Elizabeth
Street by Laurie Fabiano
An account
of an Italian family that settled in the US in the early 1900s, and based on
true events, this story traces the life of Giovanna Costa from her marriage in
Italy until the days when her children were growing up in New York. While Giovanna
did not make it very far up the ladder of social or material success, she was
an incredibly determined woman that survived some extremely tough times. Even
in her serious encounters with the local branch of the mafia, she fought back with
creativity and resourcefulness. Although the story is told in a rather rambling
way and the writing is less than stellar, this book gave me insight into the
difficulties encountered and overcome by Italian immigrants. I also gained an
appreciation for the “sense of home” that they left behind---and how they truly
felt like foreigners in their adopted country. I guess this book put faces,
names, vignettes, and feelings to the sentence I sometimes say: “Well, my
Great-grandparents emigrated from Italy…”
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