To appreciate the life of the Italian immigrant enclave from the great heart of the Italian migration to its settlement in America requires that one come to know how these immigrants saw their communities as colonies of the mother country. Edited with extraordinary skill, ITALOAMERICANA: The Literature of the Great Migration, 1880-1943 brings to an English-speaking audience a definitive collection of classic writings on, about and from the formative years of the Italian-American experience.

Originally published in Italian, this landmark collection of translated writings establishes a rich, diverse and mature sense of Italian-American life by allowing readers to see American society through the eyes of Italian-speaking immigrants. Filled with the voices from the first generation of Italian-American life, the book presents a unique treasury of long-inaccessible writing that embodies a literary canon for Italian-American culture --- poetry, drama, journalism, political advocacy, history, memoir, biography and story --- the greater part of which has never before been translated.