Fra Noi Embrace Your Inner Italian
The editors of “Routledge History of Italian Americans” pored through thousands of images in their search for the best ones to illustrate their new compendium, which encompasses 40 contributors and 660 pages.
For the cover, they ultimately settled on “The Migrants,” a painting by John Cadel that hangs in the permanent art exhibit that bears his name at the Italian Cultural Center at Casa Italian in Stone Park.
Cadel was a teacher at the Art Institute in the 1970s when the Rev. August Feccia, then the director of the cultural center, commissioned the work. The artist passed away in his native Fanna, Friulli, a few years later.
Published with a grant from UNICO National, “Routledge History of Italian Americans” aims to be a comprehensive reference book of Italian Americana for the current generation.
Dominic Candeloro, curator of the library at the cultural center, authored a chapter in the book titled, “World War II Changed Everything.”
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I reprise an appeal from early in our campaign that I believe was written by Leonard Amari that explains our cause almost poetically. And though we have reached our original fundraising goal and we are about to announce the hiring of a full-time professor/director of Italian American Studies who will start in Fall 2018, there is a long-run need to develop and increase the endowment and the scope of its work. Please consider a Year-End Gift. Thanks, Dominic
http://www.luc.edu/italianamerican/
A Passionate Plea to Contribute
We need to contribute,
We need to contribute not only so our stories will not be forgotten, not only so we have some semblance of control about our stories but even so our stories already told in film and in books will not be misunderstood or forgotten. We need to contribute to make sure that people now and later understand that those films and books that truly tell our stories have their feet firmly planted in what’s real.
We need to contribute, we need to contribute. We need to honor those people who thought that plain honest hard work was their way to a better life or those who thought that education was their way to a better life and, yes, even those who thought that violence was their way out of poverty. Because all of it should be truthfully told.
We need to contribute because our families are increasingly diverse, our neighborhoods have become achingly small and fragile and the church in its universal message has gone to serve newer immigrants. So, we need to consciously support those trained sympathetic storytellers, those historians who will ensure that we do not become an interesting footnote to the history of this great country.
We need to contribute so that the struggle and achievements, the joys and the sorrows, and the strengths and the weaknesses of all our Italian-American predecessors are not forgotten and are passed on in the truth not only to our children but to their contemporaries who will not know those stories unless we ensure their true preservation.
We need to contribute so that never again will our last names be the punchline for a joke distorted by one stereotype after another.
We need to contribute because the muscles in our bodies are those of Italian-Americans, the thoughts in our heads are those of Italian-Americans, and the passions in our hearts are those of Italian-Americans. Our contributions will become part of our stories
We need to contribute, we need to contribute now.
CONTRIBUTE NOW: Click here to contribute
If you prefer sending a check, please direct it to Philip Greazel, Assoc. Dir. of Development, College of Arts and Sciences, 820 N. Michigan Ave., #1726,
Chicago, Illinois 60611 • pgreazel@luc.edu (312) 915-6599 .
In all of your communications, please make sure that you specify that your gift is for the benefit of Italian American Studies
Thanks, Dominic 847-951-9109