The History and Politics of the last 70 Years of Italian Migration to the U.S.

These interdisciplinary works focus on leading edge topics that range from politics of the McCarren-Walter Act and its effects on women to the ways Italian Americans mobilized against immigration restrictions. Other essays unwrap the inner workings of multi-ethnic power brokers in a Queens community, portray the complex transformation of identity in Boston’s North End, and trace the development of Italian American youth culture and how new arrivals fit into it. Finally, Donna Gabaccia pens an afterword on the importance of this seventy-year period in U.S. migration history.

Director for Academic and Cultural Programs at the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute, Queens College, CUNY, Joseph Sciorra

Laura E. Ruberto, professor of Humanities in the Arts and Cultural Studies Department at Berkeley City College,

“This book illuminates a rarely seen side of contemporary immigration to the U.S., whose prevailing image is of non-Europeans, coming from Africa, Asia, and Latin America--yet also among the immigrants are hundreds of thousands of Italians. The authors of the volume show how the new immigrants’ presence alters our understanding of the white ethnic story as viewed through the lenses of families, communities, and politics. The book represents an indispensable contribution to ethnic and immigration studies.”— Richard Alba, co-author of Strangers No More: The Challenges of Integration in North America and Western Europe. 

Editors: Laura E. Ruberto, professor of Humanities in the Arts and Cultural Studies Department at Berkeley City College, and Joseph Sciorra, Director for Academic and Cultural Programs at the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute, Queens College, CUNY.

Contributors: Ottorino Cappelli, Donna Gabaccia, Stefano Luconi, Maddalena Marinari, James S. Pasto, Rodrigo Praino, Laura E. Ruberto, Joseph Sciorra, Donald Tricarico, and Elizabeth Zanoni. 

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