As he lovingly did in his book on Boston's North End in Portrait of an Italian American Neighborhood
, Riccio narrates the history of New Haven through the stories and photos of the Italian-Americans who lived in and helped build the city. Be it the Annex, Wooster Square or Legion Avenue, Italians had lived and worked there since the first wave of immigration in the late 19th century. Riccio divides the story into chapters that encapsulate moments in history: "The Journey to America: Life on the Ships," "A New Life in New Haven," "The Depression in New Haven," "Highways and Urban Renewal: New Haven Changed Forever." The oral test to get citizenship in the U.S. was a terrifying ordeal, as many of these stories attest, and in one, a gentleman sweating profusely, is asked by the judge, "What flies above the court house?" The judge expects the answer to be "the American flag," but the nervous gentleman aptly replies, "pigeons." Even among Italians, there was a division between northerners and southerners (a large portion of whom hailed from Campania), with the minority of northerners looking down on the majority who came from the mezzogiorno
. These are not always your stereotypical portraits of big happy Italian families, but instead, stories of the struggles Italian-Americans endured—and in several ways their stories are the stories of so many of those who immigrated to this country. (June)
