Through its collection of interpretive essays on folk culture, this book attains a depth of analysis rarely achieved in Italian American folklore scholarship. The folklife of Italian Americans is not evolving in a vacuum; it draws from dynamic specific and local as well as regional and national Italian cultural expressions.

The interplay of these variables, in tension with American and Canadian society, contextualizes New World traditions - from the archvillas of Toronto, Canada, to the festival foods of Italians in Indiana, the sung villanella of Calabrians in New York, cultural stereotypes of Italians in Northern California, the "invention" of Italy by 1920s Philadelphians, and the multiple meanings of a grotto shrine on Staten Island. These essays will set a new standard for Italian American folklore scholarship.

1. An introduction to Studies in Italian American Folklore analyzes the recently controversial figure of Christopher Columbus in Italian folk culture and considers the meaning of his commemoration. The collection includes the first comprehensive bibliography of Italian American and Canadian folklore scholarship.