Customer Reviews

Were You Always an Italian?: Ancestors and Other Icons of Italian America

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What a great book! Were You Always an Italian? made me laugh and think. Laurino uses stories from her life and the lives of others to tell some important truths about what it means to be a third generation American of any ethnicity, especially Italian. She takes on tough issues of class, religion, and even race relations with intelligence and humor. Most of all, she brings a rare combination of warmth and skepticism to topics many of us feel but may find hard to articulate: our families, our religion, our clothes, our appearance. Laurino's book uses the best of memoir, reporting, and essay to tell her story, often with some beautiful writing. This is a clever, yet intensely personal book that people will enjoy whether or not their name ends with a vowel.

As my son is a fourth generational Italian American who has assimilated into the American mainstream with a much greater and unconscious ease than the generations that came before him, he has the luxury of taking a look at the past without getting beleagured by it. I purchased this book to help him understand how what he calls his difference from other Americans of European descent will help him understand himself and better define his dreams and desires. I grew up on Long Island where many of my peers were also Italian American--certainly the melting pot of Irish, Italian, and Polish middle to upper middle class groupings has little to do with the more mainstream America in which my son matured. My first foray into the canyons of Wall Street quickly altered my sheltered definition of American society. Suddenly, ethnicity was not something you declared as easily as your name in an introduction. On the contrary, your surname, ending with that telltale vowel, relegated you to a second ranking of sorts--nothing that was actually said in so many words, but indeed felt. Not my idea of the American Dream.

The title of Maria Laurino's book of essays addresses just this issue. Were you always an Italian? I'd have to say 'yes', but I didn't go out of my way to share my culture with anyone that was not of the fold. I don't think Laurino did either; she speaks knowledgeably of her 'difference', at first speaking of personal differences of food and clothing choices and then citing Harvard sociological studies on the Southern Italian mentality on issues like family, community versus the individual and distrust of outsiders. She corrects the mistake that many Italian Americans make when they visit 'the homeland' for the first time, erroneously thinking that Florence, Milan and Rome are synonymous with Naples, Corsenza and Palermo. Her study of dialect borders on the hilarious---this is strictly an Italian American viewpoint--no other ethnic group is going to get a kick out of hearing the dialect words compared to their Tuscan Italian equivalents and hear the Naples linguist explain their significance. Eventually, Laurino's own quest for an understanding of her own ethnic identity takes her to earthquake-torn Calabria where she embraces cousins she never knew she even had.

Laurino's book for the most part is a personal journey of ethnic discovery and acceptance for the Italian American who breeches the gap between the immigrant and full-fledged American. Her particular issues don't always reflect my own, but there is a thread running through each of the individual chapters that resonates some deep chord within me that I thought I'd forgotten.

Bottom Line: I enjoyed this book immensely. I recommend it with the same reservation I made to my son: use it as a kickboard to your own voyage of discovery, don't expect it to answer your specific ethnic assimilation quandries---you're better off speaking to an older relative and actually writing down what this elder statesman tells you so that your adult mind can see what your child's mind wanted to forget.

I really enjoyed Maria's book. She grew up in the same era
as myself, but she grew up isolated in the 'burbs, while I grew
up in a largely italian area. The difference of her experience
as well as her reactions to it were fascinating. Well written, interesting and informative. A good read, and explains a lot about the "mobster mentality" that is erroneously associated
with Italian americans

I read this book in 4 days, which is unheard of b/c I consider myself a slow reader. In her book, Maria Laurino captures the Italian-esque that I grew up with in my family. Her use of the Italian language, especially the italian dialect words that she had heard from her parents is a great source for the intimate relationship between her family and the " outsiders ". This is a book that I would recommend for anyone who is of Italian descent and would like an insight to a different viewpoint on their heritage. The book reads with a perfect flow and when on the last page, I was disappointed that it was finished. This book gets a spot on the bookshelf!

I read this book and it spoke to me because I too am a child of immigrants that grew up very close to where the author grew up in NJ. It was like she was living my life. Yes, there are many problems that children of immigrants face while trying to navigate between their birth culture and the American way of life. After I was finished, I put the book on the shelf and forgot about it.

Then I went to the town where my mother grew up in Italy. On the drive there, I noticed that this town is the neighbor to the town of the author's family. Having spent time in both towns, I must say that what the author has written about the area is truly insulting. Her characterizations of the area as desolate and sad do a disservice not only to her ancestors, but to mine. The people were kind and warm. Yes, it is not the richest of areas, but why do you think the people left this area to make a better life to begin with? They didn't have a lot of opportunities, but they worked hard to make better lives for themselves. Jsut becasue they needed to leave doesn't mean they didn't love the area to begin with. That is why so many return year after year. I'm not sure what she was expecting, but I'm sorry she was so disappointed. These towns were filled with good people living their everyday lives. I suppose the author feels they should spend their time discussing Italian literature and art in the town square by candlelight.

I am embarassed to think that I once read her words with reverence. I understand that this is a "personal journey," but come on, would it hurt her to be the least bit truthful with the reader?

Maria went through virtually the same experiences I did. Discrimination continued to run rampant in the 1980's, when I was growing up.

I grew up in a German and Irish neighborhood and nearly every time I tried to go outside and play I would be hassled and called names that I didn't understand. I could understand and feel her hurt, pain, and confusion when her Jewish girlfriend called her "that smelly Italian girl."

Maria was not being "whiny." She was simply stating a fact of life. I love it when people tell Italians to get over the discrimination we faced and continue to face yet we are saturated with stories of how much the English discriminated against the Irish during the mass migration in the mid-1800's. EVERY immigrant group's story of discrimination needs to be told so we can avoid the mistakes of the past and indeed "move on."

Maria's point of anything Italian being instantly Americanized was demonstrated with her own book. The original book cover had a lovely portrait of an Italian woman in native costume, but I guess that was too Italian, hence the generic present-day cover.

This is a great addition to any ethnology student's collection.

Anyone who has grown up under the cloud of diversity=perversity will find common ground with Laurino's quest to understand her heritage and create an identity that is not defined by the dominant narrative. She writes with clarity and a generous emotional honesty. Although my parents emigrated from the southern United States to the West, I share many of Laurino's experiences with body smells, strange foods, dialect words, clothes, and the habit of saving new or luxury items for a special occasion. I too attribute this to a family background where smells, clothes and food were evidence of class distinctions. My mother was as concerned as hers with disassociating her family from the lower classes. The one true point of difference, and it's a big difference, is that her family brought her up American, mine tried to instill in us a nostalgia for an imagined past. I enjoyed this book immensely, sympathized with Laruino's questions and her search for meaningful answers. Here is an example of her poetic imagery, p. 174: "One knows that his people had to weave the knowledge of life and death into the rise and fall of each day."

This is a fabulous book, raw and insightful, and I highly recommend it for anyone who felt conspicuously Italian being raised in an Anglo community. Ms. Laurino verbalizes emotions with such accuracy and passion, but never resorts to schmaltz. There is a generational gap between the author and myself, but her topics are timeless for Italian-Americans and her insights are fresh. She breaks the convenient stereotypes in two, and instead delivers a compelling account of a true Italian-American experience, full of ambition, shame, struggle and ultimately self-acceptance, understanding and ethnic pride.

Every ethnic group has found themselves subject to stereotyping as we make our journey from immigrant to American. Second- and third-generation hyphenated Americans feel the brunt of this in complex ways as we try to establish our own identities somewhere between the Old World and the New. "Were You Always an Italian?" tackles this issue head on, with humor and graceful writing. Everyone I know who has read this book comes away with a better understanding of themselves and their families as well as a feeling that they are not alone in dealing with the struggle for ethnic identity. Smart, fun to read, and wise -- I have made sure everyone I know has this book.

I could not put this book down. Its greatest power is Maria Laurino's honesty. She gives both the "Italian" and "American" part of "Italian-Americans" equal weight, and deals with issues ranging from the more general, such as the role of dialects, faith and work in Italy and America, to the more specific, such as how in some cases Italian-Americans cling to traditions from their ancestors that are outdated even in Italy itself. While Laurino spends much time discussing the differences between the north and south of Italy, she doesn't pit one against the other, but rather looks compassionately at both sides. Clearly not all of her personal experiences will resonate with every Italian-American; yet while she does not assume to know all the answers, she does not shy away from the complexities and problems she confronts either. In her passion to explore her own identity, she brings up many important issues not only for Italian-Americans, but for other ethnicities in America as well. There are so many thought-provoking things about this book--the type of narrative that when you read the last word you remain in a sort of daze and can't stop thinking about it. It is difficult to review because I fear I will not do it justice. I cannot recommend it enough.