Is there any Euro-American people so systematically denied their European history and heritage as the southern-Italian Americans? Surely, not the American progeny of England, Ireland, France, Germany, Greece, etc. Southern-Italian Americans are not only systematically denied the history of their Patria Meridionale. Nay More! They are systematically Misled about their European history. /// /// For example, the recent Public Television Series “The Italian Americans”: a four-hour (240 minute) documentary with 5 minutes and twenty seconds devoted to what the “vecchi” use to call “the old country.” (see: 8:40 to 14:00 on the first hour tape) /// /// Admittedly, there was no reason to expect more. The stated theme of the documentary was “The Italian Experience in America”. Accordingly, the ‘same-O’ ‘same-O’ stories we have all hear time and again about poverty, prejudices, hard work, family, we're not all gangsters, but a lot of good singers, etc. etc. etc. In short, Mario Cuomo’s renowned “callused hands” speech put to film. /// /// Worst than ignoring our European history; what little such history is presented is a gross misrepresentation of reality. With the exception of Tom Santopietro’s 17 seconds between 11:48 and 12:05 on the first hour tape, who said: “… to southern Italians, Garibaldi was just another invader instead of from another country it was from the north of Italy and the north Italian government did nothing for the southern Italian peasants” /// ///Actually Tom is mistaken here; the northern Italian invaders did much for the southern Italian peasants … All BAD! They inflicted physical and economic pain far greater than any foreign invaders ever did and certainly more than the Bourbon Kings of “The Two Sicilies” ever did (see e.g. Dickie’s “Darkest Italy”; Smith’s “Modern Sicily”; Gilmour’s “Pursuit of Italy”). There was no history of mass emigration from the South until the northern colonization. Garibaldi et al not only did not liberate, but in fact created the conditions of de facto forced migrations. /// /// Nevertheless, PBS viewers were treated to standard Garibaldi mythology. To wit: Garibaldi came as a liberator, he wanted democracy for all Italians, he and his 1,000 men defeated the Bourbon army in Sicily and the Mezzogiorno and unified Italy. /// //// Significantly and curiously, even Donna Gabaccia got in on the act. Unlike the vast majority of Italian American scholars who hail from the language and literature curriculums, and therefore lack historiographic acumen; Ms. Gabaccia is a hardcore, social scientific number cruncher and past president of the Social SCIENCE History Association. It is hard to believe that a social scientific historian would lend herself to the blatant Garibaldi mythology. I can’t help but wonder if she is a victim of film editors taking her out of context. Thomas DiLorenzo an Abraham Lincoln scholar reported that the History Channel once interviewed him for one and a half hours. Then used 20 seconds in a documentary that made him look as though he held positions that absolutely contradicted his own. Did the same happen to Prof. Gabaccia? Did she get ‘Sandbagged”? I hope so! If not the likes of her, who will bring our European reality to us?