Italian American

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...

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...

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...

Tresca’s life was heroic. In 1904 he immigrated to America where he joined the sovversivi (subversives) in a cultural war, for the soul of Italian America, against the Black Hand, the capitalist class, and the Church. On January 11, 1943,...

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,...

Ironically Columbus Day began as an attempt to reconcile the new immigrants with Americans and even Native Americans. A final irony: as the Italian American community gathers to celebrate and march past Saint Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Ave, the beautiful...

Known for featuring strong women characters, spotlighting mental illness and grabbing titles from songs he loves, the mainstream press never seems to notice one strong theme: Lamb’s Italian background.

Radical ideas, heartbreaking story and a quest for redemption: Ernesto Orrico comes back to In Scena! and this time brief the hurtfully human story of Joe Zangara to New York's theatres. On stage on May 4th and 7th, this show...