Italian Folk: Vernacular Culture in Italian-American Lives

Contents

Contents Acknowledgments ix Introduction: Listening with an Accent 1 joseph sciorra ‘‘Sunday Dinner? You Had to Be There!’’: The Social Significance of Food in Italian Harlem, 1920–40 11 simone cinotto Cuscuszu in Detroit, July 18, 1993: Memory, Conflict, and Bella Figura During a Sicilian-American Meal 31 john allan cicala The Italian Immigrant Basement Kitchen in North America 49 lara pascali Creative Responses to the Italian Immigrant Experience in California: Baldassare Forestiere’s Underground Gardens and Simon Rodia’s Watts Towers 63 kenneth scambray Landscapes of Order, Landscapes of Memory: Italian-American Residential Landscapes of the New York Metropolitan Region 83 joseph j. inguanti Locating Memory: Longing, Place, and Autobiography in Vincenzo Ancona’s Sicilian Poetry 107 joseph sciorra Valtaro Musette: Cross-Cultural Musical Performance and Repertoire Among Northern Italians in New York 133 marion s. jacobson Italians in Public Memory: Pageantry, Power, and Imagining the ‘‘Italian American’’ in Reading, Pennsylvania 153 joan l. saverino Changing St. Gerard’s Clothes: An Exercise in Italian-American Catholic Devotion and Material Culture 171 peter savastano vii viii Contents Cursed Flesh: Faith Healers, Black Magic, and (Re-Membering) Death in a Central Italian Town 189 luisa del giudice Imagining the Strega: Folklore Reclamation and the Construction of Italian-American Witchcraft 197 sabina magliocco Notes 215 List of Contributors 247 Index 249 ...