When I am Italian / Joanna Clapps Herman.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction: Many missing stones -- What does it mean to be italian? -- Quando sono Italiana: when I am Italian -- Waterbury, Connecticut, my ancestral village -- Up the farm -- What crawls around inside -- Housing memory -- Blue -- What we remember -- Go fish -- Food, food, food and work -- Creature life -- My mother's letter to her sister -- Hard work and good food -- Sunday on the farm -- My only Irish aunt -- Minestra means soup -- Move to America -- Chiesta ca or this one here -- After Eden -- Square feet in the village -- My friend elizabeth -- On not writing my thesis -- Italia, sempre Italia -- Southern italy -- The stones of dialect -- Siamo arrivati -- Intro to that winter evening -- That winter evening -- My Neapolitan wedding -- The opposite of southern italy -- After the manner of women -- The grief estate -- Visiting our dead -- My father's bones -- Voglio bene -- Somewhere my Bill.

"My American ancestral Italian village was in Waterbury, Connecticut." In this sentence, Joanna Clapps Herman raises the central question of this book: To what extent can a person born outside of Italy be considered Italian? The granddaughter of Italian immigrants who arrived in the United States in the early 1900s, Herman takes a complicated and nuanced look at the question of to whom and to which culture she ultimately belongs. Sometimes the Italian part of her identity--her Italianità--feels so aboriginal as to be inchoate, unexpressible. Sometimes it finds its expression in the rhythms of daily life. Sometimes it is embraced and enhanced; at others, it feels attenuated. "If, like me," Herman writes, "you are from one of Italy's overseas colonies, at least some of this Italianità will be in your skin, bones, and heart: other pieces have to be understood, considered, called to ourselves through study, travel, reading. How do we know which pieces are which?"--Provided by publisher

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