Italian-Americans compose one of the largest ethnic groups in the United States, numbering more than 14 million in the 1990 census. Though they have often been portrayed in fiction and film, these images are often based on stereotypes not borne out among the immigrant and assimilated population.

The interplay of these variables, in tension with American and Canadian society, contextualizes New World traditions - from the archvillas of Toronto, Canada, to the festival foods of Italians in Indiana, the sung villanella of Calabrians in New York, cultural stereotypes of Italians in Northern California, the "invention" of Italy by 1920s Philadelphians, and the multiple meanings of a grotto shrine on Staten Island. These essays will set a new standard for Italian American folklore scholarship.

Sunday dinners, basement kitchens, and backyard gardens are everyday cultural entities long associated with Italian Americans, yet the general perception of them remains superficial and stereotypical at best. For many people, these scenarios trigger ingrained assumptions about individuals' beliefs, politics, aesthetics, values, and behaviors that leave little room for nuance and elaboration. This collection of essays explores local knowledge and aesthetic practices, often marked as "folklore," as sources for creativity and meaning in Italian-American lives. As the contributors demonstrate, folklore provides contemporary scholars with occasions for observing and interpreting behaviors and objects as part of lived experiences. Its study provides new ways of understanding how individuals and groups reproduce and contest identities and ideologies through expressive means. Italian Folk offers an opportunity to reexamine and rethink what we know about Italian Americans. The contributors to this unique book discuss historic and contemporary cultural expressions and religious practices from various parts of the United States and Canada to examine how they operate at local, national, and transnational levels. The essays attest to people's ability and willingness to create and reproduce certain cultural modes that connect them to social entities such as the family, the neighborhood, and the amorphous and fleeting communities that emerge in large-scale festivals and now on the Internet. Italian Americans abandon, reproduce, and/or revive various cultural elements in relationship to ever-shifting political, economic, and social conditions. The results are dynamic, hybrid cultural forms such as valtaro accordion music, Sicilian oral poetry, a Columbus Day parade, and witchcraft (stregheria). By taking a closer look and an ethnographic approach to expressive behavior, we see that Italian-American identity is far from being a linear path of assimilation from Italian immigrant to American of Italian descent but is instead fraught with conflict, negotiation, and creative solutions. Together, these essays illustrate how folklore is evoked in the continual process of identity revaluation and reformation.

Gathers fairy tales told by Clementina Todesco, an Italian immigrant, offers background information about her life in Italy and America, and explains how and when the tales were told

This book introduces readers to a wide range of interpretations that take oral history and folklore as the premise with a focus on Italian and Italian American culture in disciplines such as history, ethnography, memoir, art, and music.