplane)” thought of themselves more as Italian nationals then as regional citizens. Here they met the progeny of the original immigrants who by tradition still thought of themselves as Sicilian, Neapolitan, etc. When the descendants of the pre-WW I immigrants say “I’m Sicilian or Neapolitan”, their “state of mind” is one of “reminiscence’ for Knickerbocker Avenue in its urban village days, and “homage” to the mighty southern-Italian peasants who were herded from their land by the “Italy ends at the Garigliano” Piedmont government in Rome. The descendants of the original emigration are not nostalgic for Italy; rather, “Little Italy”. For example, in the “Godfather” movies, the scenes of Sicily are thought to be beautiful and delightful – “A nice place to visit”. But, it is the meticulous reproduction of “Little Italy” scenes that conjures emotions in the descendants of Garibaldi’s southern-Italian diaspora. For it is the images of “Little Italy” that capture the origins of their identity, their subliminal psycho-sociological being, their “state of mind”. The post-WW II immigrants have no memory of “Little Italy”. Walking through the remnants of “urban villages” in New York, Boston, Rochester, etc. they get no emotional rush. They see only buildings not visions. They do not experience the déjà vu sense of primordial being when in the presence of origins. Thus, in America today there are two different types of Italian Americans; i.e. two different “states of mind”. To my mind, Italian American scholars have failed to clearly make that distinction, and articulate the cultural and sociological implications that dichotomy has for fully understanding, teaching and perpetuating American Italianità.
Gramsci,
by Laura Ruberto
Cyberwriting
Antonio Gramsci—son of Sardinia, co-founder of the Italian Communist Party and L’Unità, intellectual—was born January 22, 1891. His life ended prematurely, after spending over a decade in a Fascist prison, incarcerated by his former Socialist Party comrade Benito Mussolini. His letters from prison—not just the fierce political analyses, but the fluffier personal notes too —fascinate me. There’s something fitting, I think, in using cyberspace to write about Gramsci, whose fame comes in large part from the writing he produced behind bars, under strict censorship. I think Gramsci would have marveled at the possibilities afforded by cyberspace. I understand that the Internet is hardly a free, unmonitored, perfectly democratic space, but it surely grants more freedom of expression than il Duce’s lockup. Gramsci was well aware of this intellectual repression. In writing to his wife, Julia Schucht, he reminded her: “le mie lettere sono ‘pubbliche,’ non riservate a noi due” (“my letters are ‘public,’ not reserved for us two’) (December 7, 1931). I can’t help but think of electronic messages—emails, text messages, you name it. And while I certainly don’t want to sound like I’m waxing nostalgic for the long-lost days of pen, paper, and envelope, I wonder sometimes what will happen to all the text we produce online. Whose i-Italy blog posts will still be around in a hundred years? Will they have been collected in a multivolume set: Italian American Bloggers, The First Wave? What about all of the emails we write? Will we have cyber Eloise and Abelard that university students will read in their “Great Texts of the Twentyfirst Century” course? Yet I also can’t help but chuckle—because I feel for him, I sympathize—when I read Gramsci, a serious thinker I admire, bothered by his own sometimes-unintelligible prose: to Julia, he writes, “se dovessi io stesso rileggere le mie lettere dopo qualche settimana, mi pare che ne proverei un certo disgusto” (“if I were to re-read my letters after a few weeks I think I would find them a bit distasteful”) (November 30, 1931). Would he have written differently if he knew his letters would be published in books, cited at conferences, taught in universities, and posted online? cont‘d. page 5
The Dual-Citizenship Evangelist by Annie Lanzillotto I’m a dual-citizenship evangelist. The other night in The Grey Dog Café sat a table of five young funky New Yorkers eyeing the rest of us sitting around drinking coffee, eating salads, staring into the giant eyes of dogs in the paintings. “This may sound funny,” one said, approaching the friend I sat with, “but I like your hair, and I need a model.” She proceeded to feel her hair and recruited her as a bob model for the next morning. They were hairstylist apprentices from Arrojo studio. One stylist with thick brown hair and full lips got a call around ten p.m. canceling her model for the next morning. Her table nodded in agreement that I needed a haircut.
4
So, in the morning I ventured to Varick Street and as I sat in her chair soon learned her grandparents were from Campobasso. That’s all I had to hear. I began my Lanzalogue, “I got dual citizenship. You probably can too. It took a year and over three hundred dollars. That was pre nineeleven. Look at the consulate website. Talk to your father. See if Grandpa left a shoebox of papers.” Then I flash my two passports. There’s an allure in being double documented. And, that’s how my cittadinanza journey began; a friend flashing his maroon passaporto to me like he just landed in the homeland. I don’t know if I’m a decent citizen. I do vote but these days a vote feels more like a purchase to me than a true vote, especially in the U.S.. In
this U.S. presidential election year I feel that my vote is a purchase of identity, ideals, products, organizations, and companies that back candidates. I listen to presidential hopefuls say the word America (incidentally I saw a sticker over a cappuccino machine that said –America – that’s a nice Italian name) anyway, I listen to the phonetics of belief the candidates imbue in the vowels in AHHM errr ika, and I believe I hear where they work on lilt and intonation, Midwest southern U.S. vowels. AHHM Air icka. They work on that. I can hear it. I used to have a nun that worked on that word with me. By the time she was through with me, no one could hear my Bronx accent in the word America.
c/o J.D. Calandra Italian American Insitute Qeens College, CUNY 25w 43rd Street 17th Floor New York, N.Y. 10036 Telephone: (212) 642-2094 Fax: (212) 642-2030 Email: editors@i-Italy.org
Tony Soprano Made Me Do It!
by Joseph Sciorra, aka Joey Skee
& Blogofascism In speaking of the permanence of e-writing, the February 14th edition of the New York Review of Books ran a lengthy review of ten recent books on blogging, written by Sarah Boxer, herself an editor of a printed anthology of blogs. I was struck by the second book listed, Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob, by Lee Siegel. For those who need a gloss, Siegel, an editor at The New Republic, was outed in 2006 for creating his own counter blog, an alias to “rein in his own critics,” as Boxer puts it. Siegel used an Italian word for his alias, sprezzatura, and in so doing nicely alluded to the kind of arrogance expressed by his virtual deception. But more interestingly is Siegel’s appropriation of the term fascism. (The “electronic mob” he refers to is not directly of the Tony Soprano variety but rather of the angry crowd type.) Indeed, Siegel is known in the blogosphere for coining the term blogofascism (“bloggers’ attempts to control their critics,” again, courtesy of Boxer). Manipulation of cybertext! Dictatorial power over the ’net! Say it ain’t so! A journalist who breezily throws around such weighty words as fascism is generally OK by me—I get the irony, I appreciate the effect it has on our ultra self-conscious pop culture. And yet, call me old fashioned, but I’m a tad uneasy about it too. In fact, I’ve always been annoyed when I see the word fascism used generically rather than with historical accuracy. I guess my reaction comes from a perhaps pedantic commitment to historicity and my personal background of having one grandfather who was conscripted into Mussolini’s army and taken prisoner in Africa, another who fought for the Italian Resistance, and an uncle who bailed on Badoglio’s army, got discovered by the SS while in hiding and who, according to my grandmother, did not end up at the Fosse Ardeatine in great part due to the intervention of the Madonna del Divino Amore. But those are all stories for future posts... Now, what would Gramsci say (WWGS) indeed!
5
Last month, mafia informant Francesco (Frank) Fiordilino, “former Bonanno crime family associate,” decried the mafia and its glorification in the media. According to the New York Daily News, Fiordilino’s statement read, in part: “I apologize as well, especially to anyone of Italian background, by conspiring and utilizing our culture in the same manner the entertainment industry does with its stereotypes.... Hollywood intensified my love for that life, and in the process blindsided what being Italian meant” (February 22, 2008). Italian-American spokespeople, activists, and scholars have been all-too quick to respond to this latest development. “This is the smoking gun, no pun intended, we’ve been looking for,” said Vin Choocie, director of the Museum of the Italian Experience in America, who single-handily petitioned the U.S. Congress to issue a formal apology to him personally on behalf of “the Italian-American community” for decades of unspecified ethnic discrimination (Resolution HCR11099/ HR42545). “My son couldn’t get on the Harvard polo team because his name ends in a vowel. (Choocie’s son Vin. Jr., a freshman at Westchester Community College, was unavailable for comment.) Professor Vanessa Longo-Murphy of Montclair State University and author of Strega: The Sorceress as a Mago Figure in Italian Literature asserted, “A Princeton study showed that 74 percent of Americans associated Italian Americans with organized crime. Why would they do this? Because of the way the media depicts us.” Ms. KaNèesha Leilani al-Jamil-O’Neil née Yamaguchi, Esq, of the Organization of Great Grandsons and Great Granddaughters of Ribottoli, frazione di Serino, of North Bergen, New Jersey (OOGGAGGOR,FDS,ONBNJ), reacted to Fiordilino’s statement, “My maternal grandfather’s paternal grandmother’s comare didn’t leave her mountain village just to be depicted as a suburban housewife in “The Sopranos.” We’re doctors, lawyers, and cinema studies scholars. How come we don’t see Italian-Americans depicted as cinema studies scholars on TV?” Dr. Charles Lombroso of the Melanocorypha Lark Foundation for Italian Diasporic Studies, who has been directing a team of researchers for close to twenty years studying the long-term impact of mafia movies and television shows, said: “This [Fiordilino’s statement] only corroborates our findings. In one study [see data below], we proved conclusively that every time a ‘Sopranos’ episode aired, 6.5 Italian-American youths joined the mafia, or, at the very least, they thought about joining the mafia.” Poet Al E.Ghieri, who advocates for artistic expression on his blog “Sacred Farce,” characterized the “knee-jerk response” by Italian-American “self-styled leaders” as “a shuddering din of strange and various tongues, sorrowful words and accents pitched with rage, shrill and hard voices.” Since Fiordilino’s February 21st statement, other convicted mobsters have come forward with similar accounts linking negative media portrayals with their nefarious deeds. Peter Paulie (and Mary) Pietropaolo, serving 5-10 years in Attica Correctional Facility, explained, “I’ll never forget. It was 1976 and I was going for the paper, for the paper, and I heard Bob Dylan on the radio in Mrs. Cappa’s candy store. He was singing that song ‘Joey,’ you know, about Joe Gallo. And there’s that line, ‘When they asked him why it had to be that way, ‘Well,’ he answered, just because’.” WOW! I knew just what he meant! It was like there was no direction home. It was that song that made me the criminal I am today.” Juvenal (What’s his name?) Anniballa, convicted for perjury and joculari indiscretus gravamen, and alleged member of the Genovese crime family, recalled: “It was spring of 1980 and I was finishing up at Brooklyn College when I decided to take this class on Italian-American literature with this professor. What’s his name? I don’t remember now. Anyway, he had us read The Godfather. You can sort of say I took the gun and left the cannoli. Now, I regret ever having read a book. What was that guy’s name?” Reached for comment yesterday at Brooklyn College, Prof. Robert Viscusi, who has taught and written extensively on ItalianAmerican literature, was surprisingly speechless. Seriously.
The Editors: Ottorino Cappelli Fred Gardaphè Stefano Giannuzzi Letizia Airos Soria Anthony J. Tamburri Stefano Vaccara Robert Viscusi
Condom Sense by George De Stefano
I have over my desk a poster that I consider to be one of the best pieces of social marketing I have ever seen. The poster, from the Lega Italiana per la Lotta contro l’AIDS (the Italian Anti-AIDS League, or LILA) features a photograph of two items, set against a blood-red background. On the left appears a cornicello, the ancient amulet worn to protect against the malocchio (evil eye); on the right, an unrolled condom. Under the cornicello is the word “irrazionale”; under the condom, “razionale.” The LILA poster notes that the “profilattico,” when used correctly, “is an effective means of preventing HIV and sexually transmitted diseases.” Unlike the cornicello, it actually does protect its wearer from grave misfortune. Men who use condoms are making a rational choice to protect their health and those of their partners. But until very recently, irrationality trumped reasonableness when it came to condom advertising on Italian TV. Since the AIDS epidemic began in Italy during the 1980s, the Italian government has run public information campaigns about the disease. But the words “profilattico” or “preservativo” were never used, mainly to avoid the ire of the Vatican. That all changed in January 2008 with the airing of a series of taboo-breaking HIV awareness ads that mention condoms by name. The ads, by film director Francesca Archibugi and paid for by the Ministry of Health, were designed to help Italians overcome their embarrassment in asking for condoms in pharmacies and other outlets. Archibugi, known for films such as “Shooting the Moon,” emphasizes the urgency of pro-condom advertising in Italy, where some 4,000 new cases of HIV infection are diagnosed each year. “The true dangers are never talked about – there’s a moralistic facade which, when uncovered, reveals great ignorance,” she told the Reuters news agency. The condom ads are part of a larger government anti-AIDS campaign that LILA has urged health minister Livia Turco to support. The first condom ads produced feature heterosexuals, which makes sense given the epidemiology of AIDS in Italy. The most recent statistics (from 2006) show a cumulative total of 57,375 AIDS cases. In the early years of the epidemic, most cases were caused by drug users sharing infected syringes and needles. But now, most are due to unprotected heterosexual contact. The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that in 2006, about 42 percent of new AIDS cases in Italy were among heterosexuals, 29 percent among injecting drug users, and 21 percent among gay men. During 2006, 1,126 new AIDS cases and 254 AIDS deaths were reported. But these reported cases most likely do not reflect the full extent of the epidemic in Italy because HIV reporting occurs in only 10 regions/provinces of the country’s 20 regions. If Italy does not have the worst AIDS epidemic in Europe, the numbers are high enough to warrant the new prevention campaign. And with most HIV infections transmitted by unprotected sex, condom promotion needs to be at the heart of any prevention campaign. It’s amazing that it took so long for condom advertising to come to Italian television. Sexual content is common on both government-owned and private TV channels, and in advertising. Italians are hardly a prudish people. So why the squeamishness about condoms on TV? When Francesca Archibugi describes her ads as a “triumph over taboo,” she’s speaking about the Catholic Church’s longstanding assertion that condom use fosters “immoral” and “hedonistic” lifestyles. The Church insists that the only surefire protection from AIDS is monogamous, heterosexual marriage. This of course is of no use to all those, Italian and otherwise, Catholic and not, who don’t live their lives in accordance with this unrealistic and inhumane dogma. Pope Benedict XVI even has urged Catholic pharmacists to refuse to sell condoms and other contraceptives. So far health minister Turco is standing her ground. She has stated that although the Pope has the right to “urge young people to be sexually responsible,” he has “no business telling professionals such as pharmacists what to do.” Italy’s new condom campaign, though welcome, doesn’t go far enough. Educating the public about protected sex should be paired with widespread distribution of free condoms. New York City and Washington, D.C. both have established massive condom giveaways in response to high rates of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. It’s fine to encourage Italians to buy condoms in pharmacies, or even from the condom vending machines found in many cities. But when it comes to the public health and HIV, the best price of a condom is free. Condom advertising and other forms of sexual health promotion, coupled with wide availability of condoms, are essential. For Italy to do otherwise would be to permit many preventable HIV infections and AIDS cases. It would mean choosing “irrazionale” over “razionale.”
What do Italians Abhor by
Jerry
Krase
It is said that “nature abhors a vacuum” (la natura aborre il vuoto). Perhaps because of their tragic historical experience with them, Italians abhor strong majorities. It is certainly difficult to have a national leader, no less a Dictator, if no one is allowed to speak for anyone else. Absolute autonomy is the preferred antidote to Fascism (Fascismo) of left and right. It is also the alluring charm of Italy - chaos (caos). It also explains why the (just fallen – appena caduto) Italian prime Minister Romano Prodi had an easier, and much more successful, tenure leading the European Union than he did Italy (twice - due volte). Over the decades I have read many versions of the story of Italy as Alice’s Wonderland (paese delle meraviglie) by the likes of Edward Banfield, Carlo Levi, Luigi Barzini, Gaetano Salvemeni, Antonio Gramsci, and Alexander Stile, and many others. Some thought the backwardness (arretratezza) was limited to the lower classes. Others to the South (il Mezzogiorno)... but of course it runs from top to bottom and north to south. For example, many Italian business owners abhor large (especially multinational) corporations who they fear (hanno paura di) will take over a whole industry and reduce Italians to mere little fish in a much bigger bowl. This aversion to cooperation, and to the good of the whole over its individual parts (comunità), obviously came over with Columbus to America. Ironically, America is the place where the Children of Columbus are recognized leaders in almost every aspect of American life; especially as to major American businesses and financial organizations (Iacocca, Bartiromo, Grasso, et cetera.). Yet, for better and for worse, Italian American organizations themselves don’t rule. One brief example must suffice here. I may have mentioned somewhere that some three decades ago I was at the founding of American Italian Coalition of Organizations in New York City. A number of us (più o meno promenenti) had gathered to deal with a crisis of social services to a needy segment of the large Italian American community in the Big Apple (la Grande Mela). My position as a Board member and experience as a community organizer brought me into close contact with dozens of Italian and Italian American groups. One such was a marvelous “Federation” of organizations (clubs) representing more and less recent immigrants organized around the towns, and regions in Italy from which they regularly came and went. My good friend, and one-time President of both the Federation and Coalition, Mario DiSanto often took me to meetings of all the individual clubs, but it was the larger gatherings when all the groups sat around a set of tables that was most instructive as to Italian-style organizations (organizzazioni all’italiana). The official language of the meetings was English; which suited me very well as my facility with Italian was almost nothing (quasi-niente). I was introduced, spoke, and was addressed by the assembled members in English. However, when the group representatives didn’t want me to know what was going on, they spoke to each other in Italian. When they didn’t want the other clubs to understand, they whispered amongst themselves in their own dialects. When I was young (quando ero giovane), people said that Italian cars, like the Alfa Romeo, looked good but spent more time in the repair shop than on the road. It was also said it was difficult to find a good Italian mechanic. Given that there have been more than 60 since the end of World War II, one might say the same about Italian governments. Finally, I might say, in sardonic contrast, that American governments seem to run very well but unfortunately (purtroppo) often in the wrong direction. Postscript (poscritto): As soon as I finished writing this barely bilingual (bilingue) essay, America’s Mayor, Rudolph W. Giuliani, who once led the Republican pack in the race to become America’s President, withdrew from the competition. As a life-long Democrat, I preferred him as the Republican Party nominee. John McCain, whom Rudy embraced and endorsed, will be a lot more difficult for either Barack or the Rodham-Clintons to beat in November.
6
c/o J.D. Calandra Italian American Insitute Qeens College, CUNY 25w 43rd Street 17th Floor New York, N.Y. 10036 Telephone: (212) 642-2094 Fax: (212) 642-2030 Email: editors@i-Italy.org
Cathy Go to Grad School
Marc &
by Marc Di Paolo
Our White Haired Mistress by
Luigi
Boccia
Opera has white hair - a fact easily noticed by anyone attending any theater or auditorium around the world and yet, as an artistic genre, it still has so much to say and communicate to younger generations. Music is, after all, a universal language, right? In recent years there have been diversified attempts by many opera companies around the globe to infuse opera with new life, in hopes of making this art form more appealing to the masses. With this in mind, many attempted changes have been made and met with repeated failure. As folks on the ship knew, you can’t save the Titanic by simply re-arranging the deck chairs. Have you ever watched a performance from the very last circle of a theater - the section Italians dub ‘il loggione’? I do this all the time; it’s the best way to know whether or not a voice carries as much as it should in the hall. I also save money in this way (any young person’s priority!). Wherever I go, I like repeating the same experience from the ‘loggione’: Just before or after intermission, I look down in order to get a general idea of the average audience member’s age. How? I simply count how many people have white hair (or hair at all!). This tells me a lot about the city or the country I am in: how popular opera is there or how intelligent the policy of this particular theater is (in terms of ticket price and student discounts etc.). It also, unfortunately,
confirms time and again that opera, unlike musical theater, is the genre of vocal arts facing the most serious problems in finding new audiences or becoming more attractive to young people. Without them, after all, Opera has no future. A historic METropolitan Opera usher (23 years of service) told me that faces haven’t changed so much in the last 10 to 15 years and that a considerable amount of new (read: young faces) are in part the result of the MET being one of the most famous touristic attractions in New York City! I would like to open a discussion with you about what could be the reasons for this disconnect between young people and Opera. Is it because Operatic productions are, in general, too long and boring for the i-pod/i-phone/i-italy generation? Is it because it’s mostly sung in a foreign language which can be hard even for those who speak those languages to clearly understand the plot? A lack of “superstar” status singers who draw in the “uneducated” masses? Or on a larger scale, is this the consequence of the undeniable decline of the classical vocal arts altogether? These are just some of the possible reasons why Opera today has white hair. If the reception of this art form continues in this way, our white haired mistress may have little to no future at all.
Sister B.O., Where are You? by
Rita
Ciresi
I think of them every time I look down at a chess board, examine a drawing by Escher, or pass by White House/Black Market in the mall. But these days I am more likely to encounter a zebra than I am to run into a real-life black-and-white nun. Where have all the Sisters gone? In my childhood, nuns were everywhere. I’d see them in all the conventional nun-ish places: kneeling in the front pew of church, cruising the aisles of my catechism class, policing the prize table at Easter Bingo. But it also was not uncommon to run into a nun buying black rubber boots at Sterling Sussman Dry Goods Company. Or catch a Mother Superior purchasing a dozen cornetti at Leon’s Bake Shop. We saw nuns picnicking at Fort Nathan Hale Park and nuns ice-skating at Wolman
Rink. There were nuns behind the wheels of station wagons on the Jersey Turnpike. They were even nuns in the cheap seats at Yankee Stadium. Eating Cracker Jacks! The sixties were the heyday for hippies and the end of an era for American nuns. Gradually the half dozen nuns at our church convent began to die off or—in one famous case—just disappear overnight. Later the scandal would surface: she had run away with the priest from the next parish over. Whoa! We gleefully contemplated how many Hail Marys the defrocked Father and Sister would get for penance when they made their next Confession. I don’t know why I feel nostalgic for the nuns of yore. Our parish nuns seemed to take delight in scaring the bejesus out of us. They scolded and
pinched. They told us over and over again that we were the worst type of sinners, destined to roast like Oscar Meyer wieners in the fires of hell. I disliked and feared them so much, I can’t even remember their real names, but recall them only as Sister B.O., Sister Thick Spectacles, Sister Pray to Die Before You Commit Sins of the Flesh, Sister The World Will End on Thursday. Maybe I mourn their passing for the same reason I mourn the loss of my squishy snow boots and dullbladed ice skates and all the rest of the paraphernalia I associate with being a kid in 1960s Connecticut instead of a forty-something woman in twenty-first-century Florida. If I could only bring the Sisters back, then I could feel like I was six years old again, when the next box of Cracker Jacks—and all sorts of delicious sins!— lay just around the corner.
7
My mother was the first member of her family to go to college, so it was a big surprise to her father when she wanted to go. “Why would you want to go to college?” he asked. “It’s a breeding ground for degenerates.” He was probably referring to the drug, free love, and antiwar protest scene of the average 1960s era college campuses and he was, probably, worried that his daughter would get caught up in that scene. However, she told him firmly that she wanted to go and that was that. She loved literature and she wanted to study it, but she didn’t want to move away from her family to get the degree, so she wouldn’t be abandoning her roots. The argument was over, he supported her decision without any further protest, and she was off to college. Thanks to her high GPA and obvious financial need, she was granted a full scholarship to NYU, which provided her more than enough money to earn her BA, MA, go to Italy, and come within striking distance of a doctorate in English. She loved the travel abroad, and she adored literature, especially the works by the Russian writers, Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. She didn’t much care for her 18th Century British Literature Professor, Bruno Muench, who had a tendency to read from yellowed notes and lecture the class. He was also persnickety about proper footnote and bibliography formatting. Mom may well have managed to race across the academic finish line and get her doctorate if not for two major obstacles. When she was in her second year of her bachelor’s degree, her mother died suddenly. She never fully recovered from the loss. At the wake, she was inconsolable, but her maternal grandmother and her aunt did their best to cheer her up. Her grandmother said, “It is a shame, Cathy, that your mother died so young. If only you hadn’t gone to college. That might have changed things.” Mom’s aunt nodded in sage agreement. After all, it was an old, Southern Italian superstition that there was a finite amount of good luck in the world, and any time good fortune comes – say, in the form of a college scholarship – that windfall would use up some of the good will of the Fates, and something bad was bound to happen – say, the death of a parent. This was not the kind of encouragement that would have spurred her on to the bitter end to get a doctorate. The second major obstacle was me. Shortly after she married my father, she found out that she was pregnant with me. (In fact, she was already pregnant on her honeymoon in Disney World and didn’t know it, or she might not have gone on Space Mountain so many times.) She had reached the stage in graduate school when she had finished all of her courses and it was time for her to read several hundred books to prepare for her comprehensive knowledge exams. Of course, she was an expectant mother who was working for peanuts teaching part-time at Fordham University while her husband was making minimum wage in the mailroom of a law firm. So she went to the chair of the English Department and asked for a leave of absence, during which she coud gradually read all the books on her reading list and still support her family. The chair of the department said soberly, “You can rest when you are dead.” “Well, I’m not that tired,” my mother replied. She then left the office and withdrew from the program. However, she was fortunate enough to find full-time employment at a city university which, after a large shakeup that included a merger and the institution of the revolutionary multicultural policy of open enrollment, became New York City Technical College. She taught composition, remedial writing, and first-year literature courses there for more than twenty-five years. By the time she reached retirement age, I was finishing up my master’s degree. That was when it occurred to me that I might have a shot at getting a doctorate. And if I managed to earn one, I wouldn’t be doing it just for myself, but for mom too…
Media Synergy for a Global Community from page 1 The dual nature of this endeavor can be gathered by looking at how our site is developed. On the one hand, we have an open-access community available to everybody (www. i-Italy.us). In just a few months after its launch, we have hundreds of registered users who write, discuss, connect, and exchange opinions and information. This is our main conversation lounge, but it is also the place where users have participated in our first “Citizen Journalism/Digital Witness Contest” sponsored by Alitalia. People are using this community site to share posts, videos, and photographs, and have created dozens of forums and discussion groups on virtually any kind of topic. Groups range from Nutella lovers to Movi.Menti (mainly in Italian language, it is dedicated to Italians abroad “looking for their lost country”), from Italian American Filmmakers & Artists to Terre Promesse, a group where Italians living in Italy and in the U.S. look at how the two countries are portrayed in the media and pubic opinion. One of the most active discussion groups is Women in Italy and Italian women in the world, where several issues are being debated including this one: “How do you feel, as a woman, about finally having a woman run for president?”. Other less structured conversations go on in our forums, mainly about heritage and immigration, Italian/American identity, family stories, food and “made in Italy” products. Some comments have been posted in a forum dedicated to the now world-famous New York Times article about Italy’s “funk”. Finally, keep in mind that the activity of these registered users is just the tip of the iceberg; up until now i-Italy.us has attracted the curiosity of over 10,000 unique visitors resulting in about 100,000 page views. At the next level are the “bloggers” – i.e. users who have applied, or have been invited to become regular contributors to our daily editorial work. This special printed issue presents just a few of them… others – many others – will come next time. Bloggers are independent journalists, writers, and commentators whose regular contributions keep the site’s content fresh and updated. What they do – be it articles, videos or audio podcasts – is then examined at a third level (the editorial board) and published in the Magazine, Specials, or Multimedia sections at www.i-Italy.org. There are no filters to include or exclude contributions here, just ordinary decisions about the best section and timing for publication, and some attention to “netiquette”. To summarize, what we are attempting to create with i-Italy, and with surprising results, is an experiment of interaction between professional journalists, citizen journalists, and public intellectuals – academics and experts willing to leave the university’s ivory tower and become involved in public debate. This approach, in line with the spirit of web 2.0, is founded on a conversation-andinformation process in which social interaction and user-created content predominate. The success of this initiative has persuaded us to establish a not-for-profit cultural institution called the Italian/American Digital Project whose mission is to manage the journalistic and cultural content of i-Italy and to research the necessary resources to ensure that this project will continue in the years to come. The project is open to all users online who are interested in Italy and Italian America. Come and visit us! (www.i-italy.org / www.i-italy.us)
This special print edition has been edited by Letizia Airos Soria
Different pages and, below, special sections from i-Italy.org
Our Italian / American Citizen Journalist / Digital Witness Contest is sponsored by
8