Mujeres Migrantes Italianas

Exhibit Poster, "Mirades de luz" (Argentina)

An exhibit in Argentina highlights the role Italian immigrant women in Buenos Aires played in the development of Argentina’s past and present.

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.

Gli intellettuali rispondono alla crisi in Italia

Brianza Popolare

Antonio Gramsci

Sulla scia di Gramsci: gli intellettuali di oggi e la crisi italiana

A Gramscian Podcast on Women Workers and Migration

photo, Anna Collette

Book cover, "Gramsci, Migration, and the Representation of Women's Work in Italy and the U.S."

Podcasting on Gramsci, immigrant women, labor, and the history of San Diego's cannery workers.

Click to listen

Bread and Roses or “Mimose”?

"Per te mondina" (Cgil magazine)

1949 Strike (braccianti and mondine)

Where has over 100 years of honoring women gotten us?

Peppino Marotto, Poet, Activist, Gramscian

Revolutionary poet and activist shot and killed at 82 years.

Emile de Antonio's documentaries and radical art

The documentary films of Emile de Antonio, another chapter in Italian American radicalism.

On the Anniversary of Gramsci’s Birth, a Few Words about Writing Letters

Antonio Gramsci

In re-reading Antonio Gramsci's letters from prison in memory of his birthday, one can't help but wonder about the current state of cyberwriting.

Blogofascism and the Cybermob

Grand Lake Theater, Oakland, California

Meta-bloggando on the (virtual) use of fascism.

Gramsci, Cinema, Photography and Music

Casa del Cinema, Villa Borghese, Rome

Listening, watching, and thinking about culture as a political tool.

Breastfeeding Breasts!

Tina Modotti

"Baby Nursing" (1926)

In honor of my two young children and World Breastfeeding Month, a few thoughts on the work of women’s breasts.

Love Costs: Filipinos in Italy and the Movie, "Milan"

What better place than Italy for immigrants to find both a job and a lover?

Radical Espresso: Mario Savio and Berkeley’s Free Speech Movement

What happens when a Berkeley café lays claim to an Italian American free thinker?

“Ti abbraccio teneramente,” Christmas from Prison

Antonio Gramsci

A selection of Antonio Gramsci’s Christmas letters from prison.

I’ll Have Some Pancetta with My Mob Reference, Please

Chip Somodevilla/Getty

Leon Panetta

With Leon Panetta’s potential return to Washington, comes a new focus on his Italian connections.

Radical Italian American Christmas Cards

Laura E. Ruberto

Mock-up for a Radical Italian American Christmas Card Set, the "Holiday Modotti"

Thinking about next year’s holiday cards, I turn to the leftist artists, Tina Modotti and Pietro di Donato.

On Guidos, Gramsci, and Irony Deficiency

"Pasquino," by Nicolas Beatrizet (engraving,1550)

Why Italian Americans need to take action, a Pasquinian response to some recent debates.

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.

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

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.

Fabricating Women’s Histories

Italy’s construction and memory of International Women’s Day.

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.

Californians Sell Little Italy, One Crate at a Time

(Label image, P.V.)

Angelina Tokay varietal grape label

Fruit and Vegetable Crate Labels in California and the Italian Americans They Created

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.

Vince Guaraldi--“the sound of Yuletide on these shores”

Charles M. Schulz/Vince Guaraldi

Italian version of Charlie Brown's Christmas Album, 1979

Some Italian-American notes about the man behind the music of Charlie Brown’s Christmas.

The Case of the Missing Fasanella Painting

Ralph Fasanella

"Welcome Home Boys" (1953)

How I uncovered that the City of Oakland, the Oakland Public Library, the Oakland Museum of California, and the Oakland International Airport have misplaced Ralph Fasanella’s painting, "Welcome Home Boys".

Mobsters in Sin City

The Las Vegas Mob Museum doesn’t know what to do with all those Italian American gangsters everyone loves to talk about so much.

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.