ABSTRACT

This dazzling collection of original essays from some of the country's leading thinkers asks the rather intriguing question - Are Italians White? Each piece carefully explores how, when and why whiteness became important to Italian Americans, and the significance of gender, class and nation to racial identity.

chapter |14 pages

Introduction

WHITE LIES, DARK TRUTHS

part I|62 pages

LEARNING THE U.S. COLOR LINE

chapter 1|12 pages

COLOR:WHITE/COMPLEXION: DARK

chapter 2|15 pages

"NO COLOR BARRIER"

Italians, Race, and Power in the United States

chapter 3|16 pages

RACE, NATION, HYPHEN

Italian-Americans and American Multiculturalism in Comparative Perspective

chapter 4|17 pages

WALKING THE COLOR LINE

Italian Immigrants in Rural Louisiana, 1880–1910

part II|82 pages

RADICALISM AND RACE

chapter 5|19 pages

MAKING THE ITALIAN OTHER

Blacks,Whites, and the Inbetween in the 1895 Spring Valley, Illinois, Race Riot

chapter 6|13 pages

"IT IS PROVIDENTIAL THAT THERE ARE FOREIGNERS HERE"

Whiteness and Masculinity in the Making of Italian American Syndicalist Identity

chapter 7|13 pages

I DELITTI DELLA RAZZA BIANCA (CRIMES OF THE WHITE RACE)

Italian Anarchists' Racial Discourse as Crime

chapter 8|20 pages

SURREALIST, ANARCHIST, AFROCENTRIST

Philip Lamantia Before and After the "Beat Generation"

chapter 9|15 pages

THE FRONT LINES

Hip-Hop, Life, and the Death of Racism

part III|52 pages

WHITENESS,VIOLENCE, AND THE URBAN CRISIS

chapter 10|16 pages

WHEN FRANK SINATRA CAME TO ITALIAN HARLEM

The 1945 "Race Riot" at Benjamin Franklin High School

chapter 12|19 pages

"ITALIANS AGAINST RACISM"

The Murder of Yusuf Hawkins (R. I. P.) and My March on Bensonhurst

part IV|48 pages

TOWARD A BLACK ITALIAN IMAGINARY

chapter 13|11 pages

SANGU DU SANGU MEU

Growing up Black and Italian in a Time of White Flight

chapter 14|10 pages

FIGURING RACE

chapter 15|16 pages

GIANCARLO GIUSEPPE ALESSANDRO ESPOSITO

Life in the Borderlands