American Woman, Italian Style: Italian Americana's Best Writings on Women

Introduction

Introduction carol bonomo albright and christine palamidessi moore With the success of Wild Dreams: The Best of ‘‘Italian Americana’’ (Fordham University Press, 2008), we began to think about publishing another ‘‘Best of . . .’’ collection. We again approached Fordham University Press, with which we had developed a strong working relationship. Our first anthology focused on fiction, poetry, and memoir. A second volume, this time about Italian-American women, shouted out for attention. As we perused past articles published in the journal,1 what struck us was that, from out of the more often than not difficult beginnings of poverty, Italian-American women demonstrated a strength, inventiveness, persistence , and ingenuity that was formidable. Hands down they had trailblazed a stunning path for current and future generations of immigrant women. We believed that the research, articles, and essays deserved a showcase. From Italian Americana’s very inception in 1974, articles about ItalianAmerican women as well as poems and memoirs penned by women, and book reviews about such major authors as Helen Barolini and Daniela Giosef fi, graced the journal’s pages. Through the 1970s and ’80s we published short stories written by women. By the 1990s, the number of women’s stories in our pages exploded. Furthermore, in the public sphere critics discussed and wrote about Italian-American women’s writings; their literature was taken seriously. So was their history. We asked ourselves: Why not publish the best articles about women in a second Best of ‘‘Italian Americana’’ volume? Our enthusiasm supported our hunch that such a book would be welcomed not only by scholars interested in Italian Americans but also by those interested in cross-cultural studies, history, immigration studies, sociology, and gender studies as well as the everyday person and more recent immigrants. In reviewing the thirty-five-year history of Italian Americana, we chose a broad range of articles with an eye to many disciplines. At times we asked 1 2 Carol Bonomo Albright and Christine Palamidessi Moore authors to update their articles or to submit only the section of an article which dealt with Italian-American women. Then we divided the topics into four sections: Italian-American women’s education, work, and home life; literature; art, music, and film; and studies about Italian-American women. The anthology formed an appropriate reflection of an ethnic woman’s progression into American culture—in this case, the Italian-American woman’s. With that in mind, we started our book by looking at the interior life, if you will, of elderly adult children of immigrants. For six months in 1990, working as a participant-observer, psychologist Elizabeth Messina interviewed nine Italian-American women, ranging in age from seventy-two to ninety. She asked questions about, and then analyzed the women’s relationship with, their family members, their work, courtship, and sexual and marital experiences. The article is striking for the interviewees’ honesty and their occasional acceptance of their harsh lives as well as the bitterness of their hostility. The subjects’ repressed anger sometimes led to revenge exercised in sexual withdrawal and psychological torture. Given the small sampling, it is difficult to know how widespread such reactions might be within the larger population. More research will be needed to determine whether Messina ’s data was particular to her interviewees and/or if other immigrant cultures might reveal similar responses. Migration necessitates a psychological dislocation as well as a physical uprooting . Though not often discussed, emotional ramifications for the children and grandchildren of immigrants are significant. Temple University professor Mary Ann Mannino argues that second- and third-generation Americans seek therapeutic treatment for depression and anxieties that relate to ancestral immigration. She uses two Italian-American literary texts—Blue Italian and Umbertina—along with her own psychological studies to explore the immigration trauma in assimilated granddaughters. The article raises questions about loss and the absorbed pain of immigration that mark mother–daughter relationships. Such loss makes expressions of love difficult and, therefore, threatens the strong self-esteem necessary for establishing independence . This article can act as a springboard to contrast its finding with other ethnicities of the same period and as a comparison to America’s evernew wave of immigrants; on a personal level, it can act as a vehicle for compassion for both one’s ancestors and the current generation grappling with such issues. Nathalie Cooke’s article about Mary di Michele’s poetry echoes similar generational losses and the psychological impact of migration— though in her later poetry di...