Maria Mazziotti Gillan – författare

This anthology gathers fiction, poetry, memoirs, oral histories, and journalistic pieces by some of the best writers to chronicle the Italian American experience in the Garden State. These works focus on ethnic identity and the distinctive culture of New Jersey, which has long been home to a large and vital Italian American community.Filled with passion, humor, and grace, these writings depict a variety of experiences, including poignant but failed attempts at conformity and the alienation often felt by ethnic Americans. The authors also speak of the strength gained through the preservation of their communities and the realization that it is often the appreciation of their heritage that helps them to succeed. Although presented from the vantage point of only one ethnic group, this book addresses in microcosm the complexities of American identity, depicting situations and conveying emotions that will resonate with people of all immigrant ancestries.Among the many writers featured are Gay Talese, Bill Ervolino, Tom Perrotta, Louise DeSalvo, Carole Mazo, Diane di Prima, and Maria Laurino. Each of the contributors provides a fresh perspective on the diversity, complexity, and richness of the Italian American experience.Publication of this book is made possible in part by a grant from the Institute of Italian and Italian American Heritage Studies, State of New Jersey.

In stories and poems that explore how our society shapes us, Identity Lessons features a wide array of ethnic perspectives on growing up in America. Leading the reader into the living-rooms, boardrooms, classrooms, and movie houses of America, distinguished writers from all points of the American ethnic landscape shed light on the space between conformity and difference, and examine the struggle between the need to belong and the pull of one''s cultural roots. With insight, wit, and poignancy, the contributors to this anthology recall their attempts to reconcile family from the old country with the powerful messages about race, gender and class confronting them in their new surroundings. A collection of superb and moving writing, Identity Lessons deconstructs conceptions of personal and national identity, and forms an indispensable primer for understanding our cultural selves.

A multicultural array of poets explore what it is means to be American This powerful and moving collection of poems stretches across the boundaries of skin color, language, ethnicity, and religion to give voice to the lives and experiences of ethnic Americans. With extraordinary honesty, dignity, and insight, these poems address common themes of assimilation, communication, and self-perception. In recording everyday life in our many American cultures, they displace the myths and stereotypes that pervade our culture.Unsettling America includes work by: Amiri BarakaChitra Banerjee DivakaruniRita DoveLouise ErdichJessica HagedornJoy HarjoGarrett HongoLi-Young LeePat MoraNaomi Shihab NyeMarye PercyIshmael ReedAlberto RiosNtozake ShangeGary SotoLawrence FerlinghettiNellie WongDavid HernandezMary TallMountain ...and many more.

Stories navigating the commplicated terrain of race in America, from acclaimed writers like Toni Morrison, E.L. Doctorow, Sandra Cisneros, Sherman Alexie, and Amy TanThe editors who brought us Unsettling America and Identity Lessons have compiled a short-story anthology that focuses on themes of racial and ethnic assimilation. With humor, passion, and grace, the contributors lay bare poignant attempts at conformity and the alienation sometimes experienced by ethnic Americans. But they also tell of the strength gained through the preservation of their communities, and the realization that it was often their difference from the norm that helped them to succeed. In pieces suggesting that American identity is far from settled, these writers illustrate the diversity that is the source of both the nation''s great discord and infinite promise."These beautiful stories radiate with the poignant, ingenious ways young people come to terms with their ethnic identities, negotiating their families, school, friends and their futures . . . This exemplary collection fulfills the editors'' aims: to open dialogue and encourage the telling of difficult, adaptive or affirming life experiences." -Publisher''s Weekly

Constructed in the form of a memoir, these poems take on an emotional tone as the author details the story of her life. The collection is populated by her memories of childhood, courtships and marriage, family illness, children, and grandchildren. At its core is a woman struggling to deal with all the complexities of love and the difficulties of achieving compassion and tenderness in the face of adversity. Brave, honest, and beautiful, these poems shed new light on what it means to be human.

Written to read like a memoir, this collection of poetry details the life of a family across generations and provides a moving and haunting portrait of the Italian mother who is the center around which this family revolves. But this is much more than a story about ethnicity; it transcends any single identity and explores instead the many ways in which people learn to identify themselves.

Mari Mazziotti Gillan's new book, When the Stars were Still Visible, asks us to 'remember.'  In her example, memories start 'on the back steps of the six-family tenement / on 5th Avenue in Paterson' in 1944, her father dressed 'as a devil for a costume party / at the SocietÀ Cilentana'; this opens 'so many memories' which 'swirl / like bits of color in a kaleidoscope':  of Mrs Gianelli 'who always fainted when she got upset' and of 'Zio Guillermo's garden / with tomatoes and zucchini and corn' which is 'years later / covered with asphalt and garages.'  The poet tells us that 'children of immigrants pick up bits and pieces / over the years to create a picture' ('The Children of Immigrants'), that 'On the street where I grew up / everyone knew everyone else.  / We knew each other's secrets' ('Carrying Their Hometowns to Paterson'), and, invoking Eliot, that they wore faces that they presented to the world.  She writes about her people, her community, and the comfort of soothing things 'beckoning me home' ('Even After All These Years'), the way, perhaps, that all poetry should.