Italian Women in Chicago Madonna mia! QUI debbo vivere? (You mean I have to live HERE?)

Edited by Dominic Candeloro, Kathy Catrambone and Gloria Nardini--- Revised Edition (b) 2019 Published by the Italian Cultural Center at Casa Italia. The spotlight has always been on the men. This anthology is a preliminary effort to “write” that wrong and to focus on women in our effort to document and share the FULL Italian experience in Chicago. The purpose is S.O.S.—Save Our Stories! Dominic Candeloro, lead editor, recruited the almost 50 contributing authors; Gloria Nardini managed the section on creative writing, edited individual pieces, and refined the Italian language usage in the text; and Kathy Catrambone edited individual pieces and copyedited the entire volume. Diane L. Cosentino designed and formatted the book for printing. This edition was further formatted by Casa Library publishing. Our contributors include some of the most prestigious scholars in the field of Italian American Studies, experienced journalists, freelance writers, researchers and first-person narrators with varied backgrounds. This book is path-breaking in that it increases enormously the amount of published material on the topic. The names of more than 500 individuals and groups are mentioned and discussed in varying degrees of depth. Inexorably, the history we gathered took the form of biography. Since Italian American history is at risk of being lost, we can congratulate ourselves for capturing and preserving in book form as much as we have. An anthology is a tool that marks out the territory and invites the reader to go beyond the samples, to delve into original sources for a deeper understanding of the subject. The big picture that emerges is a varied one. Chicago Italian women have been ragpickers, needle workers, midwives, labor organizers, farm workers, club women, county commissioners, lawyers, doctors, dentists, writers, entrepreneurs, broadcasters, performers, homemakers, and mothers. The authors of the essays in this anthology are: Theresa Amato, Agata and Rocchina D’Ambrosio as translated by Maria DiMarco, Michael Anania, Tony Ardizzone, Rose Argo, Mary H. Ber, Lisa Krissof Boehm, Mary Jo Bona, Ann Calcagno, Dominic Candeloro, Kathy Catrambone, Gloria G. Coco, Lou Corsino, Pam DeFiglio, Tina De Rosa, Vincenzo DeVito, Chickie Farella, Gloria G. Gugliotta, Concetta Hedrick, Terry CatramboneHeffron, Maria A. Iannotta, Anna Clara Ionta, Valerie Kane, Donna Gabaccia, Fred Gardaphe, Joyce Garro, Diane Ledet, Leonora LiPuma, Carlo Lombardo, Anthony J. Maro, Alessandro Mastro-Valerio, Benedetta Mentensana, as translated by Jeanette Risatti Viehman, Eugene Miller and Gianna Panofsky, Gloria Nardini, Roxanne Christofano Pilat,Tony Romano, Ann Rubino, Christina Ruscitti, Amabile Santacaterina as translated by Jeanette Risatti Viehman, Dolores Sorrentino Sennebogen, Joanne Spata, Karen Tintori, and Domenica Trevor, Judy Valente We also offer a Note on Sources and suggestions for further research which mostly lead back to the Florence Bartolomei Roselli Library at Casa Italia and to the library archival website "Chicago Italian Archives."