A century ago in Black Diamond, Wash., the freight trains arrived empty twice a day and twice a day they left, loaded with coal. Railroad assistant Amos Ungherini would go down the line each day in a hand-pumped “speeder” to weigh the cars. Back then, the railroad was more than just a way to get coal to market. It was the lifeblood of the town. Ung...
READ MORESixty-five years ago, on November 12, 1954, a Norwegian merchant seaman named Arne Peterssen became the last immigrant to pass through Ellis Island. Later that month, the ferry Ellis Island made its final stop at the island in New York Harbor and the immigration facility closed for good, ending its run as a gateway to the United States for generat...
READ MOREThe Government of the Lombardy Region has approved €500,000 in support to UNFPA Supplies as part of the Italian region's overall commitment to expanding access to family planning in the least developed countries. Lombardy’s first standalone contribution to fund UNFPA operations follows a Regional Council resolution and represents Italy’s first time...
READ MOREI have always been an admirer of everything Italian. Though, admirer does not sound like strong enough a word. Truth is: I believe my soul is Italian, and, in this life, I have been condemned to living away from my culture. For that reason, to satisfy my soul’s hunger, I have been a student of Italian language and culture, and eventually became a t...
READ MOREEvery time I return from a break in the espresso-stained, red sauce–laden part of New Jersey I call home, I feel uneasy. I just spent a week consuming at least three cloves of garlic a day and beginning all conversations at a 7/10, but as I try to settle back into Baltimore, I wonder if I need to tone it down. Hopkins can feel like something of an...
READ MOREFrom a theater stage in Bologna on Nov. 9, Nadeesha Uyangoda addressed a crowd of a few hundred people who wanted to learn more about the debate on citizenship law reform currently dominating Italian news. “Ethnic minorities in Italy are often used as instruments of political propaganda, both by the right wing, to encourage white nationalism, and t...
READ MOREIn March 1937, when Esquire published Pietro di Donato’s first short story, “Christ in Concrete,” the magazine included a rare prefatory note. “In the three years since Louis Paul’s prize-winning No More Trouble for Jadwick,” wrote Arnold Gingrich, the editor, “Esquire has received about eighteen thousand short stories from unpublished authors and...
READ MOREAs I entered junior high, Papa and Mama, whom I had loved without question, suddenly became an embarrassment. Why couldn’t they be like other parents? Why didn’t they speak without accents? Why couldn’t I take peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in my school lunches, rather than calamari? (Yuck, the other kids said, he eats squid legs!) There se...
READ MORELynn is a deep melting pot of different ethnicities and it takes digging to find a definitive history describing a specific nationality or ethnic or racial group’s origins and history in the city. James Calogero provided a snapshot of Lynn’s Italian American population in1941 in an Item story that claims almost 12,000 residents of Italian descent...
READ MOREAngela Palmera fu, per 40 anni, stimatissima professoressa di matematica. Attivista nei movimenti femminili e membro della “National Education Association” . La “Dante Alighieri Society” la premiò come miglior studente italo-americano dell’anno. Il padre era nato a Petrella Tifernina. Angela Palmera nacque a Jersey City, Contea di Hudson, nel New J...
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