Il Bollettino INSTITUTE Dedicated to the History and Culture of Italians in America
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CALANDRA ITALIAN AMERICAN il Bollettino INSTITUTE dedicated to the history and culture of Italians in America VOLUME 2 • ISSUE 2 • SUMMER 2009 TABLE OF CONTENTS 2 Dean’s Letter Personaggi: Angela Bambace 3 Conference: The Land of Our Return 4 Italics Staff News From the Archives 5 Si, Parliamo Italiano! Faculty Fellows 6-7 Conference: Neapolitan Postcards 8 CUNY/Italy Exchange Program Hunter College Student Interview 9 Ad Memoriam 10 Book Reviews 11 IAFSAC Publications back Calendar of Events The John D. Calandra Italian American Institute is a University Institute under the Aegis of Queens College/The City University of New York LETTER FROM THE DEAN Welcome to il Bollettino and news of College and Dr. Francesca Canadè Sautman increase in enrollment over the years and the exciting work the Calandra Institute has of Hunter College spent the spring semester the paradoxical suspension of the Advanced undertaken in recent months. working on their respective projects. This fall Placement Program in Italian. This spring we hosted two conferences, each professor will deliver a lecture reporting The latest “Affirmative Action Trends” each attended by an international lineup of on their research findings. report, prepared by Milione, Gambino, Itala scholars from Australia, Europe, Israel, and In June, the first nine interviews were Pelizzoli, and Carmine Pizzirusso, sheds North America. In March, the conference conducted for the Oral History Archive light on the position of Italian Americans “Neapolitan Postcards: The Canzone of Italian-American Legislators, beginning as a “protected class” within CUNY. The Napoletana as Transnational Subject” with state senators and assemblypersons. report indicates that nine of twenty CUNY presented a first in-depth look at this The project is coordinated by our visiting colleges have a lower percentage of Italian musical-cultural phenomenon. In April, this scholar, Dr. Ottorino Cappelli, Professor of Americans among total instructional staff year’s annual conference was dedicated to the Political Science at the Istituto Orientale of than 1978 tallies. One entity that safeguards theme of return: “The Land of Our Return: the Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico accountability for Italian Americans within Diasporic Encounters with Italy.” II, who will present a lecture this fall on his CUNY is the Italian American Faculty These conferences complemented the work in developing the archive. and Staff Advisory Council, which has ongoing public programs that comprise Significant progress has been made reconstituted itself during the past five years. “Documented Italians,” “Philip V. in our vast library holdings. The original Much still needs to be done, and our Cannistraro Seminar Series,” and “Writers library, the Saraceno and Cannistraro staff continues to step up to the plate, Read.” In addition, we sponsored the collections, and the recently inherited steadily contributing to the institute’s overall premier U.S. screening of Ugo De Vita’s Cammet library, totaling more than 20,000 success. Please do not hesitate to call on us if film,Mussolini, l’ultima notte. We also hosted volumes, are now on shelves and in the we can be of assistance. And be sure to join a symposium, “Memoirs and Memories,” process of being cataloged. our electronic and postal mailing lists. dedicated to the Italian-Jewish presence in The institute is fortunate to welcome Dulcis in fundo: The generosity of the United States; this was part of a larger two new staff members: Rosangela Briscese colleagues, attendees, friends, and others in program commemorating the “Giorno as Coordinator for Academic and Cultural the Italian-American community, enables della Memoria” that included symposia and Programs, and Gabrielle Pati as Office us to accomplish our work. As always, we lectures hosted by Centro Primo Levi, the Assistant organizing the libray collections. are indebted to the invaluable support of Consulate General of Italy, Italian Cultural Dr. Vincenzo Milione and Christine Chancellor Matthew Goldstein’s Office Institute, New York University’s Casa Gambino authored Sì, Parliamo Italiano!, of CUNY and President James Muysken’s Italiana, and Columbia University’s Italian the first volume of a new publication Office of Queens College. Academy for Advanced Studies in America. series of the Calandra Institute entitled We hope to see you at one of our We are pleased to announce that the “Transactions.” The data presented are upcoming programs. Calandra Faculty Fellows Program was germane to the status of Italian language revived this year. Dr. Donna Chirco of York courses in the United States, given the — Anthony Julian Tamburri PERSONAGGI il Bollettino is published by the Angela Bambace (1898-1975) John D. Calandra Italian American Institute Angela Bambace was a lifelong activist within labor, civil rights, and women’s QUEENS COLLEGE/CUNY 25 West 43rd Street, 17th floor movements in the United States. Born in Santos, Brazil in 1898, to Sicilian and New York, NY 10036 Calabrese immigrants, she migrated to New York City with her family in 1904 and PHONE: 212-642-2094 FAX: 212-642-2030 settled in East Harlem. Like most Italian immigrant women in the city, she and EMAIL: [email protected] her sister Marie entered the garment industry as teenagers, working alongside their WEBSITE: qc.cuny.edu/calandra mother Giuseppina. There they became politicized by workers’ everyday struggles and began attending union meetings and the gatherings of anarchist and socialist DEAN: Anthony Julian Tamburri groups in their neighborhood. They did so with their mother’s blessing, and she MANAGING EDITOR: Lisa Cicchetti often accompanied them to meetings and the picket line with a rolling pin tucked under her arm, just in EDITOR: Maria LaRusso case they encountered trouble. Reflecting on her life, Angela would later note, “It was difficult to separate CONTRIBUTORS: Rosangela Briscese, the organization of workers from the attempt to reorganize society. The two went hand in hand.” Donna Chirico, Christine Gambino, Fred Gardaphé, Lucia Grillo, Jennifer Guglielmo, Angela gained the attention of the city’s labor leaders in 1919 for her bravery during the massive Joanna Clapps Herman, Anthony Tamburri garment strike that year, and was hired as an organizer for the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union. In the 1920s, she also gave birth to two sons, divorced her first husband, and fell in love with Luigi Quintiliano, an COVER PHOTOGRAPH: Landscape, Siena, Italy immigrant tailor and anarchist from Abruzzo, active in the defense of political prisoners and the antifascist ©Peter King Vaccino. www.pvaccino.com movement. They would be companions for the rest of her life. During the Great Depression, Angela accepted an organizing position with the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union (ILGWU) in Contact the Calandra Institute to be Baltimore. In the span of a decade, she brought more than 15,000 workers (mostly women) into the union, included on the newsletter mailing list. Provide your email address to receive and became more deeply committed to fighting racism and building the civil rights movement. In 1956, she the newsletter via email or your mailing was the first Italian-American woman elected to the General Executive Board of the ILGWU, a post she held address to receive a printed copy. until she retired in 1972. 2 IL BOLLETTINO • SUMMER 2009 • JOHN D. CALANDRA ITALIAN AMERICAN INSTITUTE • 25 WEST 43RD STREET, NEW YORK, NY 10036 • 212-642-2094 • [email protected] • HTTP://QCPAGES.QC.CUNY.EDU/CALANDRA/ ANNUAL CONFERENCE Italy have difficulty obtaining legal status. struggles and feelings of alienation. “I feel THE LAND OF OUR RETURN Excerpts from the documentary films excluded here,” one return migrant from Italian emigration was the largest Merica (2007) and Orizzonti e Frontiere the United States reported. The woman’s movement of free labor in world history, (2007) demonstrated the experiences of perception was that immigrants are treated with more than twenty-six million people immigrants and Italian nationals who have with greater respect in the United States; emigrating from the 1870s to the 1970s. moved to Italy from South America. In the for this and other reasons, she said she Close to half of the emigrants traveling to film Merica, an Italian citizen from Brazil felt more proud being American than the Americas returned to Italy between 1905 remarks that many Italians look down on being Italian. Ailhlin Clark examined the and 1920, and after World War II Italian him as they look down on immigrants. influence of return visits to Italy on religious Americans increasingly traveled to Italy as Friday’s closing panel addressed absence celebrations. Several cities have moved their tourists. The “return encounter” with Italy, and the emotions of separation across feast day celebrations to August, when there both actual and imagined, was the theme time and space. Loretta Baldassar explored are greater numbers of migrant visitors. of the Calandra Institute’s second annual long-distance caregiving between Italy and Clark also explained that feasts have become conference, “The Land of Our Return: Australia, noting the role of familial guilt more lavish in response to these visitors, as if Diasporic Encounters with Italy.” as a social emotion. She quoted interviews to demonstrate an improving economy. The conference was held April 23-25, with Italian grandmothers that reveal Italian The papers mentioned here form only 2009, with simultaneous presentations in notions of health as a “metaphysical state”— a sample of the excellent work presented the Institute’s conference room and galleria. the grandmothers gauged their own health throughout the conference. Author More than fifty scholars, authors, and by their closeness to their families. Sonia Michael Mirolla, who presented his story artists from throughout the United States Cancian provided an analysis of love letters “Of Death and the Immigrant” on Friday, and from Australia, Canada, Greece, Israel, between Italian men and women separated described “The Land of Our Return” as “all- Italy, and the United Kingdom gathered to by immigration to Canada, describing how encompassing and stimulating .