Fabio Girelli-Carasi’s, Rope and Soap: Lynchings of Italians in the United States (the English translation of Patrizia Salvetti’s work intitled Corda e sapone: storie di linciaggi di Italiani negli Stati Uniti) and the documentary, Linciati: Lynchings of Italians in America in jointly provide an enlightened understanding of the episodes of lynching that victimized newly immigrated Italians between 1879 and 1910, upsetting the notion that this form of victimization was limited to the marginalized African American community and geographically restricted to the agricultural Deep South.

The book and the film reveal that Italian immigrants were the second most targeted group subjected to this hate crime during the Civil War and Reconstruction Era and that lynchings are recorded in regions as far west as Colorado and as far north as Pennsylvania. Remarkably, only the most prominent incidences vaguely resonate in our ethnic