We are pleased to announce that Dr. Matteo Brera’s panel, “Tongues of Belonging: Language, Race, and Education in the Italian Diaspora in North America (1910–1967),” has been accepted as a Special Session for the 2026 Modern Language Association Annual Convention, to be held in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Dr. Brera—Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Research Fellow at Università degli Studi di Padova and Seton Hall University—will present his paper titled “Crossing the Color Line with Dante: The Italian Language Press and Racial Mediation in the US South.”
About Dr. Brera's Paper
Dr. Brera’s presentation offers a critical analysis of Italian-language newspapers published in Alabama and Louisiana from the Reconstruction era through World War II. Focusing on periodicals such as La Voce Coloniale, Il Gladiatore, and The Columbus-Balbo Review, his paper investigates how these outlets functioned as tools of cultural diplomacy, advocating for Italian language instruction, promoting transnational cultural pride, and engaging with educational reform.
These newspapers, often affiliated with institutions like the Dante Alighieri Society, are examined for their role in racial mediation—particularly in their complex entanglement with Italian Fascism and efforts to introduce Italian instruction into historically Black colleges. Dr. Brera argues that such press outlets did not merely serve as vehicles of ethnic cohesion but were also spaces of racial negotiation and ideological tension in the Jim Crow South.
His paper forms part of his broader research project, A Darker Shade of Whiteness: The Italian Ethnic Press in Louisiana and the Making of Racial Awareness in The Gulf South (1877–1945), which explores the intersections of diaspora, race, and transnational identity formation.
About the Panel: Tongues of Belonging
The panel features three internationally-based scholars whose research collectively reframes narratives of Italian immigrant assimilation by focusing on language, identity, and education as central axes of cultural negotiation. In addition to Dr. Brera, participants include:
Mattia Ragazzoni
University of Toronto
Presentation: “Imparare la propria lingua: Italian Language Instruction in Canada (1910–1940)”
Ragazzoni’s paper examines how early 20th-century Italian communities in Toronto fostered a diasporic linguistic identity through textbooks, lay and religious institutions, and localized pedagogical practices. Highlighting language manuals like Michele Catalano’s Italian Conversation for Schools and Colleges (1915) and Tommaso Mari’s Lezioni pratiche d’italiano (1938), Ragazzoni maps out a unique form of “Italophony” rooted in cultural self-definition and transnational education.
Carmen Petruzzi
Università degli Studi di Foggia
Presentation: “Beyond Language: Curriculum, Pedagogy, and Cultural Assimilation in Leonard Covello’s Vision”
Petruzzi revisits Leonard Covello’s landmark work, The Social Background of the Italo-American School Child (1944), offering a critical reappraisal of his bicultural educational philosophy. Her analysis positions Covello’s resistance to assimilationist models as a precursor to contemporary multicultural pedagogy, emphasizing reciprocal integration and the curricular inclusion of immigrant heritage within American civic life.
Panel Significance
Together, the panelists offer a richly comparative and interdisciplinary investigation into the politics of language, race, and education in Italian diasporic communities across North America. Drawing from archival research, linguistic history, and pedagogical theory, the session foregrounds multilingualism and cultural mediation as vital strategies of belonging and resistance.
Held in the host city of Toronto—home to one of Canada’s most vibrant Italian diasporic communities—this panel will be an important venue for public scholarly engagement. The session is organized under the scientific aegis of the Accademia della Crusca and aligns with local interests in Italian Canadian heritage and educational history.
Biographical Profiles
Chair
Franco Pierno
University of Toronto / Accademia della Crusca
Franco Pierno is Full Professor of Italian Linguistics at the University of Toronto (affiliated with Trinity College), where he is also responsible for the “Canada” section of the Osservatorio degli italianismi nel Mondo of the Accademia della Crusca. He has been a visiting professor at the universities of Basel, Bordeaux, Dresden, and Turin, as well as at the Center for Dialectology of Italian-speaking Switzerland. His research focuses primarily on the relationship between language and religion (particularly the Reformation of the sixteenth century) and on the linguistic aspects of the early Italian migration to North America.
Participants:
Matteo Brera
Università degli Studi di Padova / Seton Hall University
Matteo Brera specializes in transnational exchanges between Italy and North America (specifically Canada and the US South), with a focus on the ethno-cultural press and its role in shaping transcultural identities. His Marie Skłodowska-Curie project, A Darker Shade of Whiteness, examines the Italian ethnic press in Louisiana (1877–1945) and its contribution to racial awareness in the Gulf South, addressing an overlooked aspect of race relations, racism, and the construction of racial discourse in the U.S. South.
Mattia Ragazzoni
University of Toronto
Mattia Ragazzoni is a Ph.D. candidate in Italian Linguistics at the University of Toronto. His research focuses on the presence and the production of teaching materials, and Italian language instruction in immigrant communities in North America between the end of the nineteenth century and the 1940s. His research interests include the history of the Italian language and 19th-century lexicography. He collaborates with Osservatorio degli Italianismi nel Mondo for the “Canada” section and with the Geografia e Storia delle Grammatiche dell’Italiano project. He is the managing editor of the journal Italian Canadiana.
Carmen Petruzzi
Università degli Studi di Foggia
Carmen Petruzzi's research agenda aims to shed light on the educational history of the 19th century, particularly in Southern Italy. Her published scholarship focuses and has focused on the history of the Italian diaspora between the 19th and 20th centuries and the educational processes observed in the first Italian communities in the United States embracing historical, social and comparative approaches to the study of old and new Italian emigrations to the US and the perception of Italian-American culture in Italy.
For more information on the session and future updates, please visit the official MLA 2026 Convention website.
