Are Italians White?: How Race is Made in America

Rating:
Summary: Inspiring!
Review: A friend gave me this book a few days ago and I haven't been able to put it down. Each essay is short, to the point, and easy to read. The best thing about it is that it's filled with lessons about the powerful role each of us can play as individuals in confronting racism within ourselves, our families and our neighborhoods. There are essays on everything from hip hop, labor struggles, and neighborhood tensions, to police brutality, white flight, and inter-racial families. This book is revolutionary and I recommend it to all who are committed to ending racism and building a truly democratic society.

Rating:
Summary: Inspiring!
Review: A friend gave me this book a few days ago and I haven't been able to put it down. Each essay is short, to the point, and easy to read. The best thing about it is that it's filled with lessons about the powerful role each of us can play as individuals in confronting racism within ourselves, our families and our neighborhoods. There are essays on everything from hip hop, labor struggles, and neighborhood tensions, to police brutality, white flight, and inter-racial families. This book is revolutionary and I recommend it to all who are committed to ending racism and building a truly democratic society.

Rating:
Summary: How is race defined and categorized in this country?
Review: How is race defined and categorized in this country? Various contributors here focus on the Italian American experience as a showcase for discussing racism, stereotyping, and differences between ethnic groups in America. The focus on Italian American experiences will reach a wide audience, from college-level students in classes on social issues to Italian Americans interested in their history.

Rating:
Summary: Great book!
Review: You can't tell a book by its cover. When I first saw this book with the picture of an immigrant family and the Red-White and Green covert art, I assumed this was another type of book then it turned out to be. Instead, I found incredible collection of essays that explores how Italian immigrants and their descendants dealt with an American racist society. The articles range from the historical to the contemporary, and cover early immigration, the World War II era, white flight, Italian violence, even Italian radicals, music and poetry!

We all know that Italians were never considered fully white in America but this book talks about how Italians dealt with America's views of race. I learned a lot from this book like how Italians were not only discriminated in America because they were olive skinned foreigners from southern Italy but were also discriminated in Italy before they left by northern Italians. But even despite the prejudice in America, the federal government always considered Italians "white", and that's what counted. So Italians were able to benefit in ways that blacks, Hispanics, and Asians couldn't like in housing, jobs, the right to vote, marry who you want, own property, and become a citizen. It made a big difference. This book helped me to understand my Italian heritage and my family's history and also how we did get help from government even though my uncles always complain about welfare cheats. They should read this book!

The book has articles about Italian Americans anarchist and socialists who fought for a better society. And there was a great article about Philadelphia's mayor Rizzo - that guy was brutal. What a horror. I would have hated to be black in Philly when he was mayor.

There's a lot of other good stuff. I was amazed by the whole section of the book about black Italian Americans. That really opened my eyes.

I'm assuming that this book is going to start a lot of conversation among Italian Americans and that's a good thing!

Rating:
Summary: Great book!
Review: You can't tell a book by its cover. When I first saw this book with the picture of an immigrant family and the Red-White and Green covert art, I assumed this was another type of book then it turned out to be. Instead, I found incredible collection of essays that explores how Italian immigrants and their descendants dealt with an American racist society. The articles range from the historical to the contemporary, and cover early immigration, the World War II era, white flight, Italian violence, even Italian radicals, music and poetry!

We all know that Italians were never considered fully white in America but this book talks about how Italians dealt with America's views of race. I learned a lot from this book like how Italians were not only discriminated in America because they were olive skinned foreigners from southern Italy but were also discriminated in Italy before they left by northern Italians. But even despite the prejudice in America, the federal government always considered Italians "white", and that's what counted. So Italians were able to benefit in ways that blacks, Hispanics, and Asians couldn't like in housing, jobs, the right to vote, marry who you want, own property, and become a citizen. It made a big difference. This book helped me to understand my Italian heritage and my family's history and also how we did get help from government even though my uncles always complain about welfare cheats. They should read this book!

The book has articles about Italian Americans anarchist and socialists who fought for a better society. And there was a great article about Philadelphia's mayor Rizzo - that guy was brutal. What a horror. I would have hated to be black in Philly when he was mayor.

There's a lot of other good stuff. I was amazed by the whole section of the book about black Italian Americans. That really opened my eyes.

I'm assuming that this book is going to start a lot of conversation among Italian Americans and that's a good thing!