Specials

In responding to Anthony Tamburri's leading article on i-Italy, "An Italian/American State of Mind", Tom Verso asks some interesting questions:

"How many Italian American doctors and lawyers, for example, have read any books written by Italian American writers dealing with our history and culture – fiction, non-fiction or literature?  How many have encouraged their children do write school book reports on Italian American history and culture, and Italian American writers?

How many have attempted to get Italian American subjects and writers included on the reading list of the middle and high schools that their children attend?"

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I/A "State of Mind" - An Enigma?

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The only question that he does not ask, though, is the most interesting one: why should Italian Americans do all the things that he thinks they should do? In the past one hundred years or so we have learned that there are distinctions of class, gender, race, etc.  that make constructions like "the Italian Americans" look like fairy-tales.

Does a poor woman whose last name happens to be somehow Italian have
something in common with Rudy Giuliani? Is it a blood thing?

Those who say they do have something in common should also explain that their goal is a sectionalist attempt to gain some advantages for themselves and the other members of their imagined community (in the same sense in which all national groups are "imagined" ). A legitimate will to power on their part, if you will, but it's unclear why I should also have their state of mind. Personally, I prefer to remain faithful to the universalist, cosmopolitan and internationalist tradition of my Italian ancestors who had more sympathy for justice than they had for their breed.