Umbertina

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Helen Barolini (nee Mollica) has established a deservedly solid reputation as a writer who has focused on the lives of women connected to the Italy-to-The-USA avventura. The book, Umbertina centers around the life courses of three women: Umbertina, Marguerite (her granddaughter), and Tina (Marguerite's eldest child, named for her great grandmother, Umbertina). Barolini's description of the life of Umbertina chronicles a classic contadina-to-capitalist tale. Umbertina started her life in Castagna - a typical mountain town in the "instep" of the Italian boot. Barolini aptly describes the misery of life in that town during the years of the mass emigration. She paints a convincing word picture of the serf-like existence of the landless peasants. whose conditions had changed little following the unification of the peninsula under a constitutional monarchy. A series of events leads to Umbertina's marriage to Serafino Longobardi. Barolini credibly recounts the story of their journey from small landholders struggling to pay off their land in the village of Castagna to their occupation of a grand mansion, maintained by the income from a hugely successful produce and importing business established in Cato (pseudonym for Utica), New York. For those who have not read similar stories, Barolini's account can serve as a valid prototype for accounts of the ways in which thousands of participants in the Italy-to-The-USA avventura established their families' affluence. Such stories represent the foundation of the oft-repeated claim, "They came with nothing, there were illiterate, they didn't even speak English, they worked incessantly, and they made it without help from outside sources." Barolini's account of Umbertina's story should easily serve as the myth that suitably chronicles the role of women in the avventura. I have had no hesitation about recommending that part of Barolini's book to my daughters. Umbertina and women like my grandmother, Angelina, deserve to be commemorated. Anyone who has known a grandmother comparable to these two women must extend gratitude to Barolini for her having so ably written that commemoration. After having presented the tale of Umbertina, Barolini spins out the narratives of Marguerite (Umbertina's granddaughter) and Tina (Marguerite's daughter), whose connections to the Italy-to-The-USA avventura played a crucial part in their efforts to develop an authentic self-identity These narratives can be read as tales that dramatically highlight the problems of persons who struggle to gain a self identity that would be authorized by surrounding significant persons. Marguerite needed to develop a self-identity that she could use as she encountered the cross-currents of evaluations conducted by her family, by the nuns at the high school which she attended, by the old line families in the town in which she grew up, by her college classmates, by those of her relatives who had retained their "Ita

Helen Barolini (nee Mollica) has established a deservedly solid reputation as a writer who has focused on the lives of women connected to the Italy-to-The-USA avventura. The book, Umbertina centers around the life courses of three women: Umbertina, Marguerite (her granddaughter), and Tina (Marguerite's eldest child, named for her great grandmother, Umbertina). Barolini's description of the life of Umbertina chronicles a classic contadina-to-capitalist tale. Umbertina started her life in Castagna - a typical mountain town in the "instep" of the Italian boot. Barolini aptly describes the misery of life in that town during the years of the mass emigration. She paints a convincing word picture of the serf-like existence of the landless peasants. whose conditions had changed little following the unification of the peninsula under a constitutional monarchy. A series of events leads to Umbertina's marriage to Serafino Longobardi. Barolini credibly recounts the story of their journey from small landholders struggling to pay off their land in the village of Castagna to their occupation of a grand mansion, maintained by the income from a hugely successful produce and importing business established in Cato (pseudonym for Utica), New York. For those who have not read similar stories, Barolini's account can serve as a valid prototype for accounts of the ways in which thousands of participants in the Italy-to-The-USA avventura established their families' affluence. Such stories represent the foundation of the oft-repeated claim, "They came with nothing, there were illiterate, they didn't even speak English, they worked incessantly, and they made it without help from outside sources." Barolini's account of Umbertina's story should easily serve as the myth that suitably chronicles the role of women in the avventura. I have had no hesitation about recommending that part of Barolini's book to my daughters. Umbertina and women like my grandmother, Angelina, deserve to be commemorated. Anyone who has known a grandmother comparable to these two women must extend gratitude to Barolini for her having so ably written that commemoration. After having presented the tale of Umbertina, Barolini spins out the narratives of Marguerite (Umbertina's granddaughter) and Tina (Marguerite's daughter), whose connections to the Italy-to-The-USA avventura played a crucial part in their efforts to develop an authentic self-identity These narratives can be read as tales that dramatically highlight the problems of persons who struggle to gain a self identity that would be authorized by surrounding significant persons. Marguerite needed to develop a self-identity that she could use as she encountered the cross-currents of evaluations conducted by her family, by the nuns at the high school which she attended, by the old line families in the town in which she grew up, by her college classmates, by those of her relatives who had retained their "Ita

I found the book to be an accurate and stirring portrayal of what it is like to be an Italian -American woman. In the second generation I still recognize the attitudes, feelings and traditions of my ancestors in this book as well as the struggle to affirm our talents as women. I highly recommend it.

Rendered in a convincing realism, Helen Barolini 's novel depicts a search for definition as woman and American through three generations, starting with the eponymous Umbertina. One may justifiably assume that the author has lived her subject--so sensitively does she enter and depict it. I would emphatically recommend this book to any American of Italian descent who wishes to understand the experience of his or her forebears and the need of successive generations to come to terms with the past. But that is not to limit its audience. At base, this is an American book, well worth the attention of those willing to feel the struggle, victory, and loss involved in the acquisition of an AMerican identity.