When I am Italian / Joanna Clapps Herman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Herman, Joanna Clapps, author.

Series:

Excelsior Editions

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Herman, Joanna Clapps.

Italian Americans--Biography.

Italian Americans.

Italian American women--Biography.

Italian American women.

Italian Americans--Ethnic identity.

Italian Americans--Connecticut--Waterbury--Social life and customs.

Waterbury (Conn.)--Biography.

Waterbury (Conn.).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (298 pages)

Place of Publication:

Albany, New York : Excelsior Editions, [2020]

Summary:

"My American ancestral Italian village was in Waterbury, Connecticut." In this sentence, Joanna Clapps Herman raises the central question of this book: To what extent can a person born outside of Italy be considered Italian? The granddaughter of Italian immigrants who arrived in the United States in the early 1900s, Herman takes a complicated and nuanced look at the question of to whom and to which culture she ultimately belongs. Sometimes the Italian part of her identity--her Italianità--feels so aboriginal as to be inchoate, unexpressible. Sometimes it finds its expression in the rhythms of daily life. Sometimes it is embraced and enhanced; at others, it feels attenuated. "If, like me," Herman writes, "you are from one of Italy's overseas colonies, at least some of this Italianità will be in your skin, bones, and heart: other pieces have to be understood, considered, called to ourselves through study, travel, reading. How do we know which pieces are which?"--Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Introduction: Many missing stones

What does it mean to be italian?

Quando sono Italiana: when I am Italian

Waterbury, Connecticut, my ancestral village

Up the farm

What crawls around inside

Housing memory

Blue

What we remember

Go fish

Food, food, food and work

Creature life

My mother's letter to her sister

Hard work and good food

Sunday on the farm

My only Irish aunt

Minestra means soup

Move to America

Chiesta ca or this one here

After Eden

Square feet in the village

My friend elizabeth

On not writing my thesis

Italia, sempre Italia

Southern italy

The stones of dialect

Siamo arrivati

Intro to that winter evening

That winter evening

My Neapolitan wedding

The opposite of southern italy

After the manner of women

The grief estate

Visiting our dead

My father's bones

Voglio bene

Somewhere my Bill.

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9781438477190

1438477198