THE BOOK
L’America is the first book of a series charting the stories of three emigrant families who made a voyage in 1915 to the land of the free.
L’America follows the journey of three families who board the Santa Ana in 1915 through the port of Naples. For thirteen days, they share brutal passage in steerage. But the voyage is only the beginning of their trials. Eventually, they settle in New York City, Cleveland, and Monterey, California.
The confused and frightened Italian in America is embodied in the lives of Giuseppe Mosca, Aldo Grimaldi and Paolo LaChimia, as they make their way in a world in conflict with their heritage. In the first book, Adagio con Fear, the three families will endure the harsh reality of discrimination, World War, generational conflict, socialism, anarchism, Fascism, Carlo Tresca, and Sacco and Vanzetti. In the second book, Adagio con Promise, the story will continue as their descendants face the complexities of Mussolini, “enemy alien” labels, West Coast relocation, and even internment.
In the end, however, this is not simply a story of survival. The children of the three families who made that voyage in 1915, though very different in experience and response, will return to us volumes of fortitude, character, and culture, ultimately establishing their place in the tapestry they once called L’America.
