What prompts peoples to embark on perilous, unknown journeys in search of hospitable lands, if not desperation? For the vast majority of people around the world, the motives remain: hunger, oppression, war. These are good reasons to leave home. We should never demonize such people. They are us. This was our past. I have always referred to my parents as “economic refugees” due to the dire situation in which they (like so many others) found themselves after WWII. We pray it will never be our future. But it might.
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"By understanding how Italians became Americans and what happened to them along the way, we have learned a great deal also about America". "Finding the Mother Lode" documents the experience of Italian immigrants in California, which was markedly different from that of their compatriots elsewhere in the United States. Screening: Preview of FINDING THE MOTHER LODE at Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò December 15, 2014 - (06:o0 PM ) - Followed by a Q&A with director/producers Gianfranco Norelli and Suma Kurien. Moderated by Martino Marazzi, University of Milan / Tiro a Segno Visiting Professor, NYU
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Luisa Del Giudice's book, Sabato Rodia's Towers in Watts (Fordham University Press, 2014), provides an insightful, thorough study of the man, his monuments, and their cultural and social meaning. Rodia was an artist completely possessed by his work, he was often derided as an incomprehensible crazy man. Now a National Historic Landmark and internationally renowned destination, the Watts Towers represent both a personal artistic expression and a collective symbol of Nuestro Pueblo--Our Town/Our People.
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Looking for the future of Sabato Rodia’s Watts Towers in the small town of Serino, in the province of Avellino.
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Children’s literature, the Watts Towers, and Italian-Californian celebrations of Saint Joseph’s Day.
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In recognition of co-blogger, Laura Ruberto, who intelligently expounds on West Coast iterations of Italian America, I offer my touristic encounter with things Italian in the Golden State.
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Finding Romano Gabriel’s Wooden Sculpture Garden along the Italy-California border.
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Looking at the undercurrents of Italian migrant identity in Niki de Sainte Phalle’s Giardino dei Tarocchi.
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A little diddy about California’s role in the Italian American invention of an ice-resurfacing machine.
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A Brief Visit to California’s Subterranean Marvel, Baldassare Forestiere’s “Underground Gardens.”