Books with title Italian Americans

They braved the rough voyage across the ocean to attain the American dream, but the ancestors of America's rich and diverse social landscape first struggled to make a life in their new homeland. Through the immigrants' own words and contemporary photographs and illustrations, these inspiring volumes not only tell the story of each immigrant group, but also provide insight on what it means to be an American today. Although considered the founders of America for their early explorers, the Italians who came to America in the 1800s were treated with disdain. Italian Americans have made major contributions to American culture, from the foods we eat to the politicians we elect.

Here are vivid evocations of New York’s Little Italy and San Francisco’s Italian community around Fisherman’s Wharf, along with the warm family life and neighborhood festivals, the wonderful Italian cuisine, the merchants and tradesmen, the underworld figures, the political leaders, and much more. Brief biographies touch on the lives of physicist Enrico Fermi, politicians Fiorello LaGuardia and Rudolph Giuliani, sportsman Joe DiMaggio, and many others.This important new series documents and dramatizes the immigration experience of untold numbers of men, women, and children who arrived in America from the four corners of the world. As they assimilated into American society, they enriched the nation’s character and experience. Many of America’s immigrants passed through the Ellis Island Immigration Center in New York Harbor during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. What were the initial hopes and fears of these new arrivals? Where did they first settle, and what kinds of work did they find? Which elements from their various cultures have since blended into the national scene and helped reshape what has become modern America? The first titles in this dramatic series bring alive the experiences of four important ethnic groups, with contemporary photos and first-person accounts of their dramatic, life-changing experiences. Readers glimpse each group’s social customs, family life, traditional food and drink, festivals, and much more. There are also brief but vivid capsule biographies of famous individuals who rose to prominence from each ethnic group. Approximately 150 illustrations in each book.

Based on published research, fiction and interviews, this work offers a diverting overview of the popular cultural baggagethat Italian immigrants brought to America. -Publishers WeeklyItalian-Americans compose one of the largest ethnic groups in the United States. Though they have often been portrayed in fiction and film, many of these images are based on stereotypes not borne out among the immigrant and assimilated population. Italian-American Folklore draws its material directly from Americans of Italian descent in both urban and rural communities. The result is a book that, while strongly anchored in scholarship, is readable, entertaining, and illuminating. Chapters on folk speech, superstitions, folk medicine, games, and more tell of customs common to Italian-Americans. But the authors have also taken pains to stress the importance of regional ties, detailing how customs vary among the Italian provinces, and how those differences have traveled to Italian-American communities as well. This collection of Italian folktales will teach readers the importance of caring, resourcefulness and respect.

Learn what makes Americans great, from sea to shining sea, in this patriotic and diverse picture book for New York Times bestselling author Douglas Wood.What makes Americans great? Americans are different from one another in many ways. And despite these differences, Americans share certain ways of doing and being that hold us all together. From the Fourth of July to the Bill of Rights, Douglas Wood and Elizabeth Sayles share the story of what it is to be American.