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Memories of belonging : descendants of Italian migrants to the United Sates, 1884-present /

Wirth, Christa.

Memories of belonging : descendants of Italian migrants to the United Sates, 1884-present / by Christa Wirth. - 1 online resource (xii, 406 pages) - Studies in global social history ; v. 17 Studies in global migration history ; v. 5 . - Studies in Global Social History 17/5. Social Sciences E-Books Online, Collection 2015, ISBN: 9789004287488. .

Includes bibliographical references (p. 357-403) and index.

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

Available to subscribing member institutions only.

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.

9789004284579

10.1163/9789004284579 DOI

2014038661


Italian Americans--History.--Massachusetts--Worcester
Italian Americans--History--Massachusetts--Worcester--Sources.
Italian Americans--History--Massachusetts--Worcester--Interviews.
Italian Americans--Ethnic identity.
Italian Americans--History.
Emigration and immigration.
Ethnic relations.
Italian Americans.
Italian Americans--Ethnic identity.


United States--Emigration and immigration--History.
Italy--Emigration and immigration--History.
Worcester (Mass.)--Ethnic relations.
Italy.
Massachusetts--Worcester.
United States.


History.
Interviews.
Sources.

E184.I8 / W66 2015

973/.0451