Umbertina: A Novel

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Summary: Establishing an Authentic Self:Three Italian-American Women
Review: Helen Barolini (nee Mollica) has established a deservedly solid reputation as a writer who has focused on the lives of women connected to the Italy-to-The-USA avventura. The book, Umbertina centers around the life courses of three women: Umbertina, Marguerite (her granddaughter), and Tina (Marguerite's eldest child, named for her great grandmother, Umbertina). Barolini's description of the life of Umbertina chronicles a classic contadina-to-capitalist tale. Umbertina started her life in Castagna - a typical mountain town in the "instep" of the Italian boot. Barolini aptly describes the misery of life in that town during the years of the mass emigration. She paints a convincing word picture of the serf-like existence of the landless peasants. whose conditions had changed little following the unification of the peninsula under a constitutional monarchy. A series of events leads to Umbertina's marriage to Serafino Longobardi. Barolini credibly recounts the story of their journey from small landholders struggling to pay off their land in the village of Castagna to their occupation of a grand mansion, maintained by the income from a hugely successful produce and importing business established in Cato (pseudonym for Utica), New York. For those who have not read similar stories, Barolini's account can serve as a valid prototype for accounts of the ways in which thousands of participants in the Italy-to-The-USA avventura established their families' affluence. Such stories represent the foundation of the oft-repeated claim, "They came with nothing, there were illiterate, they didn't even speak English, they worked incessantly, and they made it without help from outside sources." Barolini's account of Umbertina's story should easily serve as the myth that suitably chronicles the role of women in the avventura. I have had no hesitation about recommending that part of Barolini's book to my daughters. Umbertina and women like my grandmother, Angelina, deserve to be commemorated. Anyone who has known a grandmother comparable to these two women must extend gratitude to Barolini for her having so ably written that commemoration. After having presented the tale of Umbertina, Barolini spins out the narratives of Marguerite (Umbertina's granddaughter) and Tina (Marguerite's daughter), whose connections to the Italy-to-The-USA avventura played a crucial part in their efforts to develop an authentic self-identity These narratives can be read as tales that dramatically highlight the problems of persons who struggle to gain a self identity that would be authorized by surrounding significant persons. Marguerite needed to develop a self-identity that she could use as she encountered the cross-currents of evaluations conducted by her family, by the nuns at the high school which she attended, by the old line families in the town in which she grew up, by her college classmates, by those of her relatives who had retained their "Italianness," by the elitist Italians who surrounded her and Alberto (the noted literary figure she had married during a trip to Italy), and on and on. Tina needed to develop a self identity that would be authorized by her parents, her Italian-American relatives, her peers in the various academic institutions that she attended, and so on. Their positions as female scions of Italy-to-The-USA immigrants certainly increased the intensity of their efforts at self authorization. And, Barolini effectively portrays that intensity. The problems I had as I tried to impose a unifying perspective on to Barolini's text arose, I believe, from my inability to decide whether her description of the struggles of these two women should or should not be treated as irony. Should a reader regard the descriptions as ironic, or should one simply treat them as straightforward narrative? If a reader would treat the text as a text replete with ironies, then the narratives would best be perceived as a cautionary tale. I would want the narratives to be treated as a cautionary tale - a tale whose teller had infused the story with one after another irony. As I read the text, I construed the author as describing Marguerite and Tina engaging in one after another confusion-based activity (especially sexual activity) that would have the aim of gaining external authorization of enactments of their self identity. The conclusions to which Barolini brings the episodes, however, demonstrate that those repeated efforts consistently led to disastrous outcomes. How will readers respond to the book's ending, following a pattern set in many true romance novels - Tina becomes the promised bride of a member of a 2000 percent, old Cape Cod family. Will readers of Barolini's book detect the ironies embedded in the text, then close the volume and cogitate on the commitment; the sacrifice; the struggle; the distress of adapting a primary, culturally-transmitted self identity to meet the demands of unwelcoming power-holders; and the familial love that carried her forebears and her through Castagna, New York's Little Italy, Utica, Gloversville, Rome (Italy), and Cape Cod. Will readers cogitate on the ways that her forebears provided Tina with the opportunities to build a foundation from which she could be positioned to take the opportunities connected to admittance to a social circle within which her self identity would rarely fail to gain authorization - opportunities provided to millions of Italy-to-The-USA immigrants by the commitment and fortitude of their forebears?

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Summary: Umbertina exposes the heart of Italian American women
Review: I found the book to be an accurate and stirring portrayal of what it is like to be an Italian -American woman. In the second generation I still recognize the attitudes, feelings and traditions of my ancestors in this book as well as the struggle to affirm our talents as women. I highly recommend it.