"Race has long been a significant aspect of the Italian experience in
America. Italian immigrants encountered a racist system based on socially marked categories of “white” and “black.” During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Italian Americans found themselves in a liminal racial state, not quite black and not quite white, while, at the same time, they received the benefits of whiteness bestowed by the federal government. It was during the 1930s and 1940s that Italian Americans asserted a “white” identity that became entrenched after World War II and during the civil rights era. Recent work by scholars and artists has prompted Italian Americans to question and problematize the construction and meaning of whiteness in Italian American history and culture.

Spoken language and the written word contributed considerably to the ways that racial and national identities were formed, codified, ascribed, challenged, embraced, and reproduced, and ultimately impacted economic and political realties. Philological scholarship influenced social policy and legislation regarding the place of Italian immigrants in American society. Newspapers, with their daily columns, editorials, and letters to the editor, shaped public opinion concerning matters of race. Fictional accounts created textual narratives that negotiated the reader’s understanding of race and racial status vis-à-vis Italian Americans. This symposium presents
recent scholarship on the complex ways in which language and text situated Italian Americans within the context of a racialized America.

Schedule

Coffee and assorted pastries. 10-10:30 AM

Welcome 10:30 AM

Dr. James L. Muyskens
President
Queens College

Dr. Peter Vellon
Acting Executive Director
John D. Calandra Italian American Institute

Introduction
Dr. Joseph Sciorra
Assistant Director for Academic and Cultural Programs
John D. Calandra Italian American Institute

Chair: Dr. Joseph Sciorra

“‘Lynching Those Magnificently Miserable Italians’: Racism, Nativism, and the Twinning of Italianness”
Professor Joseph Cosco, Old Dominion University

“Philological and Social Scientific Theories of Language and Race in the Construction of Italian Americans, 1880s-1920s”
Professor Nancy Carnevale, Montclair State University

“‘Always the Question of Race’: The Italian Language Press, Racial
Consciousness, and the Creation of Italian American Identity”
Professor Peter Vellon, Queens College

“Guido d’Agostino’s Olives on the Apple Tree: Passing, Race Discourses, and Italian-American Literature”
Professor Steven Belluscio, Borough of Manhattan Community College

Discussant:
Professor David Roediger, University of Illinois

Directions to Queens College

By Car: The Long Island Expressway to Exit 24/Kissena Blvd.

By Public Transportation: Take the #7 train to Main Street, and then take the Q25, Q25-34, Q34, or Q17 bus. Take the E, F, G, R or V train to Forest Hills/71st Avenue, and then take the Q75A bus.

The Student Union Building is located at the corner of Kissena Boulevard and Melbourne Avenue.

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