15. The 1997 American Italian Historical Association conference was devoted to an exploration of the relationship between African American and Italian American communities. See the forthcoming published proceedings of the conference, Shades of Black and White: Conflict and Collaboration Between Two Communities, edited by Ashyk and Gardaphé.

16. By tracing the historical and linguistic processes through which the concept of “whiteness” has been constructed in opposition to “blackness,” such a debate aims at destabilizing racial hierarchies and calling into question the idea of whiteness as “natural” and “civilized.” Scholars have thus exposed the way in which the manufacturing of racial tensions camoflages class tensions and leads members of economically oppressed groups to lose sight of possible fruitful political allegiances with groups that share their economic and social concerns. For more on social constructions of whiteness, in addition to Roediger, see Dyer and Ignatiev.

17. See especially Dorothy Allison, Skin: Talking About Sex, Class, and Literature, and Tina De Rosa, “Career Choices Come from Listening to the Heart.”

18. Umbertina is not a memoir, or even a faithfully autobiographical novel. But the seeds of the story Barolini tells in the “Umbertina” section are to be found in an autobiographical essay, “A Circular Journey,” published in 1978, in which the author writes of her search for the story of her own grandmother Nicoletta (interview with Greenberg 100). Marguerite corresponds to Barolini’s generation, and shares some, though not by any means all, of her life experiences. However, Barolini has lamented the fact that readers tend to draw excessively literal analogies between her life and her fiction. Marguerite represents the means by which the author broadly explores the questions faced by women of her generation and background, as opposed to a faithful autobiographical stand-in. Many critics who have written about Umbertina have discussed Barolini’s use of autobiographical material. See, for example, Gardaphé’s essay “Autobiography as Piecework.” By drawing upon social, familial, and personal history in her fictional creation, Barolini has accessed some of the unique power that comes with the memoir form. As the current genre that recalls, with its popularity, the emergence of the novel—and the entrance of women into the literary arena—the memoir has proven a powerful tool, especially for women and minorities, to record traditionally unspeakable—and unspoken—stories. On the radical potential of the memoir, see Giunta, “Teaching Memoir at Jersey City State College.”

19. There is no known bedspread in Barolini’s family history (through there is a tin heart), but she still has a few items from her grandmother’s dowry, which inspired her later descriptions of Umbertina’s daughters’ trousseaus. Helen Barolini provided this information in a telephone conversation with me in July 1998.