Thursday,
June 07, 2007
Dennis Farina Reflects on "And They
Came to
The
ANNOTICO Report
Salute
to Italian Heritage
Dennis
Farina and others reflect on their
By
George Haas, Pop culture writer
June
5, 2007
Dennis Farina is
sitting on a stool in a darkened room, a few lights, a camera and every eye in
a studio of WTTW-TV (Channel 11) trained on his every move.
Some actors might
cringe at this assignment -- being himself -- but the Chicago native is one of
those guys, or "fellas" as he might say,
who is relaxed and comfortable in his own (deeply tanned) skin.
He knows who he
is and how he got there, and he
"I enjoy the
way I was brought up, who I was brought up with. I thought my family was the
coolest on Earth," he says. "Still do."
He is not alone.
Farina and a host
of
"And They
Came to
The documentary
makes great use of use archival footage, vintage photographs and recent
interviews and footage to craft a moving history of the Italian-American
experience in
Like so many cultures
that have taken root here, the Italians
Also like many
immigrant groups, the Italians assimilation in
They rode a wave
of pride during the Columbian Exposition in 1893 (Columbus, after all, was a
son of Italy), they suffered through prohibition and the Capone years and they
had their loyalty questioned during World War II, thanks to Italian dictator
Benito Mussolini
Listen to the
sons and daughters of those Italian immigrants, however, and the picture you
take away is an overriding sense of community.
"Life was
beautiful on 24th and Oakley," Violet Valiani
Chisholm says in the film.
Indeed, the
interview subjects talk at length about the neighborhoods around
Farina talks
about growing up on the city
"I loved the
aromas of the city," he says. "After school, you could smell the
cooking up and down the street.
"There were
a lot of characters in my neighborhood. Most of
His father was
the neighborhood doctor, an Italian immigrant who put himself through medical
school. His mom was an immigrant, too, passing through
"I have the
manifest to prove it," he says.
Like many of
those who came of age in the years following World War II, Farina enjoyed the
fruits of his parents
"My parents
were very supportive of anything I wanted to do," Farina says. "They
saw it as the opportunity that it was and thought I should take advantage of
it. That was always very big in my family. Plus, there have been some great
Italian actors, so that profession enjoys a certain stature, too."
Farina
He remains tied
to the
Asked which he
gravitates to most, Italian actors or
He believes more
than anything that Chicagoans are grounded in their approach, regardless of the
work.
"I don
"It
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