"Heart of My Race:" Questions of ldentity in Sicilian/American Writings

Throughout the 1900s, the sense of a distinct sicilianita-or Sicilian-nessmanifested
itself in writings by Italian authors such as Giovanni Verga, Luigi Pirandello,
Leonardo Sciascia, Vincenzo Consolo, and Andrea Camilleri, among others.
Interestingly, a parallel phenomenon has emerged in the United States in the broader field
of Italian-American literature. While attempting to redefine the concept of Americanness
and expand the canon of American literature so that it embraces articulations of ethnic
identities, many Sicilian-American writers have turned their works into literary
manifestations of their Sicilian Americanness, or, as I have called it, sicilianamericanita.
In this study, I try to answer questions such as: Why and how have some Sicilian-
American authors fashioned their Italian-American identity in regional terms? How did a
sense of sicilianita develop in the US and turn into sicilianamericanita? And how did the
above-mentioned phenomenon materialize in Italian-American literature? My examination focused on Jerre Mangione's memoirs, Rose Romano's poetry, and Ben
Morreale's novels. While Mangione consistently capitalized on his regional ethnic
identity mainly in order to correct some of the most unfavorable prejudices, and
especially those originating from Mafia, Rose Romano writes poetry and prose dealing
with issues of regional self-ascription which overlaps with contestations of traditional
gender roles, heterosexual scripts, and racial categorizations. Ben Morreale's
sicilianamericanita takes on intertextual aspects, creating a closely-knit net of relations
with the Sicilian tradition in Italian literature.
Many Sicilian-American writers, just like their Sicilian counterparts, have come
to see their regional ethnic identity as a source of inspiration for the growth of a
distinctive literary tradition. This study has been conceived as an initial small step
towards a process of inquiry and exploration of the common ground between Italian and
Italian-American literatures. Such critical endeavors and international cooperation
between both fields of literary studies could bring forth a better understanding of the
cultures, and also strengthen in significant ways the status of both literatures within and
outside their respective national critical communities.