I am so enjoying a book, The Reverse Immigrant, that I downloaded from Amazon to my Kindle. It's a personal account of a second generation American being summoned emotionally to his ancestral town after having raised kiids, taught law and run an Italian food import business. It's an introspective journey chock-full of personal experiences -- many of them humorous. He talks about cultural differences (e.g. from an Italian-American perspective), history, food, and the challenges of uprooting himself for something more or different. He is particularly articlulate on the mafia and how the stereotypes in modern American culture drive perceptions of misunderstood Sicilians. He talks about the good, the bad and the ugly on this topic and even explains the opportunist role they played for the American liberators during WW2. He also relates some fairly poignant, if not barbaric, little known episodes of discrimination at the time his family arrived in the states at the turn of the last century. Most of all, it's a story of reconnection. It's an easy read and quite enjoyable. I recommend it highly. Tom
