Recalling guidos, gavones and gedrools, Laurino presents a concise but stimulating look at Italian-American culture as a model for the immigrant experience as a whole. The author, a third-generation Italian-American, grew up in 1950s New Jersey as a minority whose ethnicity was long stifled. Not until then-Governor Mario Cuomo asked her, "Were you always an Italian?" did she consider the implications of her roots and identity. This entertaining memoir chronicles Laurino's experiences from childhood to marriage, eventually getting to the heart of what it means to be Italian in America. She creatively approaches various cultural facets, from clothing to politics to religion, with candor and personality, using specific examples to illustrate general cultural themes. Her take on Italian fashion is amusing; she claims that the contrasting styles of Versace and Armani are symbols of the dichotomy faced by many immigrants and their families: cutting-edge boldness vs. European class. The historically tumultuous situation in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, serves as an example of the friction between Italians and other cultural groups in this country, and Laurino suggests that the Italian-American experience, rife with stereotypes and struggles, is not unlike that of African-, Korean- and Ecuadorian-Americans. She covers the hallmarks of Italian culture, including dialect, family and faith. In examining each component, Laurino openly expresses the mixed feelings of pride and embarrassment she felt as a child, which eventually developed into understanding and veneration. This book will serve as a welcome reminder that there is more to Italian culture than The Sopranos. (July)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Laurino, a New York writer who grew up in suburban New Jersey and was once a speechwriter for NYC mayor David Dinkins, explores the disconnect that many Italian Americans, rooted in the rocky soil of Southern Italy, feel between images from Bensonhurst and Mafia movies, on one hand, and Northern Italian style and verve on the other. Her essays ask questions that follow like beads on a rosary: Do we smell bad? Is our food weird? Why is it so hard to accept leisure in our lives? Her deconstruction of Italian dialect--captured snatches of parents' and grandparents' unwritten past in words like gavone and stunodis mesmerizing, both as a journalist's examination of words and their uses and as a woman's study of what makes her herself. And her witty analysis of the difference between Versace and Armani from an Italian American standpoint is itself worth the price of admission. Essential for Italian Americans, enlightening for anyone else. GraceAnne A. DeCandido
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
From Kirkus Reviews
Three generations in America doesn't necessarily take the sting out of being an immigrant, as described in this appealing and sometimes thought-provoking memoir that moves from suburban New Jersey to Italy's southern provinces. The title question was posed by former New York governor Mario Cuomo as journalist Laurino was interviewing him on his own roots. Laurino's honest answer was no, as she recalls her adolescent efforts to distance herself from her Italian heritage. They began in earnest when a classmate characterized her as the smelly Italian girl: assured by friends that she did not have an odor, Laurino nevertheless began to understand that, despite her wardrobe from Saks, her darker skin and the vowels at the end of her name put her on a lower rung of the social ladder than the WASPs or JAPs who were the popular cliques at her high school. Broadening her perspective, Laurino examines the stereotyping of Italian-Americans via Mafia movies and a visit to the Brooklyn neighborhood of Bensonhurst (where gold-chained guidos and big-haired guidettes mark one very visible end of Italian-American rankings). Laurino blends personal experience and academic research in examining class bigotries not only in America, but also in Rome and Milan (where she found the northern Italian contempt for southern Italians as powerful as the prejudice against African-Americans in the US). When she and her husband finally visit what is left of the family in southern Italy (on the ankle of the boot), she finds them poor, hardworking, and closely knit, as they were when her grandparents sailed for America. Their habits and concerns resemble those of Laurino's mother (in her work rituals, for example, or in her inclination to hoard any luxury), leading the author to speculate that her own tendency to hoard may have been born in the fields of abject poverty. Other hyphenated Americans who have experienced discrimination and confusion about their heritage will find this often funny and graceful book simpatico. -- Copyright © 2000 Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Review
"...writes with intelligence, authority, and passion on a subject...all too often mispresented -- namely...to be an Italian-American." -- Sandra Gilbert
"In the best essayistic tradition, this is a delightfully companionable book...has made a fine contribution to the literature..." -- Phillip Lopate
"Laurino takes us on a journey of exploration of the Italian American experience with intelligence and love." -- Helen Barolini
"Maria Laurino is a lovely writer, full of wit and grace...funny, and brilliant...will delight, inform, and amuse..." -- Jay Parini
"This absorbing book explores the emotional markers of an Italian-American heritage ...navigates between these forces with humor and wisdom." -- Frances Mayes
Finally, someone has had the intelligence and the honesty to go beyond the stereotypes, not only the usual negative ones--Godfather, angry guido--and the too-easily-accepted sickly sweet "positive" stereotypes--earthiness, loyalty, the Renaissance, wonderfulness of family.. Ms. Laurino's book is so completely original and informative. It turns out nobody's blameless. -- David Chase, creator/executive producer, The Sopranos
This absorbing book explores the emotional markers of an Italian-American heritage. One of the powers of Italy is the magnetic pull toward home felt by anyone with a drop of Italian blood. Equally strong can be the desire to escape 'the black-cloaked peasant' past. Maria Laurino navigates between these forces with humor and wisdom. -- Frances Mayes, author of Under the Tuscan Sun
About the Author
Maria Laurino is a journalist and essayist living in New York City. Her work has appeared in numerous publications including the New York Times and the Village Voice.
