Documentary Film Review: I Speak Arabic: The Immigrant Experience in American Schools Through the Eyes of Arabic Speakers. Diana Scalera.

2004 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 76-78
Author(s):  
Sonia S'hiri
Keyword(s):  
Documentary Film ◽  
Film Review ◽  
Arabic Speakers ◽  
American Schools ◽  
Immigrant Experience

Italian-American Literature

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
American Literature ◽  
Military Service ◽  
The United States ◽  
World War ◽  
Ample Evidence ◽  
Italian Americans ◽  
Italian American ◽  
American Schools ◽  
Immigrant Experience

The earliest Italian American writers were immigrants who learned English and responded to their experience in America through poetry and prose, more often than not found in the early Italian language newspapers. Few had mastered the English language, and so their contributions to literature were not considered to be American. In fact, early-20th-century immigrants from Italy to the United States were hesitant to even to refer to themselves as Americans. The literature produced during this period provides great insights into the shaping of American identities and into the obstacles that these immigrants faced in pursuing their versions of the American Dream. The rise of Fascism in Italy of the 1920s–1940s would have a tremendous effect on those identities. One of the earliest Italian Americans to voice his opinion of Italian Fascism in his poetry was Arturo Giovannitti, who, with Joseph Ettor, had organized the famous 1912 Lawrence Mill Strike. National awareness of writers as Italian Americans would not begin until the likes of John Fante and Pietro di Donato published in the late 1930s. Fiction published prior to World War II primarily depicted the vexed immigrant experience of adjustment in America. The post–World War II years brought the arrival of more immigrants as serious producers of American art. Among the early writers were returning soldiers, such as Mario Puzo and Felix Stefanile, often the first of their families to be literate and attend American schools, especially with the help of the GI Bill. While many of the writers were busy capturing the disappearance of the immigrant generation, others were continuing the radical traditions. Government investigations into Communism through the House Committee on Un-American Activities sparked the ire of many Italian American artists. Increased mobility through military service and education in American schools brought Italian American writers into contact with the world outside of Little Italy and opened their imaginations and creativity to modernist experiments. Those who would gain recognition as members of the “Beat movement” responded to an apolitical complacency that seemed to set in directly after the war by fusing art and politics profoundly to affect America’s literary scene. During a time when the very definition of “American” was being challenged and changed, Italian American writers were busy exploring their own American histories. America’s postwar feminist movement had a strong effect on the daughters of the immigrants. Social action, the redefinition of American gender roles, and the shift from urban to suburban ethnicity became subjects of the writing of many young Italian Americans who watched as their families moved from working- to middle-class life. Fiction produced in the 1980s and 1990s recreated the immigrant experience from the perspective of the grandchildren, who quite often reconnected to Italy to create new identities. Contemporary Italian American literature demonstrates a growing literary tradition through a variety of styles and voices. Critical studies, beginning with Rose Basile Green’s The Italian American Novel (1974), reviews, the publication of anthologies, journals, and the creation of new presses are ample evidence that Italian American culture has gained understandings of its past as it develops a sense of a future.

scholarly journals Film Review: The Fruit Machine

2021 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 95-98
Author(s):  
Lynne Gouliquer ◽  
Carmen Poulin ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Documentary Film ◽  
Film Review ◽  
Dark Period ◽  
Canadian History ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
Democratic State ◽  
Fruit Machine

The following is a review of The Fruit Machine documentary film directed by Sara Fodey. This documentary sheds light on a dark period in Canadian history. Using the testimonials of survivors and historical expert, The Fruit Machine film illustrates how a democratic state could legally wage a discriminatory campaign against its own citizens whose only crime was being (or suspected to be) “homosexual.” For fifty years, Canadian state institutions hunted down and interrogated thousands of individuals suspected of homosexuality. This film is a must see.

Documentary Film Review

1979 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 423-424
Author(s):  
Craig A. Everett
Keyword(s):  
Documentary Film ◽  
Film Review

Documentary Film Review

2011 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 167-168
Author(s):  
Eva Knoll
Keyword(s):  
Documentary Film ◽  
Film Review

Co-Creating Museum Exhibits of the Immigrant Experience

2013 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 36-41
Author(s):  
Nadine Dangerfield ◽  
Ennis Barbery
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
Documentary Film ◽  
Museum Exhibits ◽  
The Third ◽  
Darkened Room ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Immigrant Experience

On the evening of January 28, 2013 we—the authors—sat in a darkened room at the local library in Hyattsville, Maryland, waiting a little anxiously for the third documentary film of the evening. We did not necessarily expect this film to be the most entertaining or thought-provoking, but it was more meaningful to us because we had been a part of its creation. The faces that would soon be moving across the screen were familiar. They were people we had interviewed, and, in some cases, these interviewees had become our friends. The participants, whose stories formed the subject matter of the film, saturated the sterile-sounding term "the immigrant experience" with strong individual voices and poignant details from their lives. Some of these participants were in the audience.

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