George Mazzei and the “conquest” of italian language

di CALLI ABISOGNIO His name is George Mazzei, with 84 years of life behind him to cherish and look back on. But, for him, there is still so much to see — as I spoke with George, I could hear his passion for life through the way he spoke.  Born and raised in Brooklyn, New …

Carmela & Giovanni: a Brooklyn love story

by MICHELA VALMORI She sat on the stoop of her five-story Brooklyn apartment, knitting a blanket for her baby sister as she waited for him to come home from the shop. Could she even call this place an apartment? It was cramped and unbearably hot under the July sun, each room warmer than the next …

“You wanted to find Fiorito? Well, here it is”- an interview with Mike Fiorito

di VALENTINA DI CESARE Mike Fiorito is a writer, an Associate Editor for Mad Swirl Magazine and a regular contributor to the Red Hook Star Revue. His books are Call Me Guido (Ovunque Siamo Press), Freud’s Haberdashery Habits and Hallucinating Huxley (Alien Buddha Press).  What is your connection to Italy and to your origins?   My father’s family comes from Sala Consilina, which …

Rope and Soap: Realities in a Land Where “The Bread is Soft But Life Is Hard”

by DOMENICA SANTOMAGGIO DIRAVIAM Fabio Girelli-Carasi’s, Rope and Soap: Lynchings of Italians in the United States (the English translation of Patrizia Salvetti’s work intitled Corda e sapone: storie di linciaggi di Italiani negli Stati Uniti) and the documentary, Linciati: Lynchings of Italians in America in jointly provide an enlightened understanding of the episodes of lynching …

The concept of Indigenuity in Italian American Literature: interview with Fred Gardaphé

by MICHELA VALMORI Q: Italian American Literature, in the US, had to go through an impervious path to eventually find itself critically recognized by scholarship. What level of reception and interest, not just among academia, do you think it has now come to receive? A: It took a while for Italian American literature to be …