Paul Paolicelli to Speak on HOW ITALIANS CHANGED AMERICA

Paul Paolicelli addressed the AMHS several years ago on his experiences in Italy.

Our first AMHS program of the year will get us off to a great start, with wellknown author Paul Paolicelli speaking on the subject of “How Italians Changed America.” The meeting will be held on January 26, 2020, at 1:00 p.m. at Casa Italiana. Paolicelli is back after more than five years, to give us another wonderful talk on his experiences and research in Southern Italy. In his previous talk, he told about his life-changing experiences in Southern Italy that deepened the admiration and affection he feels for this part of Italy. His talk was very well received by AMHS members, with our late member Pino Cicala, who was surely an expert on all things Italian, saying, “this guy really knows what he’s talking about!” Since the last time Paul visited us in 2014, he taught a course at the University of Calabria.

He will tell us about the Foundation for Italian Diaspora Studies which helps fund the program at the University of Calabria. This year the foundation raised enough to fund a Fulbright Fellow (Stan Puglese from Hofstra University) who will be lecturing in the new year in Calabria. The foundation also helped fund a writing program in the off-semesters dedicated to research and writing on Italian heritage. We will be hearing a few details about this interesting program.

Italian immigrants brought with them their strong work ethic, their love of family, and their faith.

As some of our members may recall, Paolicelli is the author of two books, “Dances with Luigi” and “Under the Southern Sun: Stories of the Real Italy and the Americans It Created.” He grew up in the Pittsburgh area vaguely aware of his Italian heritage. For years, he was busy achieving success in the television news business (including a stint as news director at NBC-TV in Washington, D.C.). At some point, he realized that he had a nagging desire to find out more about his heritage, but by this time, many of the family members here who could have told him their stories, had all passed away, a common occurrence for many of us.

So Paolicelli packed up and moved to Rome for a few years, learned Italian (and played in a jazz band) and spent considerable time in Abruzzo, Basilicata, Calabria and Sicily — the journey he wrote about in “Dances with Luigi.” Encouraged by the book’s success, Paolicelli wrote a second book because he wanted to try to find out why so many of the Southern Italians who emigrated to the U.S. became successful in just one generation — bankers, film directors, politicians, scientists, businessmen, artists, musicians and athletes. He noted that over 80 percent of Italian Americans can trace their origins back to Southern Italy, and he said these immigrants “brought values, not valuables.” He said because of the economic disparity between North and South, the South was “hemorrhaging” their best and brightest, most ambitious people who came and made the most of the opportunities here.

And he said they brought with them their strong work ethic, their love of family, and their faith. In his book, Paolicelli recounts how the dying words of his grandfather, who was fatally injured in a steel mill accident, were not about himself. Instead, his dying words were “i miei poveri figli” (my poor children). Paolicelli has given talks all over the country, sometimes to standing room only audiences, and he sees a “hunger” for people to understand where they come from. Before the talk, we will have a delicious lunch catered by one of everybody’s favorites, Osteria da Nino. The menu will be insalata verdi di mercato, ristotto con funghi & tartufo, pollo con funghi & florio marsala, and orecchiette con salsiccie. Homemade focaccia bread with basil pesto will be served. Dessert will be tiramisu.After the talk, there will be a question-and-answer period and then Paul’s book “Dances with Luigi” will be available for sale/signing. We will also have a raffle with some wonderful prizes. So please invite your family and friends and sign up early for this wonderful event you won’t want to miss. The deadline for registration is January 22, 2020.