Memories of Belonging is a three-generation oral-history study of the offspring of southern Italians who migrated to Worcester; Massachusetts; in 1913. Supplemented with the interviewees' private documents and working from U.S. and Italian archives; Christa Wirth documents a century of transatlantic migration; assimilation; and later-generation self-identification. Her research reveals how memories of migration; everyday life; and ethnicity are passed down through the generations; altered; and contested while constituting family identities. The fact that not all descendants of Italian migrants moved into the U.S. middle class; combined with their continued use of hyphenated identities; points to a history of lived ethnicity and societal exclusion. Moreover; this book demonstrates the extent of forgetting that is required in order to construct an ethnic identity.
#12218795 in Books 1996-02Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 12.25 x 9.00 x 1.25l; .0 #File Name: 9004104356237 pages
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