Clemenza and Tessio are like Britain and France

Al Pacino as Michael Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola's "The Godfather"

The Pax Corleone, or what happens when two political analysts offer a close reading of "The Godfather" in an effort to explain contemporary US politics.

The European Union’s Immigration Policy and Italian Immigrants in Latin America

Immigration Authorization Stamp, Argentina

Invoking Italy’s history of emigration, activists and politicians in Latin America condemn the European Union’s latest anti-immigration stand.

Italian Metal Gets Religion

An Italian monk hears Metallica and turns the mystical and divine into heavy metal.

Uncredited Extras: Cinecittà’s Refugees and the Italian American Who Filmed Them

Refugees at Cinecitta', Rome, 1944

Jack Salvatori, an almost-forgotten Italian American director, made a film about Cinecittà’s role as a camp for WWII refugees.

Excavating New Futures: The Cairano 7x Experience

Cairano 7x Poster

Cairano 7x

An ambitious week-long event in a small village in the province of Avellino crossed many boundaries and suggested many new possibilities.

La Ruota della Fortuna, Niki de Sainte Phalle's take on an Italian Garden

Laura E. Ruberto

Il Giardino dei Tarocchi

Looking at the undercurrents of Italian migrant identity in Niki de Sainte Phalle’s Giardino dei Tarocchi.

Photographs of Jack Salvatori, the British Valentino

photo courtesy of Ray Holland

Jack Salvatori, possibly in the United States

On having received an envelope mailed to Berkeley, California from Cornwall, England with photographs of the Italo-British filmmaker and actor, Giovanni “Jack” Salvatori.

Among Roman Ruins, the Italian Communist Party’s School

Laura E. Ruberto

La Scuola di Frattocchie, The Italian Communist Party's Political School, outside of Rome

The Über-Country: Italy at 150 Years

"The Contribution of a Great Race" 1924

cover of the THE CONTRIBUTION OF A GREAT RACE, published in San Francisco, 1924, by “The Italians of California to their American Brothers"

Some thoughts on Italy’s mythical status, migrating identities, and the creation of an online salon to talk about it all.

Remembering Maria Margotti (1915-1949)

"Per te mondina" (Cgil-funded pamphlet)

Eulogy for Maria Margotti, fallen mondina, May 17, 1949

A rice worker, a partisan, a woman, a mother, Maria Margotti was killed sixty years ago by carabinieri during a strike on May 17, 1949.

The Invisible Victims of the Abruzzo Earthquake

Samuele Pellecchia/Prospekt, for The New York Times

L'Aquila, The Dome of Santa Maria del Suffragio, destroyed by the April 6 earthquake

An unknown number of documented and undocumented immigrants in Abruzzo have died or lost their homes because of the recent earthquake.

Remembering the Irpinia Earthquake Thirty Years Later

Laura E. Ruberto

Cairano (AV), buildings damaged in the 1980 Irpinia Earthquake and never repaired (photo taken June, 2010)

Marking the material culture of one of Southern Italy’s worst natural disasters, the Irpinia Earthquake of November 23, 1980.

The Watts Towers in Southern Italy: Connecting California with Irpinia

Laura E. Ruberto

hands of Angelo Filarmonio, holding a photo of himself, Amoroso Raimondo and Cirino Filippo at the Watts Towers, 1984

Looking for the future of Sabato Rodia’s Watts Towers in the small town of Serino, in the province of Avellino.

New Italian Migrations to the United States

Book cover with a photograph of the Valentini family boarding an airplane in Italy for New York City, March 25, 1963.

Reimagining the last seventy years of Italian migration.