Il Viaggio: The Journey from Italian to American - Hardcover

by Victoria V. Sirianni (Author)

Many books have been written about Italian immigration to the US. I hope this is not just another, because it is purposefully framed within the history of the time of global industrialization and within the uniqueness of American history.

This book is as much about the United States as it is about the immigrants themselves. We are a great immigrant nation because of our multicultural citizens, yet we remain a country with no agreement on immigration. It is also a country whose bedrock included racism before its birth as a country. Only when we consider the years of the Great Migration within the broader history of our country can we understand it. A friend once queried why there was discrimination against Italians a century ago. Particularly because they came from the land of Caesar, Dante, and Michelangelo. Americans of Italian descent should know it was not "personal," so to speak. We need to understand that the discrimination and disdain resulted from the times and the place.

The stories are not the well-known and well-recorded stories, but mostly those of the everyday man, woman, and child who came and became an American. - What it was like for them, and why it was like that.

The great achievements of Italian Americans have been well documented. I'm more interested in the stories that are not well known, particularly those in the heartland of America. Very few know about the Italians who mined in Texas, Oklahoma, and elsewhere. Nor do they know why the Italians became food purveyors or excelled as technicians in early Hollywood.

I was astounded to find that Americans know little about the accomplishments of Italians and their American counterparts in science and medicine. That became evident when the 2019 pandemic struck Italy's northern regions. I wanted to tell the stories of those who came during World War II because their stories are truly remarkable.

There are two well-known incidents I've included -the Lawrence Textile Strike and the Sacco and Vanzetti saga. They were seminal events in American history, highly focused on Italian immigrants, which forever changed the nature of our history. The Bread and Roses strike was a seminal event in its lack of violence and the work of unknown women. It was successful as well, meticulously planned, organized, and executed.

Sacco and Vanzetti is like no other story in American jurisprudence. Justice was not only denied but also seen as such around the world. It was also a seminal event ending the anarchist movement in the US. The response from the city where it played out, a century later, is indicative of our inability still to see the lessons it offered us.

History informs us now and forms our future. Attempted at a different time in our history, it would have been a different book. The striking similarity between today's discontent and the political conflict of a century ago makes me fear it might negatively inform our future. The rush is on for our 2nd, 3^rd, and 4th-generation Americans to learn more about their heritage. One wonders what they will do with that knowledge.

History, to me, is reaching out and trying to touch the world of the past. That is why the stories of everyday people move me so much. They are authentic and unvarnished. They are real.

For centuries, we have used the written word, music, and art to deepen our understanding of the world. The 20th century gave us a new medium, film, whose power, in many respects, is even greater in reaching out and touching. While I have referenced the breadth and beauty of American and Italian writers, poets, and musicians, I have done so even more with Italian and American filmmakers. Their power gives visual images the ability to live on. May the readers learn and understand the remarkable story of becoming Americans.