Now that’s Italian! A local retired social studies professor who’s always had a deep passion for history, decided to combine that with her love for family to tell the story of her Italian heritage, as well as that of other descendants who arrived during the “wave of Italian immigration” into the United States from the late 19th to early 20th centuries.

Karen Foresti Hempson shares her stories in, “Bean Pickers, American Immigrant Portraits,” integrating memoirs into her teachings of American History to provide “empathy and more depth of understanding,” she said. Focusing on first and second-generation Italian American immigrants in upstate New York, Hempson recreated their journeys from hamlets in Italy to the hard times of the Great Depression and World War II.