Anthony Julian Tamburri examines the history of Italian/American writing and the concept of the hyphen as representative of the reluctance of the dominant culture to accept newcomers. He maintains that the hyphen in “Italian-American” creates a physical division between the two terms where the ideological gap should be filled Tamburri proposes instead to turn the hyphen forty-five degrees: “Italian/American.”
I would prefer that the question in my title reverberate in the ears and minds of those who will eventually pick up and read and story, poem, or play which might fall into such a category as Italian Americana