Literary Nonfiction. This book includes essays on the phenomenon of the "guido": its origins and its relationship to the Italian/American community. The writers share their own views on a phenomenon that, in December 2009/January 2010, was filling newspapers and television programs, in reaction to the then new reality show Jersey Shore. The community's "dirty laundry" was finally aired in public, without maintaining the convention of bella figura, as a modern and pluralistic community does and should do.

This book analyzes intra-ethnic elections in the United States, in the circumstance of American politicians of Italian descent who ran against each other in the State of New York. This kind of race splits the ethnic group vote and neutralizes the ethnic appeal of both contenders, for neither one can use ancestry as an argument to draw votes away from the opponent. The first part examines the 2010 gubernatorial campaign between Andrew M. Cuomo and Carl P. Paladino, the highest-level intra-Italian electoral contest in contemporary times. The second part addresses the Congressional races between...