Salvatore J. LaGumina (November 21, 1928–December 31, 2023)

Sal LaGumina, professor emeritus of history and director of the Center for Italian American Studies at Nassau Community College, founding member of the American Italian Historical Association (today the Italian American Studies Association), and an extraordinarily productive scholar (having written more than twenty books and more than one hundred scholarly articles) passed away on New Year's Eve 2023, at the age of ninety-five, after a brief illness. In forging a scientific and systemic project of Italian American studies, one that was rigorous and willing to engage in revision at a time when it was not popular to do so in academia, LaGumina can be seen as heir to Giovanni Schiavo (1898–1983), whom he cited in his own work.Born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1928 to Sicilian immigrants, LaGumina would earn a bachelor's degree from Duquesne University and a master's and doctorate (1966) from St. John's University in Queens, New York. His doctoral dissertation, highlighting Vito Marcantonio's cultural and ethnic background, was published as Vito Marcantonio: The People's Politician in 1969. His research and writing went on to cover a wide range of subjects, from anti-Italian discrimination to—in his final work—the participation of Italian Americans in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS, the forerunner of the CIA). The overarching framework, though, was always the experiences of Italian American immigrants and their children in the wider American culture. He became the foremost historian of Italian Americans on his adoptive Long Island, a history that could not be divorced from the urban New York City experience.Although he did not draw attention to it, LaGumina was also chronicling the history of his own generation. It was a generation that lived through the Great Depression, discrimination, World War II, postwar prosperity and Cold War anxieties, suburban culture, the 1960s, and contested political and cultural battles that continue to this day. It was a generation that was the last link to a world now lost, represented, in this excerpt, by both the death of his father when Salvatore was ten and the influence of his indomitable mother: Our neighborhood was quite familiar with the harsh struggle to earn a living and the travails of families coping with the deaths of breadwinners, as in the case of my father, whose three-year bout with cancer cost him his life in 1938. For those who could afford it, wakes were conducted in formal funeral parlors; however, for those who could not, as in our case, wakes were conducted at home where a casket surrounded by floral displays was set up in the parlor. . . . At nighttime my sister, brother and I were put to bed where before we fell asleep, we could still hear their low voices trying to comfort my sobbing mother. Thus, this encounter with poverty and death struck my family as it left my mother destitute and alone to deal with the formidable challenge of bringing up three small children ranging in ages from seven to ten. It seemed enormously bleak. . . . My Sicilian mother, however, was of the old school—a woman of implacable courage and remarkable fortitude. . . . [Her deep faith and experiences in Sicily] well prepared her to make the sacrifices necessary to carry on. We followed her lead. (LaGumina 2006, 22–23)In 1966, LaGumina was one of a small group of scholars that included Rudolph J. Vecoli, Silvano Tomasi, Frank Cordasco, Louis Silveri, and Leonard Covello, who met at the LaGuardia Memorial House in New York City to establish the American Italian Historical Association (AIHA), an organization that helped lay the groundwork for the interdisciplinary field of Italian American studies. LaGumina chaired the first AIHA conference, which took place in October 1968 at the Casa Italiana of Columbia University, and he edited the first volume of conference proceedings. He served the association in many capacities, including as president, vice president, member of the executive council, editor of the proceedings of the annual conference, and founder and president of the association's Long Island regional chapter. He actively served the LI chapter for many years, until his final illness. LaGumina also worked closely with national organizations, including the National Italian American Foundation and the Commission for Social Justice of the Order Sons of Italy in America, for which he held the position of college liaison. His influence led to the preservation of Italian American memorabilia and artifacts at archival centers including the Center for Migration Studies in Staten Island and the Immigration History Research Center at the University of Minnesota. He was invited to lecture at many universities, including Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Fordham, Rutgers, the Catholic University of America, the New School for Social Research, and the CUNY Graduate School. He lectured in Italy and spoke as a frequent guest on radio and television documentaries.In his scholarly work, publications, teaching, and public lectures, LaGumina distinguished the field of Italian American studies from that of Italian studies, insisting that it was critical for a fuller understanding of American history. As Frank Cavaioli described the mission: In undertaking this work we would not only become knowledgeable regarding the Italian American ethnic experience, but even more important add a significant dimension of the American experience that had hitherto been dimly understood and largely ignored. To concentrate on the experiences of Italian Americans was a concept not easily understood, being readily confused and identified with studying the culture and language of Italy. While the latter estimable goal was willingly acknowledged, the history of Americans of Italian descent received lesser attention. It was precisely to fill the gap of knowledge and information about Italian Americans that animated the founders of the AIHA and that served as its raison d’être. Thus, while we honored and encouraged the study of Italian culture and language, we viewed that interest not as an end in itself but as a vital background for understanding the heritage of Americans of Italian descent. (Cavaioli 2000, 22)LaGumina lectured extensively at major American universities and abroad and authored and coedited numerous books and articles on this subject. An early work, Wop: A Documentary History of Anti Italian Discrimination (1973), was the first authoritative book on discrimination against Italian Americans and was reprinted by Guernica Editions in 1999; it is still considered the definitive work on the topic. Among the other books he authored or edited are From Steerage to Suburbs: Long Island Italians; The Italian American Experience: An Encyclopedia; and The Humble and the Heroic: Wartime Italian Americans. He described The Humble and the Heroic, a detailed examination of the role Italian Americans played during World War II and a winner of the Pietro di Donato/John Fante Literary Award, as a “labor of love” dedicated to Italian Americans, including many of his own friends, who served in the armed forces during that conflict or participated in the war effort at home. As Cavaioli, his good friend and fellow historian, commented, “It is a study from the heart and the mind as he weaves primary source accounts of ordinary and extraordinary people” (Cavaioli 2008, 359–360).Other works authored include An Album of the Italian American; The Ethnic Dimension in American Society; The Immigrants Speak: The Italian Americans Tell Their Story; New York at Mid-Century: The Impellitteri Years; Long Island Italians; Hollywood's Italians: From Periphery to Prominenti; and The Great Earthquake: America Comes to Messina's Rescue.In 2015, LaGumina visited Sicily and returned to his parents’ hometown of Pioppo, a small town outside of Palermo, where he met his first cousins, who were still living there. In 2016, as editor of the Italian and Italian American Studies series with Palgrave Macmillan, I was proud to publish his last book, The Office of Strategic Services and Italian Americans: The Untold History. Two years later, his essay “Discrimination, Prejudice and Italian American History” (2018), which recapped a career of scholarship, appeared in The Routledge History of Italian Americans.Sal LaGumina was an extraordinarily humble and gracious friend. When he received his PhD, his son John asked what the letters meant. With characteristic humor and humility, he dryly replied, “Post Hole Digger.” For many decades he was a devoted parishioner of St. Rose of Lima R.C. Church in Massapequa and a member of the Dell'Assunta Society in Westbury. He was recognized with the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society of Catholic Social Scientists.The Salvatore J. LaGumina Scholarship was established at Nassau Community College for students interested in studying Italian American history and going on to a four-year academic institution. In September 2009, LaGumina donated his archive (consisting of forty-four linear feet of documents) to Stony Brook University, where it is housed at the Melville Library.1An indefatigable researcher and a lucid writer, LaGumina wrote for both the academy and a wider audience. In an appreciation from 2008, Cavaioli wrote that LaGumina's “work in creating a modern scientific canon of Italian American historiography has forever changed the way contemporary history is written and understood” (Cavaioli 2008, 360). Another topic LaGumina's work dealt with was the idea that, in moving from cities and urban centers to the suburbs, Italian Americans did not enter the “twilight of ethnicity” but that their ethnicity evolved over time. Unfailingly polite, kind, and generous, he assisted three generations of Italian American historians and scholars. In insisting that the American experience could not be fully understood apart from the history of immigration and by moving beyond filiopietism to the rigors of evidence, documents, and critical historical narrative, Salvatore J. LaGumina changed both American and Italian American historiography for the better

Italian Fascism and Post-war Society · Medicine

• The Routledge History of Italian Americans

  Stanislao G Pugilese, William J Connell et al.•Routledge History of Italian…•2017

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