IL VIAGGIO: The Italian Immigration Journey to the United States

Join the Italian American Program for a discussion on the new book, “IL VIAGGIO: The Italian Immigration Journey to the United States.”

Author Victoria V. Sirianni will be joined in conversation by Melissa E. Marinaro, director of the History Center’s Italian American Program, to discuss the story of Italian immigration—its struggles, successes, and everything in between. While the book is the story of Italian immigrants, it is also the story of millions of others who contributed to a great immigrant nation. It is a true story of “e pluribus unum.”

“IL VIAGGIO” expands and uncovers important stories and events that have often been overlooked or ignored. Most of the stories are short and are about everyday people. Some, however, relate little-known aspects of well-known events or topics, such as the Sacco and Vanzetti Affair, the Bread and Roses Strike, the role that America and Americans of Italian descent played in World War II, and Organized Crime in the U.S. and Italy. It also explores the great successes that Americans of Italian descent made in literature, entertainment, the sciences, medicine, and the law, showcasing the significant contributions of Italian Americans to American society. This book emerged from Sirianni’s passion to capture the stories that speak to a heritage that becomes more distant with each succeeding generation of Italian Americans. The book is heavily footnoted to encourage others to trace their own family’s experience, to actively preserve and share with their own children or grandchildren. It is an act of preservation as well as a personal endeavor, a duty we owe to our ancestors and future generations.

Copies of “IL VIAGGIO” will be available for purchase at the program, and the author will be available to sign books after the presentation.

Admission

Admission is free with advance registration. The program will take place in the museum’s sixth floor Detre Library & Archives.

About the Author

Victoria V. Sirianni is a first-generation American who grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, immersed in Italian culture by her family. She studied History at Carnegie Mellon University and earned an M.Ed. at Harvard University. Sirianni spent most of her career at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she was awarded honorary membership in MIT’s Class of 1954. She has worked as a consultant, writer, and lecturer, now focused on Italian American history and culture. She splits her time between Massachusetts and Sulmona in the Abruzzo region of Italy where she has been able to explore her ancestral homeland and research the roots of those, who like her parents’ families, made the viaggio to America in search of a better life.