Valle, Gina, ed. Echoes of Growing Up Italian: Women’s Stories from Across North America.

Gina Valle masterfully edited this valuable anthology choosing a variety of tales that exemplify the complex daily negotiations and choices women from the Italian North American diaspora have made to gingerly balance two cultures and two value systems within two completely different societies: the Old World and the New.The theme of duality is the thread that connects each tale, written from the perspective of daughters, wives, mothers, sisters, nieces, and granddaughters who were born in either Italy or North America.The stories range from nostalgic reflections, humorous compromises, frustrating critiques, heartbreaking secret revelations, and transformative discoveries.The reader is offered rare glimpses into the private vignettes of Italian immigrant households and their complex nature.The immigrant home was a gateway back to the Old World where traditional values, beliefs, and cultural practices protected the family against the unknown and starkly different North American society.In this realm, parents, particularly fathers, freely dictated the lives of their children based on honour, respect, and sacrifice.Moreover, these values and codes of conduct were more restrictive than constructive, especially towards females.Elena Figliomeni's perceptive story, "When in America, " shows how she was prevented from taking extracurricular activities such as singing or dancing and taught how to cook and sew at home by her aunt.Her parents' reasoning was that no one loved her as much as they did.Yet, once these women crossed the threshold into North American society to attend school and work, they developed dual lives."The Name Game, " by Antonella Fanella, perfectly exemplifies this: at home she was Antonella, who ate tagliatelle and polenta, but at school, she was Anne, who ate egg salad on white bread.Moreover, she spoke in dialect to her parents but English whenever her friends were around.Another symbol of duality many children of Italian immigrants can relate to is presented in the delightful tale "The Undershirt, " by Caterina Edwards Loverso.The simple cotton or woolen undergarment becomes a badgering reminder of the old-world values of the Italian parents.Immigrant households were more of a dictatorship than a democracy where clashes and acts of defiance took place."Seeds of Knowledge, " by Teresa C. Luciani, shows how mother and daughter are worlds apart: two