Wild Dreams: The Best of Italian Americana

Introduction

INTRODUCTION Prose—Achieving an Authentic Identity In 1974 Richard Gambino, together with Ernest Falbo and Bruno Arcudi, founded Italian Americana. This historical and cultural journal followed the wave of interest in Italian Americans that had been building in the previous decade and that became particularly strong that year owing to Gambino’s book, Blood of My Blood: The Dilemma of the Italian-Americans. He elucidated the culture of the family and community in the lives of Italian Americans and wove personal experiences ‘‘typical and illustrative of the Italian-American saga’’ through his historical and sociological scholarship (vii). He particularly feared that young Italian Americans, not knowing the foundations of their heritage, had no means of achieving an authentic identity. Blood of My Blood received rave reviews from the New York Times Book Review, the New Republic, and other influential papers and magazines. As the New York Times Book Review wrote, ‘‘With greater impact than any other nonfiction book on the subject has achieved to date, it weaves together the history, sociology and psychology of first, second, and third generation Italian-Americans.’’ Michael Novak commented, ‘‘It sets the cultural agenda for the seventies.’’ Like any classic , Blood of My Blood remains pertinent today. With the rise of the civil rights movement and the great popularity of the television program Roots, based on the book by Alex Haley, ethnics began to explore their own heritage and were willing to talk publicly about it—something new to Italian Americans whose parents urged them to keep everything about the family in the family. Additionally, by then Italian Americans in sufficient numbers had received Ph.D.s and were represented in the academy. Already in the late 1960s, a small group of Italian-American scholars had met at the initiative of Rudolph Vecoli to discuss forming an academic association devoted to ItalianAmerican studies. This resulted in the founding of the American Italian Historical Association (AIHA) in 1969. 1 2 introduction The time seemed right to ride the crest of this wave and publish a journal devoted to the Italian-American experience, wherein Italian Americans would record and document their history, literature, and culture. The journal, Italian Americana, was housed at Queens College, where Gambino taught, and was not at first connected to AIHA. From its beginning, Italian Americana brought out not only the historical articles and book reviews that other such newly initiated ethnic journals published but also included fiction, memoirs, and poetry. Gambino reasoned that this latter trio of genres filled out in a human way what history teaches us about a group. In a word, literature puts meat on the bones of history. In 1989 the two remaining founders of Italian Americana turned over the publication and editorship of the journal to me, Carol Bonomo Albright. It was to be published in cooperation with the University of Rhode Island, which, through the office of the then–Rhode Island Speaker of the House, Joseph DeAngelis, had received a modest legislative grant to fund publication. Professor Bruno Arcudi, the other founding member, would continue at the journal as associate editor. John Paul Russo was, and remains, book review editor. Later I invited Dana Gioia to be poetry editor. He served from 1994 until 2003, when he stepped down to become chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. Mr. Gioia selected the poems published during those years, while Michael Palma, his successor, is responsible for selecting the poems after 2003. The date at the beginning of each selection in this anthology refers to the year Italian Americana published the piece. After an intermittent publishing schedule and a three-and-a-half-year hiatus , Italian Americana resumed publication in the fall of 1990. I gladly continued Gambino’s policy of presenting history, fiction, memoirs, poetry, and reviews, adding a play and an opera libretto, together with an interview of the composer of the opera (which went on to win a National Opera Association competition). The opera reflected Italian Americans’ expanding entry into all the arts occurring during the years in which Italian Americana was publishing. Meanwhile, AIHA had grown to include all disciplines connected with Italian Americans, including literary analysis. In the late 1980s, led by Professor Richard Juliani, the board of AIHA decided that the journal under my editorship would be published in cooperation with the association but would receive no funding from it. The publication of the twenty-fifth volume, in the magazine’s thirty-third year of its...