Un italiano in America [An Italian in America]. Milano: Casa Editrice La Cisalpina, 1899.
Title
Un italiano in America [An Italian in America]. Milano: Casa Editrice La Cisalpina, 1899.
Description
This is the second edition of this work, the first one with illustrations. The first edition, published in 1892, is also in the Collection.
Rossi (b. Veneto, 1857; d. Buenos Aires, 1921) was first published in America on December 13, 1880 in the first issue of Il Progresso Italo-Americano, where his novella, Lo Zingaro, was printed as letteratura appendice (literary appendix).
In America, after holding some odd jobs, Rossi became employed by Carlo Barsotti to manage Il Progresso; he later returned to Italy, where he published this work. Rossi vividly portrays the world of the first Italian colony of New York close at hand. The reader enters into the squalid dens of the usurers, into the ill-famed bars of Five Points, and the hovels of Irish prostitutes and taciturn bosses who exploited laborers.
The intricate psychological play between Italian immigrants who were long-time New Yorkers, relatively speaking, and greenhorns like Rossi, who arrived in New York quite early, in 1880, well before large numbers of Italians had immigrated there, is especially rich with insight into what immigrants faced. The shame and pain of needing to sleep on park benches (at the risk of having their pockets picked when asleep) while trying to maintain their dignity until they had some money is at times heart-wrenching, and has little or no equivalent in the English language efforts by immigrants a decade or two or three later.
As well, nothing so vivid and raw like this appeared in English language descriptions by Italians of that neighborhood. Rossi’s evocation of the Five Points, like those also in Italian by Bernardino Ciambelli, suggest how much more Italians were willing to be frank when speaking to their compatriots in the mother tongue than when they wrote in English for a larger American audience.
It is worth noting that both Ciambelli and Rossi wrote of the world of immigrants in the 1880s and 1890s, which might also account in part for their treatment prior to the real rush of immigration nearer to the end of the century, and an altered dynamic and relationship with the existing culture. Those changing receptions by Americans have yet to be explored by scholars.
Even after returning to Italy, Rossi continued to travel and publish extensively, including in Nel paese dei dollari: Tre anni a New York (1893) (In the country of dollars: Three years in New York), also in the Collection, which first appeared as a collection of articles issued in La Tribuna of Rome.
Named inspector of emigration in Italy, Rossi carried out missions in Brazil, where he wrote of the effects of laws against the exploitation of Italian agricultural workers. He also worked in the United States, where he produced a series of letters, Per la tutela degli italiani negli Stati Uniti (For the protection of the Italians in the United States), in 1904 (not in the Collection yet). In Italy, he was promoted to commissioner general of emigration and in addition was vice commissioner and consul in Paraguay and minister plenipotentiary in Argentina, where he remained until his death in 1921.
Rossi (b. Veneto, 1857; d. Buenos Aires, 1921) was first published in America on December 13, 1880 in the first issue of Il Progresso Italo-Americano, where his novella, Lo Zingaro, was printed as letteratura appendice (literary appendix).
In America, after holding some odd jobs, Rossi became employed by Carlo Barsotti to manage Il Progresso; he later returned to Italy, where he published this work. Rossi vividly portrays the world of the first Italian colony of New York close at hand. The reader enters into the squalid dens of the usurers, into the ill-famed bars of Five Points, and the hovels of Irish prostitutes and taciturn bosses who exploited laborers.
The intricate psychological play between Italian immigrants who were long-time New Yorkers, relatively speaking, and greenhorns like Rossi, who arrived in New York quite early, in 1880, well before large numbers of Italians had immigrated there, is especially rich with insight into what immigrants faced. The shame and pain of needing to sleep on park benches (at the risk of having their pockets picked when asleep) while trying to maintain their dignity until they had some money is at times heart-wrenching, and has little or no equivalent in the English language efforts by immigrants a decade or two or three later.
As well, nothing so vivid and raw like this appeared in English language descriptions by Italians of that neighborhood. Rossi’s evocation of the Five Points, like those also in Italian by Bernardino Ciambelli, suggest how much more Italians were willing to be frank when speaking to their compatriots in the mother tongue than when they wrote in English for a larger American audience.
It is worth noting that both Ciambelli and Rossi wrote of the world of immigrants in the 1880s and 1890s, which might also account in part for their treatment prior to the real rush of immigration nearer to the end of the century, and an altered dynamic and relationship with the existing culture. Those changing receptions by Americans have yet to be explored by scholars.
Even after returning to Italy, Rossi continued to travel and publish extensively, including in Nel paese dei dollari: Tre anni a New York (1893) (In the country of dollars: Three years in New York), also in the Collection, which first appeared as a collection of articles issued in La Tribuna of Rome.
Named inspector of emigration in Italy, Rossi carried out missions in Brazil, where he wrote of the effects of laws against the exploitation of Italian agricultural workers. He also worked in the United States, where he produced a series of letters, Per la tutela degli italiani negli Stati Uniti (For the protection of the Italians in the United States), in 1904 (not in the Collection yet). In Italy, he was promoted to commissioner general of emigration and in addition was vice commissioner and consul in Paraguay and minister plenipotentiary in Argentina, where he remained until his death in 1921.
Creator
Adolfo Rossi
Publisher
Casa Editrice La Cisalpina
Date
1899
Format
24 x 17cm; 270 p.
Language
Italian
Citation
Adolfo Rossi, “Un italiano in America [An Italian in America]. Milano: Casa Editrice La Cisalpina, 1899.,” Italian-Language American Imprints: The Periconi Collection, accessed April 19, 2024, https://italianamericanimprints.omeka.net/items/show/258.
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