The Story of My People: From Rural Southern Italy to Mainstream America

Literary Nonfiction. Italian American Studies. "In THE STORY OF MY PEOPLE, Mario Mignone gives eloquent testimony to the hopes, fears, struggles and ultimate triumph of his family's extraordinary journey from rural Italy to the American Dream. He also gives a poignant voice to the millions of other immigrants who left the Mezzogiorno for L'America. In the process, he shows how to perform the critical balancing act of embracing the future while preserving the past."— Stanislao G. Pugliese, Hofstra University

Mario Mignone is the founder and director of the Center for Italian Studies at Stony Brook University. He is director of student exchange programs with University of Rome "La Sapienza" and University of Messina. Mignone served as chairman of the department of French and Italian at Stony Brook for nine years, founded the Association of Italian American Educators and served as its first president. He is a former president of the Long Island Chapter of the American Association of Teachers of Italian.