{"product_id":"the-value-of-worthless-lives-ilaria-serra-9780823226016","title":"The Value of Worthless Lives: Writing Italian American Immigrant Autobiographies","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe writer Giuseppe Prezzolini said that Italian immigrants left behind tears and sweat but not \"words,\" making their lives in America mostly in silence, their memories private and stories untold. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn this innovative portrait of the Italian-American experience, these lives are no longer hidden. Ilaria Serra offers the first comprehensive study of a largely ignored legacy--the autobiographies written by immigrants. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eHere she looks closely at fifty-eight representative works written during the high tide of Italian migration.\u003cbr\u003eScouring archives, discovering diaries, and memoirs in private houses and forgotten drawers, Serra recovers the voices of the first generation--bootblacks and poets, film directors and farmers, miners, anarchists, and\u003cbr\u003eseamstresses--compelled to tell their stories. Mostly unpublished, often thickly accented, these tales of ordinary men and women are explored in nuanced detail, organized to reflect how they illuminate the realities of\u003cbr\u003ework, survival, identity, and change. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eMoving between history and literature, Serra presents each as the imaginative record of a self in the making and the collective story of the journey to selfhood that is the heart of the immigrant experience.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Ilaria Serra\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0823226018\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780823226016\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Fordham University Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 12\/01\/2010\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 240\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.70lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.60h x 5.50w x 0.70d","brand":"Ilaria Serra","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":47611009204479,"sku":"9780823226016","price":39.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_2c34d809-f178-4664-983d-1b676679830c.jpg?v=1764511124","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/the-value-of-worthless-lives-ilaria-serra-9780823226016","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}