ebooks La Storia: Five Centuries of the Italian American Experience by Jerre Mangione in History

Review

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Hard to shake off...By John Paul SassoneAs the grandson of Italian immigrants who didn't hear a lot about why my family came here from southern Italy I was looking for a book that would fill in some of the blanks. This book does that and more. It goes in depth about immigration; why Italians; especially southern Italians came to America; where they settled; their lives here; the good and bad times. It covers the history of Italy and tells why the unification of Italy caused such a mass migration of people to the US. Mangione goes deep into the oppression and hatred Italians faced; not only from other nationalities but from fellow Italians; Covering the period from the Revolution to the 1990s you read about common; everyday people trying to make a life here; and about the ones who became famous and are household names. A great book; one that makes me proud to be Italian-American.1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. I was amazed at how much the Italian people contributed to this ...By Lost in El PasoI grew up in a large Italian family in Massachusetts. I always had a feeling of pride for being an American of Italian descent but I never knew very much about Italian History. After reading this I felt as if I had discovered myself and a stronger sense of who I am came into being. I was amazed at how much the Italian people contributed to this country. We are not all mobsters or priests as the media has portrayed us. We came for a dream of a better life. We assimilated and prospered. God Bless America!0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. La StoriaBy Fr. AntonioThe four extra copies I ordered in December were Christmas gifts for other second-generation Italo-Americans. We greatly loved our immigrant ancestors - grandparents; aunts and uncles and innumerable groups of "commare and cumpari" in varying degrees of filiation to the nuclear family - and from them all learned an honorable way of life; steeped in the rich Italo-Greek culture of the southern Italian "Mezzogiorno". We learned early on; as children; in hours and hours of discourse at Sunday dinner; what courage and hardship urged them from Italy and what similar hardship met them here; what it meant to kiss parents goodbye and know you would never see them again in this life; never be able to have them embrace their grandchildren and finally hear of their passing by a letter two weeks after the fact. La Storia pays fitting homage to these men and women; our heroic forebears; in a context only a historian can encompass; a rapidly vanishing treasure as their succeeding generations are clueless and have nothing to contribute to vapid Western "culture" increasingly severed from its Greco-Roman moorings.I spoke our Calabrian and Neapolitan dialect fluently from childhood; cherished our culture as sacrosanct; followed our traditions - religious and culinary - with consummate fidelity and do so fervently and proudly to this day; some 110 years+ since the day my Grandpa set foot on Ellis Island in "Nova Yorka". La Storia filled in the blanks - not only undisclosed details of life there and then here; and the fundamental philosophical / religious mindset underpinning their very strict codes of morality and family; but the virtually unknown history of the Italians here [OK - so they were from north of Rome and very questionably "Italian" in our eyes; but...] in America since the Revolution. A riveting read!