1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910821060403321

Autore

Wirth Christa

Titolo

Memories of belonging : descendants of Italian migrants to the United States, 1884-present / / by Christa Wirth

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Leiden, Netherlands ; ; Boston, [Massachusetts] : , : Brill, , 2015

©2015

ISBN

90-04-28457-5

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (420 p.)

Collana

Studies in Global Social History, , 1874-6705 ; ; Volume 17

Studies in Global Migration History ; ; Volume 5

Disciplina

973/.0451

Soggetti

Italian Americans - Massachusetts - Worcester - History

Italian Americans - Ethnic identity

Italian Americans - History

United States Emigration and immigration History

Italy Emigration and immigration History

Worcester (Mass.) Ethnic relations

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Preliminary Material -- Introduction -- Oral History Methodology and Networks of Memory -- Transnational Migration Networks: The Paese in the Rising Global Economy -- Memories of Everyday Life I: Hard Work and Family Life -- Memories of Everyday Life II: Rural, Urban, and Suburban Environments -- Memories of Italianness: Pride, Prejudice, and Consumption -- Memories of Elvira and Giovanni Soloperto: In the Shadows of Memory and Dantes Divine Comedy -- Memories of the American Dream: Migration, Assimilation, and the Homeland -- Conclusion -- Epilogue: Italian Americans as the Poster Children of the Immigrant Paradigm? -- Appendix -- Bibliography -- Index.

Sommario/riassunto

Memories of Belonging is a three-generation oral-history study of the offspring of southern Italians who migrated to Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1913. Supplemented with the interviewees’ private documents and working from U.S. and Italian archives, Christa Wirth documents a century of transatlantic migration, assimilation, and later-generation self-identification. Her research reveals how memories of



migration, everyday life, and ethnicity are passed down through the generations, altered, and contested while constituting family identities. The fact that not all descendants of Italian migrants moved into the U.S. middle class, combined with their continued use of hyphenated identities, points to a history of lived ethnicity and societal exclusion. Moreover, this book demonstrates the extent of forgetting that is required in order to construct an ethnic identity.