A Northwestern University journalism student, professor and 2011 graduate are driving 13,500 miles around the United States between Sept. 18 and Dec. 11 for a project titled “Traveling with Twain in Search of America’s Identity.” The three will follow the path that a young Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) took by stagecoach, steamship and train during trips east to New York, south to New Orleans and west to San Francisco during the 1850s and 1860s; they will interview a variety of Americans about race, immigration-status and other current identity issues and talk with members of a representative American family, the Ghigliones, that first immigrated to the United States from northern Italy in the 1870s. Read more >>
I kept thinking about race as we walked along Taylor Street in what’s left of Chicago’s Little Italy. Where Italian businesses once stood, LA Tan, Yummy Thai, CousCous and an Irish bar, Drum & Monkey, now … Read more
It’s easy to miss the hulking brick building on Broadway when you’re in a hurry to get to Argyle, the busy hub of the Vietnamese refugee community in North Chicago. Nicknamed “New Chinatown” by Chicagoans, Argyle … Read more
From bowling and dancing trophies to a sign that says “Don’t Mistake Me For That Nice Little Old Lady,” almost 80 years of living cover every inch of the tiny living room in Audrey Ghiglione Bender’s … Read more
The search for the Ghigliones, what I like to think of as a representative immigrant family from Mark Twain’s era, began for me in St. Louis. There I discovered two branches of the local Ghigliones, the … Read more
The Hill, a 50-square-block area in South St. Louis, is the city’s Italian neighborhood. On Sunday, September 25, 2011, the St. Ambrose school cafeteria hosted a ravioli dinner from noon to 6 p.m. to benefit the … Read more
