Il canone muto.Letteratura e narrazione nei meccanismi di costruzione dell’identità neigiornali di una comunità italo-americana
This paperexamines, through a study of the newspaper L’Italo Americano, the roleof literature in the process of building the identity of the Italian immigrantcommunity in New Orleans. Founded in the 1890s, the newspaper expressed the newcultural needs and political perspectives that emerged in the aftermath ofItalian unification. During the Risorgimento, Italian newspapers published inthe United States – often led by political exiles – promoted the values thatfueled the struggle for unification, and literature played a militant role as atool for fostering the values needed to “make Italians.” It often assumed aneducational function and was consistent with the canon established in Italy. Onceunification was achieved, however, the ideal value of literature waned, and thearticulation of Italian cultural and political debates was viewed withsuspicion, increasingly perceived by migrants as a dangerous threat to theunity of the national community. This mistrust was consistent with theemigrants’ efforts to overcome the fragmentation of their community in order topresent themselves to the institutions of the host country as representativesof a strong and homogeneous collective. In this new context, newspapers becametools for integrating immigrants into the social reality of their host country.The upward mobility of a significant number of immigrants into the middle classcreated a new audience for the press. Literature thus became an expression ofcultural consumption that legitimized the new status acquired by a substantialportion of the community. The literary supplement featured serialized popularnovels alongside humorous columns, sometimes even works by French authors,though always in Italian translation. Any connection with Italian culturaldebates was lost, but the role of language in shaping identity remainedfundamental. The occasional use of dialect served to preserve the emotionalbond with places of origin.
Luigi Cepparroneteaches Italian Literature at the University of Bergamo. His research exploresItalian literature from the eighteenth to the twentieth century through ananthropological lens. His main areas of interest include migration literature,European modernity, the city, industrial literature, and nineteenth-centuryeducational writing. He has published on a wide range of authors, including C.Cantù, A. Manzoni, E. Praga, C. Collodi, G. Verga, R. L. Stevenson, L.Pirandello, C. Alvaro, V. Pratolini, and G. Testori. In recent years, he hasfocused in particular on the works of Edmondo De Amicis, offering a newinterpretation of his oeuvre. Hismonographs include L’Illuminismo europeo nell’epistolario di Romualdo DeSterlich (Bergamo University Press, 2008), Gli scritti americani diEdmondo De Amicis (Rubbettino, 2012), and In viaggio verso il moderno.Figure di emigranti nella letteratura italiana tra Otto e Novecento (ETS,2020). He also edited E. De Amicis’s La vita militare (Studium, 2012).
