Customer Reviews

Growing Up Italian: How Being Brought Up As an Italian-American Helped Shape the Characters, Lives, and Fortunes of Twenty-Four Celebrated Americans

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I bought this book in hardcover when it first came out. I simply love it. The essays by famous Italian-Americans are concise, yet filled with lovely anecdotes and things all Italian-Americans can relate to. Two of my adult children have recently discovered it and also loved learning a little about their heritage and more about how their mother grew up.

So many of these short biographies were familiar to my growing up as a 2nd generation Italian --and at the same time different. The varied experiences due to time, place and background give lie to the south of Italy stereotypes. Also interesting were the varied perceptions of these people as they grew up as to minority status vs. pride of ancestry. Would like to see update on these people and others. A fine job but would have liked longer pieces with more detail--oh, well, don't we always