Italian Americans Immigrant

Editors Note: Calogero Lombardo’s account of a Sicilian family migrating to Chicago in the 1950s is full of life. Thousands of people who experienced Little Sicily in that era will identify with the performance of family and ethnic identity in the neighborhood and the parish of St. Philip Benizi. Even while becoming “American,” the Lombardo family demonstrated a high degree of cultural retention. The Casa Italia Library is pleased to publish this narrative in our campaign to :”Save Our Stories.” -- Dominic Candeloro Making America is the second book in the five-volume series on ...

In 1895, a 22-year-old Italian seamstress named Maria Barbella was accused of murdering her lover, Domenico Cataldo, after he seduced her and broke his promise to marry her. Following a sensational trial filled with inept lawyers, dishonest reporters and editors, and a crooked judge repaying political favors, the illiterate immigrant became the first woman sentenced to the newly invented electric chair at Sing Sing, where she was also the first female prisoner. Enter Cora Slocomb, who launched the first campaign against the death penalty to save Maria.

Largely autobiographical, Christ in Concrete opens with the dramatic Good Friday collapse of a building under construction, crucifying in concrete an Italian construction worker, whose death leaves his pregnant wife and eight children impoverished. His oldest son, Paul, at just 12 years old, must take over his father’s role—and his job.