An Italian/American State of Mind

How do we create an Italian/American State of Mind? This is one of the most important issues that impacts our community, deserving of greater attention.

We need to take our culture more seriously. We simply cannot continue to engage in a series of reminiscences that lead primarily to nostalgic recall. Instead, we need to revisit our past, reclaim its pros and cons, and reconcile it with our present.

Ultimately, all of this is dependent upon our recapturing our sense of amor proprio, combining it with our abilities — financial, performative, aesthetic, intellectual — in order to engender, document, maintain, and transmit our Italian/American culture; anything short of such activity is tantamount to failure.

Antony J. Tamburri