At the threshold of a new millennium, the mobility of people and their concern for a sense of identity take on increased significance. The collection of pamphlets and letters on the subject of emigration produced by an Italian bishop of exceptional vision and talent, John Baptist Scalabrini, at the end of the nineteenth century, addresses these topics with insightful anticipation and continued relevance for today. For this reason their publication is not only opportune, but it reveals also a little known linkage across the Atlantic at the time of the classical mass migration from Europe and a debate that is quite pertinent to the integration of the newest immigrants to America from lands and cultures more distant and challenging.
