Italian immigration from 1945 to the present is an American phenomenon too little explored in our historical studies. Until now. In this new collection, Laura E. Ruberto and Joseph Sciorra edit essays by an elite roster of scholars in Italian American studies. These interdisciplinary works focus on leading edge topics that range from politics of the McCarren-Walter Act and its effects on women to the ways Italian Americans mobilized against immigration restrictions. Other essays unwrap the inner workings of multi-ethnic power brokers in a Queens community, portray the complex transformation of identity in Boston’s North End, and trace the development of Italian American youth culture and how new arrivals fit into it. Finally, Donna Gabaccia pens an afterword on the importance of this seventy-year period in U.S. migration history.
Contributors: Ottorino Cappelli, Donna Gabaccia, Stefano Luconi, Maddalena Marinari, James S. Pasto, Rodrigo Praino, Laura E. Ruberto, Joseph Sciorra, Donald Tricarico, and Elizabeth Zanoni.