Articles by: Tom Verso

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    “Cosmopolis” (novel) –Don DeLillo a Theater of the Absurd Existentialist, nevertheless a Bronx southern-Italian American



    Preface
    Before I read anything about DeLillo’s biography, I was perfectly confident he was a child of 1940s – 50s Bronx Little Italy.  Having read his novel Underworld, I could not believe that even the most creative and imaginative writer could possibly capture the character of the people and cultural essence of “Little Italy – Urban Villages” as perfectly and brilliantly as he did in “Part Six” of that book.  To my mind, he had to be a child of Little Italy! Subsequent searching of his bio confirmed my ‘hypothesis’; he was indeed a son of Abruzzo immigrants and Arthur Avenue.
    For example:
    When an interviewer asked him: “Where do you place yourself, politically speaking?”
    DeLillo replied: “I'm an independent. And I don't want to say anything more about it”.
    Interviewer: Why not?
    DeLillo:“Well, in the Bronx, where I grew up, we'd have said ‘Because it's none of your fucking business’." (note: interviewer indicated DeLillo was smiling – see: http://dumpendebat.net/static-content/delillo-diezeit-Oct2007.html)
    In that vein, I always say: 

    You can take the boy away from Little Italy. But, you can never take Little Italy away from the boy! And, the boy…is always in the man.
    Accordingly, I could not grasp how a quintessentially second generation southern-Italian American could artistically move so far away from his cultural roots into the philosophical / cultural morass of the existential absurd and dread. 
    I wondered how a person who spends his youthful formative years immersed in southern-Italian American culture can write novels so completely devoid of that cultural milieu? With the obvious and profound exception of the above-mentioned Part 6 section of Underworld, there is virtually nothing in his writing that conveys southern-Italian Americanita. (note: this point of view is debated by the literati: see Fred Gardaphe’s  Italian Signs, American Streets.)
    DeLillo also fascinates me because he has the eye of a social scientist and the mind of a philosopher, but the disposition of a poet. Falkner said all novelist start out as poets, then turn to short stories and finally the novel. To my mind, DeLillo the novelist hasn’t completely broken loose of the poet’s muse. He understands significant social and philosophical issues, but expresses in a style only a few on the literary fringe (post-modern aficionados) can appreciate – Cosmopolis being a quintessential example.
    Cosmopolis
    When I turned on the radio, the National Public Radio speaker was in the middle of a Cannes Film Festival movie review.  A Clint Eastwood ‘Dirty Hairy’ lowbrow movie type guy, generally I cannot appreciate Cannes Films. Accordingly, I was about to change the station when the movie reviewer referred to the film based on a novel written by and co-scripted by Don DeLillo. HuH! was my response.
    DeLillo demonstrated his competence, indeed talent, as a scriptwriter with his Game Six film.  But, that was not based on one of his novels.  How could a DeLillo post-modern novel (whatever that means besides ‘weird’ – my taste in fiction is the same as movies) possibly be scripted for film – I wondered?  Then the reviewer mentioned the film’s title ...“Cosmopolis”. 
    Ah yes! Of course I thought: Perverted Sex, Violence, Drugs, Deafening music’... in short, Decadent decaying society, twenty-first century variation of “Clockwork Orange”; to wit, the stuff of successful movies.  What’s more, unlike many post-modern and some DeLillo works (e.g. Underworld), the Cosmopolis novel has a linear and relatively short (about 200 pages) plot line conducive to film scripting.
    Game 6 precursor of the novel Cosmopolis
    Another factor that may explain the conversion of the Cosmopolis novel into a film script; it was written about 15 years after DeLillo wrote the movie script of Game 6. The plot structure of Cosmopolis closely follows Game 6. Indeed, a comparison of the two works is a great comparative literature study of how two almost identical plotlines can result in profoundly different literary works.
    Both plotlines involve a creative and successful protagonist being driven across Manhattan on traffic-clogged 47th Street in a taxi/limo from very well-to-do First Avenue to the slums of Twelfth. Incidences (scenes) with psycho/social/aesthetic implications are developed at various ‘stops’ along 47th Street. What’s more, some of the dialogue in Cosmopolis is an exact copy of Game 6 (e.g. cab drivers in both works: “I peed under the Manhattan bridge”, etc.).
    Nevertheless, there is more to literature than plot.  Thematically Game 6 is a ‘light’ melodrama (albeit delving at times into significant issues) finishing on a happy up-beat life reaffirming father/daughter love note. Cosmopolis, very much the opposite, is a ‘heavy’ Existential “God is Dead” “Waiting for Godot” nihilistic type theme: i.e. loss of all life’s meaning and value ... a world with no ‘right’ or ‘wrong,’ since, in an irrational world, those words and actions have no authoritative moral basis (e.g. Word of God, Natural Law, Nationalism, etc.).
     
    Cosmopolis precursor of 2008 Financial Crisis
    More importantly, while the plot of the Cosmopolis novel closely following the Game 6 script lent itself to conversion into a movie script, what especially made it so desirable for a film version is the relevance the novel has to contemporary financial markets. Five years before, DeLillo brilliantly anticipated the 2008 financial market crash and its continuing repercussions.
    Indeed, even as the film was being ‘cured up’ at Cannes, de facto scenes from the film were being acted out in the financial markets and on the streets of New York, Athens, Cairo, etc. The film’s producer must have been delirious with joy thinking about the profound relevance and free public relations the film was garnering at Cannes.
    Even as the film, whose protagonist was risking all of his and his customer’s wealth “shorting the yen”, was being viewed in Cannes, Jon Corzine was testifying to congressional committees that he “did not know what happened to 1.2 billion dollars of customer money” invested (i.e. bet) in European bond ‘shorts’, Jamie Dimond was trying to explain how he lost 2 billion dollars of his company’s money ‘investing’ (betting) on (you guessed it) financial shorts, and Wall Street was being Occupied.
    DeLillo writing in 2003 was literally prophetic, and Paulo Branco the film’s producer realized that a film with sex, violence, decadence, financial markets turmoil and “occupy movements” was bound to be a winner.
    Why DeLillo is significant in southern-Italian American culture
    While DeLillo is internationally recognized as a great writer, his place in the southern-Italian American culture is the subject of some debate.
    Fred L. Gardaphe in his book Italian Signs, American Streets observes that in recent Italian American literature, which he characterizes as the “philosophical mode”:
    “...linguistic signs of Italianness are not obvious …[he] discusses the disappearance of a distinctive Italian American subject in light of the advance of postmodernism.”(p.17, 23)
    While he cites the works of Don DeLillo as in examples of this “philosophical” stage, Prof. Gardaphe seems not to accept the reality of Italian American writers who are not “obviously” Italian American.  Nor does he seem to appreciate the transcendence of philosophy over ethnicity.
    Accordingly, he developed a theory of “invisible” signs and a method of uncovering these “submerged signs of Italianitὰ that are imbedded, consciously or not, by these writers.”(p. 23)
    I cannot understand any discussion of “invisible” or “submerged signs of Italianitα”.  I guess this is an example of “post-modern” literary criticism. Post-modern critics like writers make up their own meanings.
    To my mind, there is no need to look for “invisibles” in the works of southern-Italian American writers such as DeLillo.  The absence of “obvious linguistic signs” does not diminish their southern-Italian Americanita. 
    One does not look for “invisible signs” of the English in Marlowe’s “...Faustus”, or the Germanic in Goethe’s “Faust”, or the French in Camus’ “Myth of Sisyphus”, etc.  Nevertheless, they are acknowledged as great manifestation of the respective English, German and French cultures. By definition philosophy is universal, transcending ethnicity and nationality. Nevertheless philosophical writers are acknowledged as great thinkers in their respective cultures.


    In short, it is not necessary to look for “invisibles” to prove to others or ourselves that Don DeLillo is a great southern-Italian American writer and thinker – a philosopher.       
    The southern Italian people throughout their near 3,000-year history have brought forth many great writers and thinkers.  Now we see that tradition emerging in southern-Italian Americana. 

    No surprises here!     
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    From “Godfather to “Mama’s Boys” – The ever degenerating southern-Italian American media image. So who cares?



    And the HITS (double entente) keep coming!
    “Down the Food Chain”
     
    The Godfather movies presented us with southern-Italian American murders and gangsters in high literary form. The leading characters come off as tragic (in the ancient Greek sense of the word) protagonist struggling with destiny.
    Then came Goodfellows: the principle southern-Italian characters were more realistic murders and gangsters, not the stuff of high literature. However, they were well-developed characters, in the context of an excellent literary plot, showing the range of human complexity: both good and bad.
    With Donnie Brasco, pretenses to literature were gone. The southern-Italian American was essentially portrayed as base; not to smart, petty juvenile behaving criminals – pathetic comes to mind for the characters, and the dramatic elements were melodramatic rather than literary.
    Casino brought out a relatively new, or at least more detailed developed, southern-Italian American gangster character – the full-blown sociopathic killer (Joe Pesci character).  And just to add emphasis to the sociopath Italian American, the juxtaposing character is the mathematically brilliant and ultra composed gentle Jewish gambler/businessman (Robert De Niro character). And lets not forget the quintessential cafoni Kansas City mob.
    Buried in the morass of melodramatic Sopranos' plots one can find brilliant literary moments (Christopher and Paulie lost in the woods – forget-about-it). However, for the most part, the inane southern-Italian American characters in the series can retrospectively be seen as the precursors of Reality Show southern-Italian American buffoons.
    Jersey Shore I would characterize as ‘soft-porn’ – southern-Italian American characters not necessarily preoccupied with sex per se, but more generally projecting and seeking after sexual persona.
    HBO's Boardwalk-Empire, following Casino’s lead, again gives us images of southern-Italian Americans that make Jewish mothers happy they are not Italians. Boardwalk-Empire juxtaposes the quiet unemotional mathematically brilliant Jewish gambler/gangster Arnold Rothstein with the mindless raging killer sociopaths Lucky Luciano and Al Capone. Indeed, Rothstein controls the raging Luciano character like a trained pit-bull with the wave of his hand.
    Waiting in the wings is Mamma’s Boys, Brooklyn 11223 and Rambug which the trailers suggest: just when you thought there could be no great negative portrayal of southern-Italian Americans – you were wrong.  It just got worse!
    Clearly movies and TV are trying to prove that the people who came to Ellis Island from southern Italy 100 years ago must have been a notch above Neanderthal – how else could one explain the portrayal of their sub-cortical driven progeny?
    Why southern-Italian Americans alone?
    I cannot think of, or find evidence of, any race/ethnic group in America that has been so systematically over decades portrayed so profoundly negative down to the present. 
    There is an overwhelming preponderance of documentary evidence demonstrating that mass media news and entertainment is not allowed de jure and de facto to systematically portray other racial/ethnic groups negatively. It is simply politically incorrect to do so, and legal, financial and career consequence accrue to those who flaunt these pervasive politically incorrect mores. 
    The renowned SUNY Professor Emeritus Fred Gardaphe’s refection on this topic is noteworthy:
    “Italian Americans have been formally complaining about the way they have been portrayed in the media since as far back as 1931 with little or no effect ... Obviously nothing has changed, yet over the same 80-year period, other racial and ethnic American groups such as Jewish Americans and African Americans have succeeded in changing the way their images have been presented...Tactics [such as] protests and lawsuits worked for other groups...
    “So what’s the difference?”
    (“Guido. Italian American Youth and Identity Politics” Editors Airos & Cappelli, Bordighera Press 2011, p. 69 emp.+)
    Prof. Gardaphe goes on to discuss his highly informed and thought out answer about the “difference”.  However, a more succinct, “cut to the chase” answer comes from Prof. Laura Roberto quoting Gramsci:
     “ ‘No mass action is possible, if the masses in question are not convinced of the ends they wish to attain and the methods to be applied’ ” (Ibid. p.68)
    The proverbial bottom line: southern-Italian Americans characterized as a whole (i.e. all seventeen million) really don’t care how the media portrays them; ergo no mass protest and social action.
    To my mind this is our greatest virtue.
    We do not need others to affirm our virtues, and we ‘pay no mind’ to their talk ("sparlate" – the "vecchi"  use to say). We are a self-confident people.  We are an ancient people.  Ours was a high civilization when northern Europeans were, in Disraeli’s words, “running around with blue paint on their bodies”. Our Patria Meridionale was the chrysalis were the ancient Mediterranean culture transformed into Western civiliation.
    Accordingly, we confidently “take the good with the bad”.  We appreciate the virtues of southern-Italian media characters and we can laugh at ourselves when presented as comic characters.  Cafoni images don’t exercise us.  We have known them; we laugh at them both in real life and media portrayals.
    Clearly, as noted above, there is a trend of increasing negative images.  This is an interesting sociological question. What is the cause of media representations generally and southern-Italian Americans particularly?
    Nevertheless, the eighty-year history of southern-Italian American portrayals in media is our history.  In all those films and programs we can find the good & bad, the beautiful & ugly, the tragic & comic aspects of our culture.
     
    What differentiates southern-Italian American media images from other ethnic groups? 
    Our media images are not cleansed of the bad, ugly and comic.  Ours is not idealized good, beautiful and tragic. Our collective media image, (albeit at times hyperbolic for dramatic effect – movies are not social history) is a microcosmic totality of our reality (the proverbial “universe in the grain of sand”).
    So what’s to protest? 
    Taken as a double entente line from Jersey Shore, Robert Viscusi perfectly finished his contribution to the above-mentioned “Guido...”
    “Love the Situation”!
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    Mario ("Beddu"!) – Lifetime Vicar of the Rich and Powerful – Hammers the Italian Working Class







    On November 9, 2011, Italian President Giorgio Napolitano appointed Mario Monti a “Lifetime Senator”. A “Lifetime Senator” is one that is appointed rather than elected. (Judith Harris, i-Italy’s Berlusconi watcher, refers to Monti as a “neo-Senator” e.g. 11/15/11.  I can’t find a definition of neo-Senator, but it seems “Lifetime Senator” is more accurate.)  Subsequently, Italy’s President asked Monti to become the Prime Minister.
    Note: Scuttlebutt has it, after being appointed a Senator and then the Prime Minister, Mario was heard walking around humming a 1950’s American rock tune: “I’m in with the in-crowd”
    The fact that he was appointed a Senator, rather than elected by the people, and then de facto appointed the Prime Minister is significant in terms of democracy and worker’s standard of living. 
    The Italian people have forgone their right to choose their own government and are suffering a reduction in Standard of Living.  So what’s all the journalistic ink about Berlusconi scandals?  Is there any greater scandal than taking the democratic rights of the people away and reducing their standard of living?
    When people give up their right to an elected government, it may be worthwhile if they benefit economically.  Well .... you didn’t hear this from a Rome correspondent, so take it with a “grain of salt”. There’s this guy in London with a gang of business journalistic credentials who seems to think the Italian people are getting hammered by the non-elected Monti government.
    Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, who has covered politics and economics for 30 years and currently the International Business Editor for “The Telegraph”, writes:
    “I wish premier Mario Monti all the best. He is one of Europe’s great gentlemen ("everyone loves Mario" - verso). Yet I fail to see how his labour reforms can pull the country out of its downward slide.
    Mr Monti is carrying out a draconian fiscal squeeze in the midst of deep slump, even though Italy is close to primary budget surplus... The IMF is aghast at what is happening... The IMF now expects Italy’s economy to contract this year, and to keep contracting into 2013.” (emp.+)
    “IMF is aghast ! It’s not like the IMF is a pro-labor organization. So Italy has a “primary budget surplus” but Mario thinks Italy’s problem is with workers, who created the surplus, and what is needed is a change in labor laws.  Bloomberg reports on 3/12/12:
    Monti Targets Italy Labor Law Revamp... Riccardo Coladarci, a firefighter in Rome for seven years, is trapped and says now it’s time for him to be saved. His temporary job contract doesn’t offer sick days or vacation and pays about 9,000 euros ($12,000) a year, barely enough to make ends meet in Italy.
    “I’m not even entitled to a flame-resistant shirt,” the 29-year-old Rome resident said about his employment agreement.
    So call me “Pollyanna” if you will; but can’t some of the “surplus” Pritchard cited above be used to buy the man a shirt?
    One thing can be said for sure: Monti is consistent.  He has spent his life in the company of the rich and powerful (Schooled at Bocconi and Yale, former rector of Bocconi, adviser to Goldman Sachs, officer of Trilateral Commission and Bildesburg), and he still serves them well!  He relentlessly drives for changes in labor laws that reduce the rights and standard of living of workers and increases the wealth of the rich and powerful. Yahoo Business News reports on 3/18/12:
    “Monti has been widely praised for improving market confidence in Italy, which was teetering on the brink of a Greek-style debt crisis when he took office four months ago.
    However, according to Tito Boeri, economics professor at Bocconi:
    “The current reform draft, leaves all temporary contracts in place and the planned overhaul of welfare benefits would still leave thousands of people with no income support...”
    So wealth in “the markets” is increasing.  At the same time as the Italian working class standard of living is decreasing.  The Italian working class is finding out that giving up rights to electing a government is a “slippery slope”.  After elections go, then worker’s rights go, and then comes a reduction in standard of living.

    But, Hey! The news is not all bad.  After all, Mario is a lovable guy and the previous girl-chasing Prime Minister is gone.  That’s good! ... No?     
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    Towards an American Terroni “Education Manifesto” – i-Italy’s role (if any)


    A few years ago, I enrolled in a vocational culinary arts cooking course at the local community college.  Ignoring me, I judge the average age of the twenty-two students in the class to be about twenty (i.e. a distribution of late teens and early twenties, with me an ‘outlier’) I immediately noticed that fifteen names on the class list were Italian. This did not surprise me. There are approximately two-hundred thousand Americans of Italian descent in the greater Rochester, NY area.  As with Italian Americans nationally, they are mostly in ‘blue-collar’ working-class families whose children, following that socio-economic tradition, seek vocational education in the community college, trade schools and various blue-collar job training programs (I/A national census data: 70% less than bachelors degree).


    As I came to know the Italian American students, I found that these fifth generation (great great grandchildren of Ellis Island generation) Italian American students had an intense sense of being Italian(indeed proud of it). However, they did not seem to know what it meant to be Italian. Like their parents they were raised in heterogeneous suburbs (third generation, grandchildren of immigrants born in the 1940’s and early 50’s, was the last urban “Little Italy” generation).  While my classmatesknew they were Italian, in the absence of knowledge about what it meant to be Italian, at best all they could do was mimicked media images of Italian Americans – Ergo Guido. 


    Wondering about their education and what contribution it made, if any, to knowledge about Italian history and culture, I did some document research into census data and school curriculums (high school through graduate studies) – all of this with a mind towards understanding southern-Italian American youth’s sense of Italianita. Much of this     “back of an envelope” type of research has been reported and discussed over the years on this blog – see a few such articles in the 'related articles' links on this page. But, the short report is as follows.


     
     Dearth of Italian History/Cultural Curriculum
     


    New York State Secondary Curriculums
    Social Studies-Global Studies 
    One is hard pressed to find anything about Italy other than the three traditional touchstones (Rome, Renaissance and Mussolini). There is virtually nothing about Italians in America except a mention in the general immigration unit.
    Needless to say, other European countries are covered in depth (England, France, Germany, Russia, etc.).  Similarly, Asian and African countries figure prominently in the curriculum.
     English Course Readings
    Approximately 150 listed books are recommended for reading in state English courses. Literally the whole recommended reading list for New York secondary English literature students is devoid of Italianita.
    For literature in grades 9-12, there is only one book by an author with an Italian name; Lawrence Ferlinghetti (pardon my cynicism- but he never knew his Italian father, his mother was of Sephardic French /Portuguese heritage; he was raised in France till he was five years old; French was his first language and he earned a doctoral degree at the Sorbonne in Paris – hardly your typical Italian American). 
     
    Community College in Monroe County New York
    The historical/cultural education available to 200,000 Italian Amercans at Monroe Community College is nonexistent.  The following is taken from the college’s on line catalogue course descriptions.
     History
    - 3 African American
    - Jewish/Holocaust
    - Asian
    - 2 Russian
    - China & Japan
    - East Asia
    - Women’s
    Literature
     - Holocaust (1 dedicated also significant part of a survey)
    - 2 British
    - Black
    - Minorities (Native American, Latino, Asia, African American)
    - Shakespeare
    - Drama  (no Italian dramatist listed)
    - Poetry: (no Italian poets listed)
     
    There are no Italian or Italian American history or literature courses offered at a community college in a county with 200,000 Americans of Italian descent (20% of the population).

    In sum, there can be no culture, if there is no education about the culture.  There can be no Italian American culture, if there is no education about the Italian American culture. One thing is for sure: Italian American cultural education is not happening in public schools and colleges. Similarly universities, which this blog has documented in detail many times, that define “Italian Studies” as de facto Renaissance Studies which has nothing what-so-ever to do with the history and culture of near 17 million Americans of southern-Italian descent (again, see evidence in 'related articles' links on this page).
     
    Thoughts about an American Terroni Education Manifesto
    It seems to me that Italian American literati, community leaders and politicians have two education issues to address:
     1. How do we explain the relatively low education attainment level of the Italian American people generally (i.e. 70% less than Bachelors degree), and what can be done to increase the level of education attainment.
     2. Are we content to let the public schools, colleges and universities send southern - Italian American culture into oblivion.
    In short, what this blog and a suggested education manifesto are about - “a picture is worth a thousand words”:
     
    The promotion of American Terroni Patria Meridionale (Southern-Italian American Homeland ) education should not be construed as a chauvinistic regional nationalism as in Italy’s South (e.g. Alleanza Siciliana) vs. Italy’s North (e.g. Lega Nord).  I know virtually nothing about Italy today except; as the Depression era pundit Will Rogers would say: “All I know is what I read in the newspapers.”
    I have no special interest in Italy today’s North vs. South issues.  However, I have a very special passionate interest in my history, which is the history of virtually all Americans of Italian descent.  And that history is the history of Italy south of Rome.
    I don’t think historic southern Italian culture is better than northern – but I know it’s different.  That is a FACT!  An unmitigated, unequivocal, indubitable FACT of History!  And, it is also a FACT that virtually all Italian Americans (i.e. vast majority) are descended from immigrants who came from the South of Rome.
    What I am talking about, what Pino Aprile is talking about in his book Terroni, what the Magna Grece blog and other Meridionale blogs link to it are talking about is OUR History and OUR Historical Culture.  
    OUR being understood as Americans of southern-Italian descent – i.e. American Terroni!  And, History understood as both post and pre-Ellis Island history of southern-Italian Americans.  Pre-Ellis Island history understood as the history of Italy south of Rome – i.e. our Patria Meridionale.  It is that history - our history that has been lost and with it our culture. 

    Pino Aprile, in the first four pages of his mind boggling book “Terroni”, begins twenty-three paragraphs with the phrase “I did not know” or words to that affect. This is a well-educated professional southern Italian who became overwhelmed by how little he knew about his Patria Merdionale. Growing up south of Rome, there was no oral traditions or school textbooks to inform him about the incredible history of the post-Risorgimento period.    

    Like Aprile, my classmates at Monroe Community College have come of age in the complete absence of any information about their history and culture except what they can glean from mass media (mis-)representations.
    Tragically, American Terroni history cannot be found or systematically made available to American Terroni children and young people anywhere in the whole American education system from primary school to graduate school.
    I’m outraged that Polentoni “Italian Studies” professors, following the dehumanizing nineteenth century Piedmontese tradition, define “Italy” as “north of the Garigliano”.  “Italian” in the phrase “Italian Studies” does not denote the whole of Italy – rather approximately two and a half centuries of Arno River Valley history.
    I’m disappointed in “Italian-American Studies” professors who can’t see, let alone research and teach, the magnificent and exciting history of southern-Italian Americans before Ellis Island.
    I’m exasperated with the neglect and indifference Italian American literati and professional classes have shown towards the education of the working class southern-Italian American children and youth.
    I’m saddened that i-Italy, one of the most dynamic and robust publications on the WEB, defines itself as the English language voice of Italy’s bourgeoisie instead of the Italian American working class. 

    Sadly, publications like i-Italy (the voice of Italy) and H-ITAM (the voice of Chicago) do not see, at least part of, their mission to systematically and aggressively promote the teaching and research of southern-Italian American history and culture (pre and post Ellis Island!). 

    The much loved darling professor of Italian American Studies, receiver of voluminous accolades and holder of the coveted title Professor Emeritus of the State University of New York – has he used his prestige as a scholar and TEACHER to organize Italian Americans and petition the Board of Regents to get southern-Italian history and culture in the public education curriculum and the curriculums of the community colleges where so many of our children go post-high school?
    Did the eight year Italian American governor, his Italian American activist wife and his now son the governor, who love to show up at Italian starched table cloth / cow’s milk cheese functions, petition the Board of Regents for the same?
    Ooh the hew and cry about the need for Italian language courses which specialize in northern Italian history and culture experiences as the medium to teach the language and promote northern Italy’s tourism; yet not a word – NOT A SINGLE WORD! – about complete absence of the history and culture of the people south of Rome in the public education system. 
    Our children have no teachers! All they have are philo-Renaissance art and literature professors and Little Italy nostalgics; both of which care nothing about public and college education; except in so far as education policy impacts on jobs and personal special interest.  Care being measured by action!
    The question for i-Italy:
    Is this publication interested in teaching and promoting the teaching of the history and culture of the southern-Italian American people; or is the purpose of the publication to disseminate news about Italy Today - to whom? 
    What is your target reading market?
    Consider, for example the incredible (unparalleled) blanked coverage given to Mario Monti – the former officer and advisor to those great defenders of blue-collar/working-class benefits and rights (pardon my cynicism) Goldman Sachs, Trilateral Commission and Bilderberg Group. On just one day (2/12/12) of many, the front page included the following on Monti: 1 video; 5 English language Magazine articles; 3 Italian language Magazine articles; 10 General News articles!
    Take a random sample of southern-Italian Americans (which necessarily will include 70% blue-collar/working class) and asked them what they think about Mario Monti, and then ask the same question in the halls of university Italian Studies Departments such as NYU.  I predict that there will be a significant difference between the responses of the two populations.  For which population do you write?
    Aye now, there’s the question – eh? The proverbial “heart of the matter!”
    In conclusion, regarding an American Terroni Educaton Manifesto

    For me: “That’s all she wrote.”
    You?
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    Guy de Maupassant’s “SICILY” – Sicilian Mosaics and Guido Education



    Introduction
    Guy de Maupassant (1853-1890) a French author immortalized in the history of literature was also an avid traveler; and he brought his literary genius to bear when writing about his traveling experiences.  Among the many places he visited (Corsica 1880; Algeria 1881; Italy 1885; England 1886; Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia 1887-88; Algeria 1888-89; Italy 1889); he found Sicily among the most impressive.  He wrote:
     “Sicily is the pearl of the Mediterranean... an indispensable land to see and one unique in the world.”
    After newspaper serial publications in 1885-86, Maupassant’s Sicilian travel memoirs La Sicile was published in 1890 as one chapter among several in La vie errante (The Wandering Life).  In turn, La Sicile has been translated by Robert W. Berger and republished as a stand-alone book: Sicily (Italic Press, New York 2007).
    Berger writes in the introduction:
    “Maupassant's literary writings earned him a secure niche in French and world literature.  The present volume reveals his talent in another genre ... travel memoir" (L. 243, 247 – note: Location not page numbers in e-book version)
    Personally, I would not characterize Sicily as a "travel memoir"; the phrase connotes an amateurish diary describing places seen on a given day. A child could write a “travel memoir.”  Literary genius presupposes meticulous observation of human behavior, and the social and geographic environs in which it occurs. “Travel memoir” fails to capture the minutia of Maupassant’s observations and the eloquence in which he described them.
    He sees Sicily; its people, architecture, art and geography with the discerning eye of an artist.  Sicily is more an amalgamation of social anthropology, art and architectural history, and geography.  Moreover, it is written with a literary style that reads in places like Maupassant’s timeless short stories.
    However, while Maupassant’s observations and descriptions of Sicily cover the above-mentioned range of scholarly disciplines, for purposes of this article following on a previous Sicilian mosaics piece (see “Before Fresco...”#2 in the related articles box), the discussion will be limited to Maupassant’s commentary on the mosaic aspects of Sicilian architecture; which he thought profound.
    Also, some concluding comments about the very significant pedagogic potential “Sicily” has for American Terroni history/cultural education, if Italian American educators could get beyond their mesmerization with the Florence/Chicago axis.
     
    Mosaic in Architecture
    Joachim Poeschke in his brilliant intellectual and aesthetic (words can’t describe) book Italian Mosaics 300-1300 (2007) describes the mosaic art:
     “Mosaics are made up of tiny squared stones or chips of glass called tesserae, they were an ideal adornment for large surfaces. They could not achieve the subtlety of detail possible in painting, but this is only apparent up close, and as a rule mosaics were intended to be viewed from a distance. They then had a powerful effect, and one of their undisputed virtues, as opposed to painting, was their durability. Vasari in his 1550 Lives wrote: vera pittura per l'eternita" (true painting for eternity)” (p. 9)
    “Mosaics found their way into church spaces in the fourth century, as the first examples of Christian art on a monumental scale, and their hayday was over by the fourteenth century...(p. 7)
    For example, below is a section of a church mosaic.  Notice how the individual tiles (tesserae) are placed in such a way as to achieve the image:
    Sicilian Mosaic
    In his 1935 comprehensive history of mosaics, Edgar Waterman Anthony wrote:
    “The Sicilian mosaics of the twelfth century, on the whole, are the greatest surviving manifestation of the medieval Byzantine school. Nowhere else is there so much of such a high quality.
    “When the Normans conquered the island in the eleventh century...their extreme toleration caused them to accept, as a rule, the best that was brought to them.
    Modified Gothic buildings were adorned with Byzantine and Saracenic splendor, the result being the most beautiful hybrid art  which the Middle Ages produced; and the [Sicilian] mosaics of Cefalù, the Martorana, the Cappella Palatina and Monreale are the chief glory of this art. (A History of Mosaics  p.179 emp. +)
    For example, below is a section of a Sicilian mosaic in the apse of the Cefalù Cathedral:

    Maupassant on Sicilian Mosaic
    Similarly, fifty years before Waterman Anthony, Maupassant wrote about Sicilian mosaics:
    “What makes Sicily an indispensable land to see and one unique in the world, is that she is, from one end to the other, a strange and divine museum of architecture...Sicily has had the good fortune to be possessed by productive peoples.  (L.247 emp.+)
    “The impression produced by Sicilian monuments is so extraordinary because the art of decoration is more impressive at first glance than the art of architecture. (L. 296 emp.+)
    “The entire admirable effect of these churches derives, from the mixture of contrast of marbles and mosaics...[and] small embellishments run like colored lace... (L. 331 emp.+)
    An example of marble and mosaic lace like mixture:
    [Insert 


    Maupassant was especially taken with two mosaics structures: the Palatine Chapel and the Monreale Cathedral.
     
    Palatine Chapel
    On his arrival at Palermo in 1885, he was intrigued by:
    “... the movement and gaiety of the great city of 250,000 inhabitants...the painted carts, the layout of the streets, etc.” (L. 270 emp.+)
    However,
    “One desire haunted my spirit on this day of arrival.  I wanted to see the Palatine Chapel, which I had been told was the marvel of marvels.
    “The Palatine Chapel, the most beautiful in the world, the most surprising religious jewel dreamed up by human thought and executed by the hands of artists... (L. 285 emp.+)
    The Palatine Chapel is located along the axis of old (ancient) Palermo, where Via Vittorio Emanuele gives way to Corso Calatafimi, about a mile from the La Cala port and half mile from Quattro Canti next to “Palazzo dei Normanni”  (see Google Satellite view below location A)



    Maupassant was especially intrigued with the Palatine Chapel mosaics.
     “When you enter the chapel, you at first remain startled, as if in the presence of something surprising whose power you submit to before understanding it.
    “The colorful and calm beauty, penetrating and irresistible, of that small church, which is the most absolute masterpiece imaginable, leaves you immobile before these walls covered in immense mosaics...(L. 298)
    For example, below is a diagram of the Palantine floor plan indicating the mosaic images on walls and ceileings, and picture of the mosaic covered nave.
     


     


    Monreale Cathedral
    After the Palatine Chapel, Manpassant went to the Monreale Cathedral, and was awed by the vastness of the mosaic walls and ceilings.
    He wrote:
    “The interior of this monument displays the most complete the richest and the most impressive mosaic decoration on a gold ground. These mosaics, the most extensive in Sicily, entirely cover the walls over  [8,000] square meters. 
    “Throughout the entire church, the legendary stories of the Old Testament, the Messiah, and the apostles (L. 512 emp.+)
    For example, blow are pictures of the nave and arch mosics:
     



     
     
     Conclusion La Sicile and the Education of American Terroni
    As noted above, Maupassant attained international and immortal fame as a brilliant short story writer, and Sicily reads like a series of short story motifs.
    William Faulkner, regarding short story writing, said:
    “Yes sir. You can be more careless, you can put more trash in a novel and be excused for it. In a short story that’s next to the poem, almost every word has got to be almost exactly right. In the novel you can be careless but in the short story you can’t. I mean by that the good short stories... demands a nearer absolute exactitude. You have less room to be slovenly and careless. There’s less room in it for trash.”
    Maupassant saw Sicily through the eyes of an artist, and described Sicily with Faulkner’s characterization of short story craftsmanship – “almost every word almost exactly right”. It is truly amazing how much information is conveyed in such a small book (indeed, a chapter of a book -The Wandering Life), and how eloquently it is expressed.  Maupassant is truly a master of what Faulkner called “absolute exactitude”.
    All the great works of literature (both fiction and non-) have pedagogic potential beyond the work itself. Similarly, Sicily can be an invaluable teaching tool for instructing American Terroni about their history/cultural.  Creative teachers could use Sicily as (what is called in K-12 education) ‘anticipatory sets’.  That is, motivating introductions of various lessons on various topics of Sicilian history and culture.  For example:
    Art and Architecture –Maupassant’s discussion about architecture was not limited to the mosaics.  For example, his loving description of the Monreale Cloister and its superiority to French cloisters is enough to make one want to jump on a plane to Palermo; similarly, his commentary on the Venus of Syracuse and the Bronze Ram in Palermo.   
    Forlore – Sicilian folklore can be introduced or complimented with Maupassant's delightful Giufa-esque story about a German entomologist who discovered a new species of beetle and the confusion it caused about bandits. 
    Film - Maupassant's descriptions of volcanos, the sea, villages, etc. anticipates Italian Neorealism film-makers like Visconti La terra trema and Rossellini Stromboli terra di Dio. Indeed, one may reasonably speculate that when Rossellini ‘Storyboard’ the immortal scenes of Ingrid Bergman’s climb to the top of the volcano, he may very well have had in mind Maupassant's description of his volcano climbs.
    Comparing Other Sicilian Travelers – To my mind, it is interesting to compare Maupassant’s 1886 discussions about the Mafia with Leopold Franchetti 1876 report on the subject in “Political and Administrative Conditions in Sicily”.
    Also, Maupassant’s observations about the child laborers in the sulfur mines compared with Booker T. Washington’s 1910 book “The Man Furthest Down”.
    And, the very fascinating, provocative comparison between Maupassant's loving exuberant praise of Sicily with the American Ivy League professor Jerry Mangione's insulting denigrating descriptions of 1936 Sicily in his book Mount Allegro – My! My! Wouldn’t that make for some interesting student papers and classroom discussions? 
    One could go on and on with the many facet’s of Sicily that could serve as introductions to lessons on the history and culture of Sicily.  All that’s needed are teachers with the will to teach American Terroni their history and culture, rather than consign them to the status of and romanticize them as GUIDOS (i.e. American Terroni youth, with no knowledge of their magnificent cultural history, acting out denigrating media images of Italianita).
    Teachers!  Not to be confused with the somnolent preachers sitting in Ivory Tower Chairs of Wisdom!
    “People commended unto Zarathustra a wise man, as one who could discourse well about sleep and virtue: greatly was he honoured and rewarded for it, and all the youths sat before his chair... those drowsy ones...soon nod to sleep...”  Thus Spake Zarathustra –Nietzche
    Guidoized American Terroni youth are asleep at Jersey Shore!  While sleepwalking, their Italian Being conjures phantasmic Italianita dream images, but they don’t known and can't grasp its material reality.  They want for teachers to awaken them to the glory of their Patria Meridionale history and culture; that they may conduct themselves with pride and in accordance with the mighty people from whom they are descended. 

     
  • Op-Eds

    Saviano & Roubini – Do New York ... Literati love the ‘Shtick’


    Lovefests are not about Reality
    The juxtaposition of journalist/movie scriptwriter Roberto Saviano and economist Nouriel Roubini on stage at first glace seemed curious. 
    Saviano, a self-proclaimed authority on international organized crime, has no social scientific credentials or documented social scientific research publications, and aspires to be another Truman Capote novel writer: “My dream is to follow the likes of Truman Capote, for example the combination of wisdom and a novel. That's how I'd like to continue” (interview on Dutch T.V. – Intervista: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-44_flIyaGg).
    Roubini, meanwhile, a highly credentialed and published economist, had nothing to say about international organized crime, and delivered his well-wrought post-recession blog/op-ed ‘shtick’ – the high point coming with the liberal applause line: “Berlusconi corrupt government” and “Mario Monti loves Italy”.  
    The New York Italian American literati loved it, paying no mind to the fact that – Berlusconi became Prime Minister in accordance with the Parliamentary Laws, which govern the process by which the people of Italy democratically determine their government.  Monti, on the other hand, became Prime Minister by duress and the Mafia-esque northern European dominated European Union extortionist threats to wreak the Italian economy if the THEIR man was not Appointed Prime Minister.
    Nor were the New York Italian American literati troubled by the fact that the Mafia-esque northern European dominated European Union was extorting money to come from cuts in social services delivered to Italian workers like the ‘dressmaker’ in the “Gomorrah” film.
    Nor were the New York Italian American literati troubled by the fact that the Mafia-esque northern European dominated NATO was extorting money for increased military spending; money to come from more taxes deducted from the wages of Italian workers like the ‘dressmaker’ in the “Gomorrah” film.
    Nor where the New York Italian American literati concerned about the fact of Mario Monti’s association with International Bank-sters in his Goldman Sachs advisory role, and holding the European Chair of the Trilateral Commission, and Bilderberg Steering Committee member.  He may love Italy, but in the context of international Bank-sters.
    No, the New York Italian American literati had no such factual concerns.  They were here for a Roberto Saviano reality empty lovefest. The reality of Italy’s losing its budgetary sovereignty and the implied Bank-ster international crimes against the Italian working class were not their concern.  Nor was Professor Roubini – friend, colleague and promoter of Mario Monti – there to talk about the reality of Italy’s lost budgetary sovereignty. (for a detailed discussion Italian sovereignty see “Italy Bows...” article in Related Articles box)
    Saviano -  so 90s
    Saviano belongs to another time – his mafia talk is quaint.  He visited the “Occupy Wall Street” people.  He said the right things about corporate crime; but he still talks predominately about the Mafia as though those petty gangsters could possible rise to the levels of crimes symbolized by “Wall Street.”
    Government bailouts of American and European financial institutions are measured in Trillions of dollars – Trillions of dollars coming from the working class people of those countries.  What has the mafia to do with all of this? 
    While working class movements like “Occupy” and “Tea Party” in the US and similar movements in Italy and Europe are riling against the political establishments, Saviano is still déjà vu talking about Sopranos and Scorsese. 
    He seems to have no sense that we live in an economic milieu characterized by millions of job losses and house forecloses; a milieu with new vocabulary like houses ‘under-water; a milieu were Jefferson County Alabama filed the biggest bankruptcy in the history of the US and has stopped paying interest on its general obligation bonds; a milieu where crime on the streets is not driven by organizations but by desperately poor individuals, and crime at the national level is not drive by mafia gang-ster organizations but by financial bank-ester organizations – in this ‘brave new world’ milieu, Saviano’s unnamed sources gossipy journalism and docufiction fantasy movie scripts are totally irrelevant.
    To my mind, Saviano is at a career crossroads. Like rock stars whose act have grown old and clichéd; either they reinvent themselves as Madonna perennially does, or they face oblivion like...“what’s his name”.  Saviano’s mafia ‘shtick’ is old and clichéd. If he wants to be another Truman Capote, he had better find a murder and memorize “Crime and Punishment”.

    Now that I think of it, Saviano and Roubini on stage together is not so curious after all – both are irrelevant to the working class. Saviano is locked into the past and Roubini is an economist for the elite.  But, hey!  They’re still big in New York literati Vaudeville.    
  • Op-Eds

    Pino Aprile’s “Terroni”– A Review


    In Rochester, NY there is a sizable Gaeta population. Up through the 1950s, while the original circa 1900 immigrates were present, the Gaeta Society was very robust.  Today, the aging children and graying grandchildren of the original immigrants keep the nostalgic remnants of that society alive. For purposes of an Italian American local history article, I interviewed some of the current members. As with all southern Italian groups, I was told about the local foods, saints, festivals and other traditions of Gaeta. 


    What is interesting, reflecting back on those interviews, after reading “Terroni”; in all the discussion about cultural (food and music) and history (medieval and ancient), no mention was made of “The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies”, the Bourbon King who made his last stand in Gaeta, and most especially absent was any reference to the incredible dehumanizing atrocities committed in Gaeta by the Piedmontese conquers.


    For example, Aprile writes:
    “In order to place the [Gatea] fortress under siege, [the Piedmontese general] Cialdini ordered: ‘All of the inhabitants residing outside of the fortress which constitutes four fifths of the population, to vacate the city within ten hours [after that] neither people nor objects can be carried out and the people remaining behind will be treated as though they were secret agents for the enemy’...One citizen out of every five was a target for the cannons and the remaining four became propertyless beggars...the Piedmontese shot at least one citizen of Gaeta in the main square every morning”
    “[Further,] in order to set up their camp, [the Piedmontese] destroyed nearly half of all the cultivated land including age-old gardens.  The winter reached Siberian proportions that year and in order to heat themselves, they burned one hundred thousand olive trees.  Of the original three hundred oil mills that once stood, not one remained standing.  They were dismantled and moved up on Lake Garda near Verona” 
    “The sea trade came to an abrupt halt: three hundred merchant ships, centuries-old shipyards with two thousand employees, sixty-four fishing boats.  It all came to an end...the city never recovered.  For centuries, Gaeta was one of the most important cities in the world, a true capital of the sea. It was reduced to a little sea town...
    “After such violence came the emigration...There are more citizens of Gaeta in the state of Massachusetts than here” (p 40-42)
    In short, the Gaeta immigrants brought no history of post-Risorgimento Gaeta. They brought recipes, holiday and religious traditions, family anecdotes but no social history of the Piedmontese invasion that give rise to the great southern Italian migration which brought them to Rochester.
    This Gaeta experience is a microcosm of the whole southern-Italian American experience.  The immigrants from southern-Italy never passed on the history (written or oral) of the post-Risorgimento experience.  The diaspora was simply explained in terms of two variables: the pushing variable of poverty and the pulling variable of opportunity.  There was poverty in Italy and there was opportunity in American – end of conversation – end of history.
    The depths to which this ignorance of the later nineteenth century post-Risorgimento history has penetrated the southern-Italian American culture is measured not only by the complete absence of the oral history in the immigrant tradition, but also in the Italian American scholarly tradition.  Italian American scholars never research and write the history of southern-Italian Americans before their arrival at Ellis Island; as evidenced by their professional publications and course curriculums.
    However, what is the most stunning point brought out in “Terroni” is that the history of the late nineteenth century post-Risorgimento has also been obliterated from the minds of southern Italians living in Italy.  That southern-Italian Americans have no pre-Ellis Island history is not so terribly surprising.  But, how did it come to past that the Terroni in their homeland know virtually nothing about their history.
    For example, in the first four pages of his book, Aprile begins twenty-three paragraphs with the phrase “I did not know” or words to that affect. This is a well-educated professional southern Italian who became overwhelmed by how little he knew about his Patria Meridionale. Growing up in the South, there was no oral traditions or school textbooks to inform him about the incredible history of the post-Risorgimento period.
    More importantly, that history was systematically repressed.  For example, consider the story of Alessandro.
    “One day the brother of Alessandro's grandfather said, ‘Hey boy, I gotta tell ya something. What they have written in the history books are lies.  The Piedmontese did not unify Italy, they simply enlarged the Piedmont'.
    “Alessandro asked himself why he told me stories that took place so long ago and in such a mysterious tone of voice (‘I have told you these things, but don’t go around mentioning them, not even to our family’)  ‘It is not true that the Bourbon kings were tyrants.  It is not ture that the South was riddled with hunger and misery.  No one left the South: at least not back then’.  And why must we not mention them? ‘It is not time, yet.  The important thing is that you know how things really are.’
    “Alessandro thought he was exaggerating, so he mentioned something to his father.  He became very angry: ‘Forget Uncle Salvatore.  He says a lot of foolish thing.(p34)
    It’s as though the ‘total shock and awe’ delivered by the Piedmontese army was so devastating, so punishing, so humiliating that the whole population south of Rome willed themselves to forget.  To remember was just too painful.  Henceforth, no discussion of Gramsci’s “Cultural Hegemony” will be complete without reference to “Terroni”. Gramsci posited the concepts; Aprile provides the facts.
    Allessando’s uncle spoke in hushed tones and did not think the time had come for the truth about the Piedmontese invasions. Pino Aprile thinks the time has come and it is long overdue to bring to light the real history of the South and the implications that history has for the people and economy of the South today; for the South is still suffering the consequences of that invasion (i.e. not unification).
    Mr. Aprile has told this story with a truly masterful work of meticulous document history. He has not only mastered the ‘Historian’s Craft’, he also has the ‘Touch of a Poet.’  The text exudes a unique combination of cold logic and heated passion.  Olive groves and highways become extended metaphors for history and political economy.  This is a great read!
    Thanks to Ilaria Marra Rosiglioni and the Italian Language Inter-Cultural Alliance foundation for the translation.  The Italian American literati almost certainly will continue to write histories of  ‘nonna’s kitchen’, but no long have the excuse they do not know about the historic conditions giving rise to the great diaspora – Rosiglioni has dropped it into their laps!
  • Op-Eds

    Cultural Demise: South of Rome and American Terroni – Piedmontista Then and Now (Silvana Patriarca, Nelson Moe, Italian Studies)


    “I will not invoke the REALITY behind [Piedmontese] representations [of the South]...” writes renowned Italian historian Silvana Patriarca. This incredibly pregnant clause is a conceptual vortex capturing the dialectics of Hegel’s “Master-Slave”, Gramsci’s “Cultural Hegemony” and Edward Said’s “Orientalism”. In short, when two conscious entities (e.g. cultures) dialectically encounter each other, each hegemonically attempts to destroy the “Other” by negating the Other’s REALITY. American de facto Piedmontista such as Partiarca, Nelson Moe and Italian Studies Programs, acting out the role of north-Italian cultural hegemonist, contribute to the demise of southern Italian culture by writing (much more importantly – teaching) Italian history as though Southern Italian REALITY does not, indeed never did, exist...American TERRONI beware the nocturnal siren-songs streaming from the Chairs of Wisdom – first a culture sleeps and then it dies. No history (REALITY) – No Culture! No southern-Italian history (REALITY) – No southern-Italian American culture!



     Preface                                Descriptions vs. Representations

    Silvana Patriarca writes:
    “I will not invoke reality, but will focus my attention on what today's social scientists would call "hard data," i.e. quantitative information, and treat them as a representation.”
    (“How many Italies? Representing the South in Official Statistics” in Italy’s ‘Southern Question’ ed. Jane Schneider – emp.+ p78)
    Nelson Moe writes:
    “The bulk of this study examines the way the south was represented in the decades before and after unification...”
    (The View from Vesuvius: Italian Culture and the Southern Question p. 2 emp.+)
    Note: the common use of the word “representation(ed)”; they do not say descriptions.
    Patriarca’s readers should not assume that the “hard data, i.e. quantitative information” is accurate (truthful) descriptions of the reality of southern Italy, during the years of the Patria Meridionale Brigandage War (aka Risorgimento).
    Similarly, readers of Moe must not confuse “the way the south was represented” with the way the south was described. 
    Descriptions are true or false empirical propositions, either accurate or not accurate. 
    Representations are metaphoric statements; they are epistemologically empty (neither true or false)– i.e. they convey no knowledge of the object under consideration.  Representations tell us about the subjective opinion (value judgment) of the person making the representation.
    Students of Italian southern history must become very aware of and sensitive to the distinction between ‘descriptions’ which are the facts of history, and ‘representations’ which are the propaganda of hegemonist.
    ------------
    Silvana Partriarca     History of the Mezzogiorno as “Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics”
    In her article, Professsor Partriarca discusses the 1861 Census of Italy, which she describes as:  
    “The most important statistics of the first decade of existence of the new state were undoubtedly those on population...The census formed the basis of any statistical and economic inquiry... demographic data served as the principal indicator of the condition of the country" (emp.+ p79)
    Note the phrase: “principal indicator of the condition of the country".  
    Again, as with the word representation, professor Partriarca uses the word “indicator” and continues to eschew the word ‘description’ or ‘measurement’. She does not say: “demographic data is the principal “description’ or ‘measurement’ of the condition of the country.”
    When, if fact, a census consists of descriptive statements of demographic Reality; i.e. the census is a collection of statements that describe the characteristic of the population –i.e. the population reality. 
    Descriptive statements are either accurate (true) or not accurate (false). If, for example, the U.S. census document reports that “seventeen million Americans are of Italian descent”, then that statement is either accurate (true) or not accurate (false). 
    However, in her own words, Professor Partriarca is not interested in reality; i.e. not interested in the truth or falsity (accuracy or inaccuracy) of the statements in the 1861 Italian census.
    And, probably for very good reasons – the 1861 census of Italy south of Rome, unless and until empirically demonstrated otherwise, has a very high probability of being a worthless description of southern Italian reality; a classic example of Mark Twain’s adage: “Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics”.
    The sole purpose of the 1861 Census is to function as a Piedmontista hegemonic tool to negate the Reality of the state of ‘The Two Sicilies’, hegemonically destroy the culture of southern Italy and meld it into the Piedmont culture.
    It is a classic exercise in hegemonic destruction of the Patria Meridionale cultural by its dialectical Piedmontese Other.  This is evidenced by the fact that the compliers and publishers of the census did not distinguish between northern and southern Italy. 
    Patriarca: “ ‘North’ and ‘South’ did not appear as reporting units in the official statistical publications of the 1860s”  (p. 81 emp +).  In short, “Patria Meridionale” did not exist as far as the Piedmontese compliers of census were concerned.
    Further, the uselessness of the 1861 Census as description of southern Italian society in the year 1861 may be logically inferred without empirically reading the document, by testing it against general standards of census taking.  Consider the following:
    Reality and Census Documents
    Recording Descriptions of the People
    Below is a drawing depicting a 19th century census taker.  There are two aspects of this picture that are significant for purposes of this discussion. 
     
     First, the Census taker is the man with the pen and paper.  He is creating a Document.
    Second, the People gathered around the census taker are The Reality that is being described (recorded) in the census Document.
    In short, the census taker is creating a document purporting to describe some demographic characteristics (reality) of that community at that point in time. 
    Keeping in mind the most fundamental precept of critical historiography: “with pen and paper one can write anything”,
                - the question that students of southern Italian history, who are interested in the Reality, at the time of the Risorgimento, should ask:
    “How accurate are the descriptions recorded in the 1861 Census”?
    Are the ‘descriptive statements’ TRUE or FALSE?
    Further, consider the idyllic character of the depicted scene.  The scene accurately implies that the “hard data” (to us Partriarca’s words), is willingly (indeed happily) provided to the census taker. 
    The only access the census taker has to the “hard data” is from information provided by the people; there is no documentary verification.  For example, the census taker asks a person their age.  The statement that the person makes is recorded as ‘fact’; there is no birth certificate provided to verify the person’s age.
    If  the people are not willing to give him accurate information,
                - than the census is not an accurate description of reality; the census document is a  false (inaccurate) description of reality.
    Accordingly, when considering the census of the Italy south of Rome in the year 1861, the historian must make a judgment as to how confident to be about the accuracy of the data; which, in turn, requires a judgment of how confident about the willingness of the people to cooperate with the census taker.
    In as much as the South was in the process of being conquered, brutalized and dehumanized in the year 1861 by the Piedmont Army,
                - how reasonable is it to judge that the people of the South were willing participants providing accurate information to the census takers?
    Consider, the following descriptions of life in the South at the time of the census reported by historian John Dickie (Darkest Italy) and ask yourself:
                Does this sound like the type of environment that people willing meet with and provide accurate information to a census taker?
    “Parliamentary commissioner Nino Bixio wrote in 1860: ‘this is a country that should be destroyed or at least depopulated and its inhabitants sent to Africa…” (p. 35 emp.+)
    (Of course we know now that Nino’s wish for depopulation came true starting in 1870 and continued till 1920.  Only the people went to the Americans instead of Africa.)
    “The Mezzogiorno spent the first five years after incorporation into the new Italy under different forms of what was essentially a military regime…A very difficult situation developed into near anarchy in the Spring of 1861… (p. 37 emp.+)
    “One of the most infamous instances of pitilessness was the razing of the town of Pontelnadolfo whose inhabitants had deceived and butchered a column of troops. (p. 41 emp.+)
     “Unauthorized, brutal measures such as mass arrest, summary executions, and reprisals had been used from the start by the Piedmontese army against lawbreakers and rebels… (p. 31 emp.+)
     “The many grisly ‘hunting-trophy’ photographs of the condemned or executed taken by army officers… (p. 33 emp.+)
    “...the infamous Pica law was passed that grafted transportation onto the system of punishments…” (i.e. the peasants were physically removed from their communities p. 41 emp.+)
    Given those descriptions of life south of Rome at the time of the census,
                - How can anyone take the ‘1861 Italian Census of southern Italy’ seriously, indeed characterize it as scientific “hard data”?
    The 1861 Italian census adds new meaning to Twain’s:
    “Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics”
    It is a logically valid inference to conclude that:
    The only purpose that the Census Report of Italy in 1861 served was the obliteration of Patria Meridionale culture from the historic record of Italy.
    And, so very sad to say:
    A Piedmontista teacher could use a high Chair of Wisdom (Ivy League) to foist upon seventeen million American Terroni such a gross misrepresentation of their history.
    Nelson Moe The Historiography of ‘Representation’
    In two articles about southern Italy,
    “The Emergence of the Southern Question in Villari, Franchetti, and Sonnino” in Italy's Southern Question: Orientalism in One Country 1998,
    “‘This is Africa’: Ruling and Representing Southern Italy, 1860–61” in
    Making and Remaking Italy: The Cultivation of National Identity around the Risorgimento 2001
    totaling 61 pages of text, Professor Moe uses the word represent or representation 39 times, for an average of once every 1.5 pages (61/39=1.5). This is to say: the word represent or representation appeared (on average) at least once on every one and a half pages.
    Accordingly, I think it is fair to characterize Professor Moe’s works as Historiography of ‘Representation’.  Namely, he is writing the history of Italy south of Rome based on documents that, in his favorite word, represent the Italian south.  Further, all the representational documents he presents in these articles were written by Piedmontista bent on the destruction of the Patria Meridionale culture.
    Indeed, the Villari, Franchetti, and Sonnino “representations” bring to mind images of missionaries traveling among the ‘great un-washed’ south of Rome preaching the Pietmontese Gospels. This the what American students of southern-Italian descent can expect at the crème de la crème of the American university system.
    Again, as discussed above at some length, a representation should not be confused with a description.  Statements of representation cannot be evaluated for truth or falsity.  Further, truth and falsity are the criteria used to establish factual knowledge.
    In short, Professor Moe, like Professor Patriarca, sitting in an Ivy League Chair of Wisdom, provides a wealth of documents containing the subjective “representations” made by the enemies of the Patria Meridionale, but he is lite on verifiable factual knowledge claims about the history and culture of the people south of Rome.
    Italian Studies Programs Italy =Arno River Valley
    Italian Studies programs in American universities do not bother with facts or representations of Italy south of Rome.  They just flat-out ignore Italy south of Rome.  Indeed, Italy in those Chairs of Wisdom consists of a couple of centuries of art and literature produced in the Arno River valley. (I have written about Italian Studies Programs in two previous articles linked at the top of the page in the "Related Articles" box.)
    In Conclusion
    It is accurately said: “History is Written by the Victors”.  The voluminous number of documents Professors Patriarca and Moe cite in their works were written by “the victors”. 
    The Piedmontista militarily defeated the state of the “Two Sicilies” and hegemonically overwhelmed its historic culture.  Today the word “Italy” largely means what the cultural progeny of the original Piedmontista say it means.
    However, it does not necessarily follow that contemporary historians have to believe the representations made by the dominating party in dialectical clashes between persons, states, cultures, etc.  It is possible to gain objective knowledge of both parties to dialectically clashing states and cultures by applying the empirical and logical principles of ‘critical historiography’ (see: Marc Bloch’s The Historian’s Craft - also 'linked' article on Bloch & Patriarca).  And, it is possible to write objective history of both parties in the dialectical process, rather than “sing the songs” of the dominating party.
    Sadly, for American Terroni, the professors sitting in the high Chairs of Wisdom largely do not see the role of contemporary historians as seekers of object knowledge and accurate factual descriptions of the Patria Meridionale historic realities.
    And so, one wonders...
                How do southern-Italian American students gain accurate factual knowledge of their history and culture given that the Chairs of Wisdom are so biased against them?
    “Aye Now! ... There’s the Rub – eh?”
    And, therein lies the meanings of:
    ‘Orientalism’, ‘Cultural Hegemony’ and ‘Master-Slave’.

     

     
     
  • Op-Eds

    Michael Parenti and Camille Paglia: The Ivy League vs. Southern-Italian American Culture


    Preface
     
    It is easy to think of Parenti and Paglia as ‘eccentric’ scholars who, while achieving success outside of academia, have been largely shunned by academicians because of personality traits that alienate them from academia.
     
    Michael Parenti said: “I was kicked out of some of the best universities in America. I was considered a wild man by colleagues.”  And, “Wild” or some such synonym is routinely used to describe Paglia.  Joseph E. Taylor III, University of Washington Department of History wrote: “Paglia seems to be the academic equivalent of a bomb thrower.”  More generally, legendary Yale scholar Howard Blum said: “Camille will never be politically correct they [academicians] will blackball her everywhere.”
     
    Throughout history there have been intelligent individuals who ‘just did not fit-in’.  Diogenes, for example, relentlessly mocked the academicians in Plato’s Academy.  When they posited a definition of ‘Man’ as a “featherless bipod”, he threw a “plucked chicken” over the Academy’s wall.  When they talked about “searching for Truth”, he walked around with a lantern held high telling people he was “searching for Truth”. 
     
    Paglia’s commentary on Oxford University Rhodes Scholar Naomi Wolf and Parenti’s on M.I.T. Professor Emeritus Noam Chomski are just two examples that bring Diogenes to mind.
     
    Parenti and Paglia could easily be placed in that historic class of eccentric intellectuals that ‘just did not fit in’.  For some time, I was quite content to go along with this crowd mentality of dismissing them as eccentric scholars who ‘just did not fit in’ – until I noticed something very unique in their presentations...they made me laugh!
     
    Loving and Hating Humanities and Social Sciences
     
    From high school through graduate school I loved the humanities and social sciences.  From high school through graduate school I hated the humanities and social science courses. I found teachers/professors incredibly dull and boring.  I would sit in classes, ostensively devoted to subjects I loved, doodling, looking at the clock, praying to St. Anthony to liberate me from the monotony, and remembering why Hesse’s “Magister Ludi –The Glass Bead Game” was my favorite novel.
     
    It was not just my teachers.  Professors from the world’s greatest universities are regularly on C-Span programs like “Book TV”, “Booknotes”, “American History TV”, etc. and they are equally boring.  Indeed, many of my teachers were former, and proud to have been, students of the C-Span literati. Obviously, my teachers were successful students: credentialed, working and boring.
     
    Quite the opposite, from time to time, I would see Parenti or Paglia on TV or hear them on the radio and invariably they caused me to bust out laughing – not a smile or ‘hee-hee’ – I’m talk'n full blown ‘belly laughs’.
     
    Significantly, it was not as though they were trying to be comics. They were not less serious than the C-Span gang – indeed, they were much more serious. It was not their intention, they did not go out of their way, to make people laugh - humor flows naturally from their personalities (their culture?). On the contrary, they were high-minded scholars with a passion for their subject matter and the social injustices associated with their subjects.  And yet, periodically through out their presentations they would make me laugh. 
     
    More generally, I never became bored with their presentations even though I was not particularly interested in their scholarly specialties and interests.  There is, for example, no subject I am further from than Paglia’s history, culture and politics of sex (especially gay and bi); also, what I respectfully judge to be Parenti’s oversimplified philosophy of history (rich folk exploiting poor folk). 
     
    Nevertheless, I found myself intrigued and totally engrossed with their presentations: their ‘tip of the tongue’ mastery of an enormous body of facts, the force and validity of their logic, the ethical and moral dimensions of the analysis, and the (Oh My!) incredible (“Mad-man”, “Bomb-throwing”) screaming passion pouring forth - passion born of love for scholarship, and ethical commitments implied by scholarly studies.


    I was shocked with Parenti's hand waving, body shaking, yelling speech about the gross class-character misrepresentations of Julius Caesar’s assassination by historians from ancient times down to the present day Chairs of Wisdom; the same, listening to Paglia on Madonna.  Parenti and Paglia     are both "cut from the same cloth."
     
    Unmitigated Passion and meticulous Scholarship – that’s what defines these two great southern-Italian American thinkers.
     
    They put humanity back into the humanities.
    They put society back into social science.
    They reminded me why I was attracted to the humanities and social sciences. 
     
    Accordingly, the more I read and listened to Paglia and Parenti, the more I wondered why they were persona non grata in the American university system?
     
    University Teaching Qualifications
     
    Universities, like all social institutions, select their membership, not solely on objective quantitative criteria (degrees, publications, references, grants, etc.).  For any social institution to function effectively (to thrive and survive) all the members must function as a unit  - a team, so to speak.  All the members must be committed and contribute to the material and ideological mission, the goals and objectives of the institution; all must play the roles pre-defined ‘by’ and ‘for’ the institution – just as every player on a team has a pre-defined role. 
     
    If one is not prepared to act out the role assigned to them, then they cannot be part of the institution (cannot be on the team).  Indeed, in the application process, the applicant is obliged to convince the institution's representative that s/he is best suited for the pre-defined role and will commit unequivocally to that role – that’s how you get a job in any institution!
     
    Thus, no matter how qualified an individual may be for a particular ‘job’ within an institution (education, finance, manufacturing, merchandising, on-line magazine...) s/he will not get the job, if there is reason to believe that the person will not contribute to the institution’s mission or hinder the mission.  Indeed, persons of lesser qualifications will get jobs by virtue of the fact that they are judged to be a "better fit" or "team players".
     
    Accordingly, it would be easy to pass Paglia and Parenti off as PhDs who couldn’t get a job in a renowned university because of their unique eccentric personality traits;  unable to 'fit in' with the faculty ‘team’ and not able or willing to work with the ‘team’ to achieve the mission of the university.
     
    But, I wondered if there was something more to their alienation than unique (don’t fit in) personality traits; because, in fact their personality traits were not unique. 


    Paglia and Parenti are “    born, breed and raised”, 100% by nature and nurture (“down right brag’n), southern-Italian Americans. They embody the history and culture of Italians south of Rome and west of Ellis Island.
     
    The Social Scientific Question:
     
    Is the alienation of these two brilliant southern-Italian American scholars from academia’s “hallowed halls” just the result of unique random  personality traits?  Is their alienation just that – THEIR alienation? Or, are they representative of southern-Italian American culture – is their alienation in fact individual manifestations of a general cultural gap between southern-Italian Americans and elite academia? 

    How may these questions be approached social scientifically?
     
    Comparative Social Science Method
     
    In the natural sciences the Experimental Method is the principle means of research.  In the social sciences, in as much as experimentation is not possible, the Comparative Method has proved to be an effective research tool.  Essentially, by comparing characteristics of similar social entities (states, religions, nationalities...), researchers come to a better understanding of each entity.  For example:
     
    In 1975 UNESCO embarked on a study of third world infant mortality.  In Chili they found that infant mortality rates for children under the age of 1 year was 61 per 1,000.  This fact in itself is interesting, but does not contribute to understanding the variables that affect infant mortality in Chili or the third world's generally.
     
    However, when Chili’s 61 per 1,000 infant mortality rate was compared with Cuba’s 27 per 1,000, UNESCO researchers were able to locate specific differences in the health care and political systems of the two countries affecting infant mortality, and generalize to other third world countries.  
     
    Similarly, one may use the comparative method to study cultural groups.  For example, by comparing sub-cultural groups of the general American ‘melting pot’ culture, such as southern-Italian Americans with African Americans, we may expect to gain knowledge of the respective relations each has with the American political, economic and cultural institutions. 
     
    For example, by comparing the number of African American Ivy League professorships with southern-Italian American, we should get a better understanding of each group’s Ivy League institutional relations.
     
    Southern-Italian Americans vs. African Americans in the Ivy League
     
    Comparative Demographic Statistics
     
    Consider the table below:
     “Graduate or Professional Degrees”
     


    Group
    Population 25

    years and older
    Graduate

    or professional degree
    African American
    22,166,023
     
    1,307,795 
     
     
     
    Italian American
    11,138,614
     
    1,347,772 
    Source: Census Department – American Community Survey 2006-08
     
    The table clearly shows there is no statistically significant difference between the numbers of African Americans and Italian Americans holding graduate or professional degrees.
     
    Now consider further the next table showing the number of African American faculty positions for the year 2005 at each Ivy League university.
     
     “African American” Ivy League Faculty - 2005
     


    Ivy League University
    Total faculty
    # African American Faculty
    % African American
    Faculty
    Brown University
    628
    25
    4.0
    Columbia University
    3,313
    213
    6.4
    Cornell University
    1,511
    51
    3.4
    Dartmouth College
    512
    21
    4.1
    Harvard University
    2,959
    93
    3.1
    Princeton University
    830
    25
    3.0
    University of Pennsylvania
    2,475
    78
    3.2
    Yale University
    2,603
    82
    3.2

    Total
    14,831
    588
    4.0%

    Source:

    “Black Faculty at the Nation's Highest-Ranked Colleges and Universities”

     The Journal of Black Education 2005 

       

    In short, as of 2005 Ivy League universities employed 588 Black faculty members; 4% of the total Ivy League faculty (note: Columbia at over 6%).
     
    Italian American Ivy League Faculty
     
    Big Problem!
     
    Whereas African Americans meticulously document comprehensive education statistics on the number of their scholars obtaining Ivy League positions, I am unable to locate any such body of statistics about southern-Italian Americans.
     
    Using Google search (the research tool for social scientist without grants, graduate assistants or university library privileges), I could not locate any Italian American organization or social scientific research papers that documents Ivy League Italian American faculty numbers.
     
    The sole reference I found came from a quote of the esteemed Dr. Kenneth Ciogoli in a 1999 article “Our Self-Selecting Elite” by the renowned writer and political commentary Patrick J. Buchanan:
     
    “Kenneth Ciongoli, president of the National Italian American Foundation wrote Italian Americans are less than 1 percent of the Ivy League faculties.”
     
    Conclusions
     
    1.There is no significant difference between the number of African Americans and Italian Americans holding “graduate/professional degrees”. 
    Therefore,
    if :        the statistic of less than 1% Italian American Ivy League faculty is accurate,
    then: African American Ivy League faculty, at 4%, is 300 times greater than Italian Americans – i.e. {(4-1)/1}*100 =300%
    Again:
               0 % difference - number of graduate/professional degrees holders
               300% difference - Ivy League faculty positions
     
    2. African Americans systematically collect a large body of diverse statistics describing their relation to the Ivy League including year over year changes in the number of African Americans on Ivy faculties.
    This concerted effort at collecting statistics is indicative of the value that they place on having a presence in the Ivy League.  The statistics are measures of how successful they are in achieving their goal of a significant presence in Ivy faculty.
     
    3. if:  there is not a similar systematic collection of Ivy faculty statistics by southern-Italian Americans,
     
    then: the absence of such a statistics collection MAY be indicative of southern-Italian American indifference to the Ivy League faculty positions. 
               This is to say, as a culture, southern-Italian Americans do NOT value the Ivy League, do NOT aspire to the Ivy League and therefore, have no reason to keep faculty number statistics.
     
    In short, the prima facia evidence indicates:
    The Ivy League does not reject southern-Italian Americans. 
    Southern-Italian Americans reject the Ivy League!
     
    4. Camille Paglia and Michael Parenti
    Coming ‘full circle’ to the original question posited above:
     
    Is the alienation of Parenti and Paglia from elite universities such as the Ivy League the result of their unique alienating scholarly and personality traits (i.e. not team players); or are their scholarly and personality traits the manifestations of the southern-Italian American cultural indifference towards and rejection of the Ivy League? 

    if:   it is the case, as the above (#1-3) suggests, that southern-Italian Americans:

    reject the Ivy League    , do NOT value the Ivy League and do NOT aspire to the Ivy League
     
    then: cultural indifference cannot be ruled out as an explanation of why Paglia and Parenti never became Ivy professors. 
     
    As the products of southern-Italian American cultural nature and nurturing, Parenti and Paglia developed a value system anathema to Ivy League university goals, objectives and missions. 
     
    In short, they just did not care, or have aspirations, to teach in the Ivy League. Their personalities having nothing to do with their absence from the Ivy League; rather, their cultural values rendered them indifferent to or in conflict with the Ivy League.

    Finally

     

    If the study of southern-Italian American culture is to be social scientific and empirical, then the study must “begin with observations”.  In this case, we began with the observation of Parenti and Paglia’s academic standing as a start to gaining knowledge of the southern-Italian American culture as a whole.
     
    Of course nothing has been proven.  But, the comparative method is pointing to what seems to be a fruitful line of hypothesis formation and further research.
  • Op-Eds

    “Out of the Melting Pot” – The Southern-Italian American Renaissance...i-Italy.org – To Help or Not!


     The Melting Pot

     

    In the nineteenth and early twentieth century, many American cities experienced an influx of European immigrants and African migrants from the American South.  Each national group clustered together in their own “national urban village”; neighborhoods where they perpetuated their cultures – e.g. “Little Italy”.  Such cities were heterogeneous aggregations of foreign national neighborhoods (German, Italian, Irish, African...).

     

    For example, in Rochester, NY up through the 1950s there were very distinct foreign national neighborhoods: German, Polish, Italian, Hispanic and African.  The people living in those neighborhoods were predominately of the respective nationality; street names, churches, stores, eateries, music and languages spoken and read (newspapers) all manifested the culture of the neighborhood’s foreign national identity.  Of course, this pattern of foreign national “urban villages” was reproduced in many cities in the U.S.

     

    In the second half of the twentieth century, the great migration from the cities to the suburbs ensued.  The suburbs were the “melting pots”.  It was in the suburbs that the various nationalities physically integrated with one another; e.g. Italians were no longer clustered on the same streets with other Italians, they lived on a street with people of German, Irish, etc. origins.

     

    When the people of a foreign national/cultural group live in close proximity to each other, their interaction reinforces and perpetuates their culture.

     

    When people of a foreign national/cultural group separate and integrate with other groups, a new homogeneous melting pot culture is developed and adopted.

     

    These propositions can be tested, by considering the physical and cultural status of African, Hispanic and Native Americans. 

     

    These groups have not migratded in mass to the suburbs. Africans and Hispanics stayed in their urban neighborhoods throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty-first.  Similarly, Native Americans largely stayed on ‘reservations’ and in rural communities.  Accordingly African, Hispanic and Native American cultures did not become ‘blended’ with other cultures.  They maintained their uniquely definitive characteristics.

     

    As with the former European urban villages, today Hispanic and African neighborhoods overtly manifest the respective cultures of the people (language, churches, shops, music, food...).  For example the Spanish language is still very much alive; similarly, the very unique, distinctive and definitive African American idiom is heard on the streets of their neighborhoods and in the lyrics of their music.


    Indeed, African American Ivy League scholars such as Cornel West and Michael Dyson (masters of the "King's English") easily slip onto the vernacular of the "Hood" when speaking.

     

    Similarly, Native American culture thrives on reservations and other predominate ‘Indian’ communities, which are separated from the mass suburban ‘melting pot’ American culture.

    In sum, national groups that remained physically together retained and perpetuated their national culture.  Those that integrated with other cultures largely lost their culture.  However, Italian Americans are demonstrating that a lost culture can be found and revived.

     

    Nascent Southern-Italian American Renaissance

     

    There is a large body of evidence that Americans of southern-Italian descent, after decades of being separated from each other in homogenous suburbs and losing their cultural heritage, are finding ways to reunite (both physically and virtually) and reviving their historic cultural roots.

     

    Physically Reuniting

               

                Local evidence from Rochester, NY

    In Rochester, NY there are sixteen Italian American organizations.  Some are small clubs like the ‘Valguarnera Society’ that meets informally from time to time.  There are also three very large organizations whose sizes are indicated by the significant structures they built, pictured below:

    Italian American Community Center

     

    Saint Padre Pio Chapel

     

    Italian American Sport's Center



                National Evidence from Census Data

    According to the 2007 Census Department “American Community Survey”, Italian Americans represent approximately 6% of the national population.  This compares with German Americans 17%, English 9% and Irish 12%.

     

    Further, the “Yahoo Italian American Directory” listed at the time 18 organizations.  Whereas the “Yahoo German American Directory” listed 4 organizations and there were no English Directory listings. 

     

    Clearly, this is evidence of much more robust Italian American cultural activity and physical unity than the much larger German and English American populations. 

     

    Also, the “Yahoo Irish American Directory” listing of 15 organizations is close to the 18 Italian American.  However, the Irish American population is almost twice the size of the Italian American; thus, further evidence that Italian American cultural activity and physical unity is significantly greater as a percentage of population than the Irish American.

     

    While southern-Italian Americans are still physically separated one from the other in homogenous suburbs, the above quantitative evidence indicates that individual southern-Italian American communities are motivated and finding ways of coming back together and rejuvenating their culture at the local level.

     

    However, more exciting is the potential the Internet holds for national and international reintegration of southern-Italians across the country and indeed, the Ocean.

     

    The Internet and Virtual Unification

     

    Reconnecting Southern-Italian Americans across local communities and the Ocean

     

    When sociologist Richard Alba postulated the decline of ethnicity, he was reacting to and writing from the perspective of the suburban melting pot.  However, he underestimated the resilience of and rejuvenating  potential of southern-Italian American culture, and he was not aware of the incredible unifying potential of Internet technology. 

    For example, I know fifth generation southern-Italian Americans (i.e. great-great grandchildren of pre-WWI immigrants) in Rochester, NY who, by using the Internet to locate and Goggle Translator to communicate, have reestablished relations with relatives (ancestors) in Calabrian towns.

     

    i-Italy.org and the Southern Italian American Renaissance

     

    i-Italy.org has unique internet functionality that can greatly facilitate the virtual unification of southern-Italian Americans and their nascent southern-Italian American renaissance.  Also, the physical location of its offices and workspace further lends itself to supporting this renaissance 

     

    However, to my mind, i-Italy.org is not rising to the intellectual and ideological challenge of being a formative renaissance publication. To date i-Italy has ignored its extraordinary potentiality and I dare say ‘responsibility’ to bring this southern-Italian American renaissance to fruition.

     

                Functionality

    The functionality of the i-Italy publication is incredibly complex and dynamic relative to other Internet sites. “The Drudge Report”, for example, one of the most popular news and culture sites on the Internet, is a cartoon compared to the vivacious and complex multilinking capability of i-Italy. 

     

    In terms of the complexity (numbers of articles, links to other magazine sections, world and national news, bloggers...) and the artistry of presentations, i-Italy approaches the world class “Huffington Report”.  Indeed, there are aspects of i-Italy that exceed Huffington in terms of quality and organization.

     

                Location

    i-Italy is physically located in an Italian American Studies Institute which is part of a major university in American’s largest southern-Italian American city, and has a university Dean on its editorial board.  This gives it access to human and physical resources for both academic research and field research in the metro area. 

     

    i-Italy, due to its physical location, is uniquely positioned to explore all aspects of southern-Italian Americana, communicate with southern-Italian Americans, and affect southern-Italian American culture.

     

    i-Italy’s Wasted Opportunities for Southern-Italian American Community Building and Renaissance Facilitating

    Following are a few wasted i-Italy community building and renaissance facilitating capabilities:

     

    Comments Section

     

    When i-Italy first began to publish, it had a very dynamic comment section.  

     

    If a reader posted a comment below an article, the article’s author automatically received an e-mail notification of the comment posting.  The author could then respond to the commenter.  The commenter in turn was automatically notified of the author’s response.  This feature promoted a virtual personal relationship between the author and the commenter.

     

    Further, if there were more than one commenter, all parties (author and all other commenters) were notified.  This feature promoted a virtual community relationship

     

    For example, through my blog's comment's, in the past, I became acquainted with many other southern-Italian Americans.  Some liked and agreed with what I wrote, some disagreed, some insulted me and others asked for my advice. In short, I had a full range of personal interactions with southern-Italian Americans from all over the US, and southern-Italians in ITALY who read the articles (how’s that for breaking out of the melting pot and reconnecting with ‘my primordial culture’).

     

    Sadly, this robust community building capability of comment auto-notification has been abandoned by i-Italy. Now if a fellow southern-Italain (in the US or Italy) posts a comment to one of my articles, I have no way of knowing unless I daily physically check.  If I write a reply, they have no way of knowing unless they physically check back to the comments section.

    For example, recently, I went back into an article I wrote last year looking for a reference, and I found that a very cogent comment had been posted last year. I had no idea it was there and I would so very much liked to have interacted with the writer about his thoughts.

     

    In short, the potential for a virtual personal relationship between two southern-Italians was lost, in turn also lost is the opportunity for a multi-person virtual community relationship.

     

    Feature Articles

     

    On the morning of 8/4/11, the Front Page of i-Italy had 1 video and 7 articles devoted to FOOD, and three of the five “Active” blogs where blogs totally devoted solely to FOOD.  While that morning was an extreme (indeed, shortly after one Food article was dropped and SHOE article was substituted), this extreme was not unrepresentative of the Front Page. 

    The predominance of FOOD on the Front Page is not unique.  I would note that the Life and People section shows a similar pattern of food articles, and they always primer on the Front Page.

     

    While we hear much about the stereotype of Italian Americans in crime, I would also note a second stereotype is that we define ourselves with and by food.

     

    It is a widely accepted principle of social psychology that others define a group as much as the group defines itself.  The extent to which others think of southern-Italian Americana as ‘just a food culture’ must not be allowed to affect our self-identity.

     

    And, to the extent that others think of us as intellectually ‘light’ and unscholarly, our publications must not only prove them wrong; but also instill and reinforce an intellectual identity in our culture.

     

    The Front Page of all our publications should scream our intellectuality to others and ourselves.

     

    Specials Section as scholarly archives

     

    The Special Sections has fallen into disuse and its great potential to archive scholarly articles more like professional journal articles that would not fit well on the Front Page of a Magazine. 

     

    For example, i-Italy could have a “History and Social Science – Special Section”.  Articles going into that section would be noted and briefly summarized on the front page and those interested could link to it.  Such a section would become a place where academic writers could get relatively short articles published quickly rather than going through the rigmarole of “Academic Journals” which gather dust on library shelves.

     

    In time the Special Sections would be a place where researchers and especially students writing term papers could go not only for ideas and data, but using an interactive comment section they could dialogue with the author and one another.

     

    For example, i-Italy has published 10 demographic articles under the category heading “Italian Americans by the Numbers.”  Each article in that category provided data and discussion about a particular southern-Italian American demographic characteristic (Education, Employment, Income...).

     

    If those articles were archived in a Special Section – Italian American Demographics, researchers, students and other interested parties could easily locate them to obtain the data and interact with the author.  Other demographic researchers would be encouraged to place similar articles in the section.  In time, i-Italy would become the place for definitive and authoritative demographic information and discussion about the quantitative characteristics of our population and implications the numbers have for our culture.

     

    The virtual ‘Village Square’ / ‘Urban Street Corner’

     

    The ‘Village Square’ in Italy and the ‘Street Corner’ in Little Italy were very much a part of the southern-Italian and southern-Italian American culture. They were the places where we congregated to ‘talk’, ‘argue’, ‘complain',... whatever. When we moved to the suburbs we had no convenient physical place to congregate.  i-Italy has the functionality to provide a virtual ‘village square’ and ‘street corner’ for us to meet and ‘talk’ again.

     

    Nothing ‘too fancy’! It would be a location in the publication meant for spontaneous comments on somewhat ephemeral topics – topics that would come-and-go like news cycles. There should be almost real-time give and take between the participants.

     

    Affecting Public School Curriculum – southern-Italian education

     

    i-Italy, physically located as it is within and close proximity to major universities and colleges which have teacher training and certification programs, is in a position to reach and influence future teachers about southern-Italian American history and culture.  Bringing them to the realization that there is a history of Italian people "South of Rome and West of Ellis Island”; i.e.  Italian history and culture is more than Roman Empire, Renaissance and Mussolini which is about all that public and college history and literature curriculums consist of currently.

     

    Conclusion

     
    The post-Little Italy southern-Italian Americans have been wandering in the homogenous cultural melting pot wilderness since they left “Little Italy” during the post 1950s suburban migration.  After decades of exile from their cultural homeland, southern-Italian Americans are now finding their way back home through local community organizations and the Internet.
     
    However, like Ulysses upon return home after his wanderings, before they can reaffirm their mighty 3,000-year history and culture (the very essence of  Italy - Po Valley pretensions aside), they must deal with the pretenders to and usurpers of their historic and cultural throne:
    - Mainstream media
    - Philo-Renaissance literati
    - Northern Italian (Gramsci-esque) hegemonic tourist /product marketing industry.
     
    As demonstrated above, there is a significant body of evidence indicating that descendants of pre-WW I southern-Italian immigrants are reviving their history and culture – a Southern-Italian American Renaissance. 
     
    i-Italy.org has unique and extraordinary capabilities to facilitate that renaissance if the people who own, publish, edit and write for the publication are of a mind to do so. 
     
    Will they take part in this renaissance milieu?
                Or, will they settle for being a slick 'train-station' publication?

     

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