ITALIAN AMERICAN FAMILY PHOTOS

Vincenza Scarpaci, author of Portrait of Italians in America (Scribners, 1982) plans
to produce a new and revised book for Pelican Press (proposed publication date November, 2005).

Scarpaci is an immigration historian who specializes in Italian Immigration to the US and has written about many aspects of the Italian experience in the United States.

She has taught courses in immigration history at universities in Baltimore, California and Oregon.

Her goal is to document the story of Italians in America with photo memories of the immigrants themselves. She has found that often photos still in family albums can tell the personal story more expressively than photos in official archives, because the families have documented details about the people and their lives.

Therefore, she welcomes fellow Italians and Italian Americans to share family pictures so that she might consider them for her book. All donors whose photos are selected will receive a credit line in the book. (Photos will be copied and returned to the donor.)

The kinds of pictures that make the best stories are ones showing, over time, daily
family life, different occupations, and Italian communities both in the Italian area of origin at the time of emigration, and also in different locales across the US and Canada. Also photos showing return migration from America to Italy to resettle or retire will help to document that aspect of immigration.

Scarpaci will look also at the persistence of ethnicity among Italian Americans reaching into the 3rd and 4th generations with such activities as visiting Italy to search "roots", joining Italian American organizations, retaining Italian traditions in daily life.

If you wish to participate in this project,
please contact Scarpaci at scarpaci@uoregon.edu
or write to History Dept. University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403.