r/italianamerican

A couple of years ago my sister came back from visiting our family’s village in Calabria — Cirella — and told me something I haven’t been able to shake since.

“You have lost your Italian soul.”

She wasn’t being mean. She was telling the truth.

I grew up in Spokane, Washington with parents who came to America in the 1950s aboard the Cristoforo Colombo. My father grew grapes in the backyard, made wine in the basement, and insisted on pasta every Sunday. We spoke Italian at home and listened to nothing but Italian music.

Then I left for college, built a career, got married, had kids — and quietly let all of it slip away.

My sister visited Cirella and came back with photos of relatives I had never met. She told me I needed to go get it back. So I wrote a novel about it instead. It’s called Stupido Turista and it just hit #1 New Release on Amazon.

Anyone else in this community feel that tension — being called “so Italian” on the outside while knowing something is missing on the inside?

STUPIDO TURISTA: He went to Italy to find his roots. He found the life he left behind. https://a.co/d/0d23OmXB

Preface: I am in SoCal. I've had a passive interest in Italian culture, like many people do. And about a couple of months ago, I was talking to one of my friends about the fact that we have many Italian restaurants around SoCal - yet we don't have too many Italian American communities. To which we rationalized that it must be stronger in New York City considering that New York is the closest to Europe.

Which then led to another question about why is it that Italian restaurants are usually "on par" with other ethnic minority genre restaurants like Greek, Mexican, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Vietnamese, Indian, Thai, and Filipino... and why on Earth there aren't many French restaurants, German restaurants, or Polish restaurants. (Although we do get Hamburgers from the Germans).

So I'm wondering why on Earth is it that the Italian Americans have the most visible cuisine culture, and the other major European countries don't.

Don't know if this is the best place to ask but thought I'd ask regardless.

I’m Italian and I have many friends abroad. When they come here I always suggest them what to do, where to go, what not do etc. so I’m asking myself, but if you don’t know nobody in Italy, how can you organise a real Italian trip that is not only in the main touristic cities? Is it a problem that somebody suffer? I’m really curious about the answer

I'm Olga, a teacher of Italian, based in Italy with over nine years in the classroom.

I wrote a book for italian language learners. It's a series of ten Italian short stories — one per city, from Turin to Agrigento — written for learners at A2 to B1 level.

The main character is Danny Russo. 32 years old. Brooklyn. Speaks a little Italian. When his grandfather Salvatore died, he left Danny three things:

— An old photograph

— A Sicilian flat cap that had belonged to his own father

— A notebook. Forty pages of recipes written in dialect.

Nobody in the family could read a word of it. Two years later, Danny books a one-way ticket to Turin and starts going south.

The book is called Nonno's Italy.

Every conversation teaches real Italian. Not textbook Italian. Italy Italian. ——— In every chapter:

✦ A short story in real Italian (A2–B1)

✦ Vocabulary in context — not in a list at the back

✦ Cultural notes: bella figura, campanilismo, the Italian sense of time

✦ Italian gestures

✦ Exercises and a regional proverb

Written by a teacher of Italian who lives and works in Italy, with over 8,000 hours of teaching the language to people just like Danny. Happy to answer any questions — about the book, and about learning Italian.

Ciao everyone!!

I’m an Italian student in American Studies, and I posted here some months ago asking whether anyone might be willing to share family keepsakes/memories for my MA thesis project:
https://www.reddit.com/r/italianamerican/comments/1p8dexw/comment/oha2ypd/

Life happened and I had to put the project on hold for a while :( but now I’m finally working on it again, and the topic has evolved a bit.

I’m currently developing a thesis on Italian American identity in New York between the late 19th century and the present, with a particular focus on how ethnic identity has been expressed through:

• urban space and neighborhood life
• religious rituals and processions
• food culture
• storefronts/signs and everyday visual culture
• ethnic newspapers
• and, later on, media/digital spaces (which would of course cover the digital era and are easier to find)

I’m approaching the topic historically, but also through anthropology and cultural/media studies

At the moment I’m searching for primary sources related to Italian American communities in NYC, especially things like:

• family archives
• photographs
• oral histories
• old newspapers
• parish documents
• feast/procession photos
• menus or store signs
• neighborhood maps
• letters/diaries

I would especially appreciate anything authentic and personal, even small memories or objects connected to family/community life. Of course, I would properly credit anything used in the research.

Thank you so much in advance, and thank you again to everyone who helped me the first time I posted here :)