Racism in Italy

I spent the first half century of my life in the US.

I always wondered how it feels to be an Afro-American. How do you deal with the racism?

Where do you get the strength to walk into an employment agency, knowing that you’re qualified for the job, knowing that you have experience, knowing that you’re an intelligent person, knowing that you have a good education, knowing that you make a good impression regarding your personal appearance and the way you speak, and knowing that you might not be given a job because the creep who interviews you is a racist?

How does it feel to browse around in a store with the salesclerk following you because he thinks you’re going to steal something?

How does it feel to know that you may be insulted or killed, at any moment, because the next person you encounter is a racist?

How does it feel to be trustworthy, responsible, dependable, clean, quiet, knowing that you may be denied an apartment whose rent you can easily afford, because the landlord is a racist?

I remember years ago looking for an apartment for myself and my late husband in the US. I went alone to the rental agency. As the rental agency people drove me to an apartment, the lady was telling her husband that they had had a problem with the last person because he was Italian. Who wants to rent an apartment to a Mafioso?

My name was Sorrentino then. I had told them my name. What the fuck kind of a name did those idiots think Sorrentino is?

I liked the apartment. I went back with my then fiance. When the landlady saw that my fiance was an Afro-American, she smiled politely, went upstairs and came back in less than three minutes saying that her daughter had just called and said she was getting married and wanted the apartment, so we couldn’t have it.

And even then I didn’t understand the feeling.

After 14 years of being treated like shit in Italy, I understand the feeling.

I called the police once. They heard my accent and refused to help me. I called for an ambulance once. They heard my accent and delayed so long in coming I was afraid I’d drop dead before they arrived. I’ve walked into employment agencies where I was told that no one wanted foreigners. I’ve called ads for apartments where I was told they didn’t want foreigners.

I think I’ve also finally figured out why my grandparents left Italy. I wrote a poem once talking about not knowing why they left Italy. My paternal grandparents were from Naples. They were a count and countess and knew the king personally. When I read that poem to audiences, the audience would laugh. That always pissed me off. It’s not a lie. It’s the truth. Kings are human beings who have relatives, friends, and personal obligations. My grandfather was a ward of the king.

So why did my grandparents leave Italy? Because Italy is not user friendly. You need permission from the government to do anything. It would take a whole essay to explain what you have to do, and how much you have to pay, just to start a little poetry magazine. When I tell Italians that anyone in the US can start a magazine any time, without fees or permissions, from one day to the next, they’re shocked and they don’t believe me.

I write. I don’t know what else to do. That’s even why I started writing when I was eight years old. My mother had just died and I didn’t know what else to do.

But writing doesn’t find you an apartment. Half the time, it doesn’t even get you any respect.

I feel like screaming to all of them: Look at me, you assholes. Are you really too stupid to figure out that I’m a human being? Or are you just insane?

I’m writing this at home. I just received a certified letter from my landlady’s lawyer. She wants to take me to court. My own lawyer doesn’t answer his phone and doesn’t have an answering machine.

So what do I do now?

knowledge is power and power comes from money

I went to academia.edu and saw that there are 15 recently uploaded papers that mention my name.

It also says on their site "Academia's mission is to make every scholarly and scientific paper available for free on the internet..."

When I click on "get started" (which is right below this "free" message) I'm shown a box in which I have to put my credit card information and pay them 79 euros before I can see these papers that are available for free.

I'm just a high school drop out. Are there any intellectuals out there who can tell me what "free" means in the academic community?

I looked on their site for a way to contact them but I can't find anything.

Another question, just out of curiosity, does everyone think that everyone who has access to the internet can afford all this stuff?

All my books are currently unavailable, but . . .

"You'll never have me like you want me," "Neither Seen nor Heard," and "Beyond the Leash" are unavailable right now, but they'll be back.

Great books finally in paper

PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 30th JULY 2017
Anthony Valerio is proud to announce publication of the ...
First Print Edition of IMMIGRANTS, according to Anthony Valerio – Volumes I & II.
Discover and enjoy 36 stories of famous and not-so-famous men, women and canines and felines who found refuge in a place not their home. The author says: "...the individual pieces contained herein illustrate how in fact and imagination we all derive from one another, learn from one another, and share with one another."
Contributions from professional authors, critics and teachers such as Annie Gottlieb, Anthony Valerio, Rose Romano, and Edvige Giunta.

Critics are saying:
“This collection of portraits of immigrants includes migrations past and present that are loomed together in a great tapestry of stories. Like all great tapestries, not all the figures featured are human. That is why some of the immigrants are animals that have come to North America by way of many routes, some refugees of war. The lives brought together in IMMIGRANTS have much to teach us of “humanity” in many forms. --Professor E. Nerenberg, Wesleyan University
“Valerio writes with a light and deft touch, but what he recounts is heart-felt and very real.”—Professor Rebecca West, University of Chicago
“Valerio really knows both his history and his subject very well. No less important is the fact that he is a first-rate writer who can really tell a good story."--Bestsellers
"A wonderful read."--Larry King, USA Today
“The book has zest, high humor, madness, detached reflection, and pathos.” --Los Angeles Times
IMMIGRANTS – Volumes I &II is on sale wherever books are sold.

Beyond the Leash reviewed by a man who hates to write reviews.

A few words about Rose Romano’s new novel Beyond the Leash.
As I said, I cannot for the life of me or enough money write a book review.
Ever read a writer and feel close? I feel so close to Rose Romano’s prose work that they are the part of me that I can never have. Riotous, wise voice of a sister prosest who I meet only on her pages. Who has gone places I could not. To move to Italy from Brooklyn without a net. The bar is higher with Ms Romano.
I mean, I’m supposed to be a funny writer and practically nothing makes me laugh. Especially with Rose Romano’s latest, Beyond the Leash, I’m laughing all the time. Sometimes belly-laughing which exacerbates my arthritic condition. A smile of enjoyment and appreciation.
W.C. Fields, Charlie Chaplin, Abbot and Costello and Richard Pryor had nothing on Rose Romano!
The protagonist Alice’s kitty wants to go beyond her leash. In her last two novels, Ms. Romano has gone beyond the leash of subject matter, language, edginess of the Italian-American writers before her. Her new address, her new country carry with them her own singular, powerful, unsafe, universal voice.
In this work, Rose Romano is simultaneously on and beyond the leash.
I recall a book by Andy Warhol titled “A,” a long, tedious book about the humdrum of daily life. Downtime. Alice shares a modest apartment with housemates. Separate rooms, common kitchen. Their interactions are hysterical.
You find practical every device a writer can employ. Alice writes letters to her dead husband. The epistolary switches to omniscient Third Person. To First Person. A rich universe of angles.
The great comics often make mediocre films. Jackie Gleason, Richard Pryor come to mind. Rose Romano can do a great stand-up comic routine of two hundred pages.
But how can a diagnosis of cancer like Alice gets make you laugh? That’s the genius of genius. That’s what Beyond the Leash does.
As in her previous novel You can’t have me like you want me, the Virgin Mary is a character. She is Alice’s companion, confidante, her consigliere. Here’s a bit from the book:
The Virgin Mary was waiting on Alice’s bed waiting for her.
“Where have you been? You didn’t come to visit me once while I was in the hospital,” Alice said…
“We’ve already had this conversation. In fact, over the years, we’ve done different versions of this conversation 576 times. It’s not my fault if you didn’t see me.”
“But that’s when I need you most! When I don’t see you!”
In this novel, the Virgin Mary has more of a presence, a larger part, more lines, than in her previous appearance in Rose Romano’s previous novel. At this rate, god only knows, maybe one day the Virgin Mary will have her own book.
On second thought, that may not work. The Virgin Mary would be lost without Rose Romano.
I recall when teaching the review form--inform readers why they should see the film, the show, buy the book.
Here’s the link to this wonderful book:

Here’s the link to this wonderful book:

Beyond the Leash

The arsenic in the drinking water in the entire province of Viterbo is over the level permitted by the European Union, enough to cause serious health problems, including lymphoma, a type of cancer. There are about 1,000 different kinds of…

amazon.com

Gillan invents a new type of copyright infringement

The Wop Factor was published by malafemmina press and not by Lincoln Springs Press, as Maria Gillan claims. I was living in Italy when I published it and asked Gillan to hold the books in her garage. She agreed.
I've been finding listings of TWF on the internet, saying that it was published by LSP. I found an essay about me written by Fred Gardaphe with a bibliography of only two books that listed TWF as having been published by LSP. We were already exchanging emails and I wrote to ask why he listed LSP as the publisher. He said he had someone put together the bibliography and they put LSP because there was an address for LSP and there was no address for malafemmina press.
I asked Fred to scan the copyright page of his copy and send it to me as an attachment to an email. He did. And it said on his copyright page: “The Wop Factor is published by malafemmina press.”
I wrote to Fred and said that it says on the copyright page “The Wop Factor is published by malafemmina press.” I asked him whether that shouldn't take precedence over an address. Although he answered that email, he didn't answer that question.
All these years, Gillan has been telling people that the book was published by LSP and that I pulled the book from her press. As a consequence, no one reviewed it, no one ordered it, no one sold or bought it.
I sent Gillan a PM on fb asking her why she was telling people she had published The Wop Factor. She said she did publish The Wop Factor but if I wanted to think that malafemmina press published it, that wasn't a problem for her.
I asked her to send me a copy of the publishing agreement. That was about a week ago. [That is, a week before I put this post on Facebook, which was a few months ago.] Her only response was to delete my fb friendship.
Every copy of the book says, on the copyright page “The Wop Factor is published by malafemmina press.” Why would it say that if it was published by LSP?
Gillan admits that she gave me the whole edition—publishers do not give authors the whole edition of a book, unless they pay for it. She would only have given me those books if I had published them, which I did and at my own expense.
Did she print another edition? If so, what happened to the books? Did she sell them? If she sold them, why didn't she pay me royalties? We were in touch for three years when I got back from Italy—plenty of time to send me a royalty check. I was her friend on fb from May to a week ago—plenty of time to send a royalty check.
Did she print this “ghost” edition and then just throw all the books away? Or did they just vanish?
Nothing she says makes sense. She contradicts herself and lies. She seems to think she can determine reality and people will just believe what she says.

I think she needs help.

excerpt from "Beyond the Leash"

I told Kathy about the baby, about Mirella, about Mirella’s mother and how she had found the courage to go all the way to Genoa, leaving her little town in Sicily for the first time in her life.

I don’t know why I wasn’t expecting it, but Kathy made a little negative face.

“That’s so sad,” she said. “How could somebody be afraid to leave their town?”

“That’s what they’re taught all their lives. That’s what the culture is like. Everyone around them says it’s normal. She’s never even had a job.”

“But it’s not normal. My mother went to Torino by herself. Then she went to the United States. She had a job. What’s the big deal about getting a job?”

“That’s just exactly the point,” I said. “This is what American feminists don’t understand. Okay, it’s unfortunate that she’s afraid. But the point is, she is afraid. She was terrified. But she did it any-way. That took guts. I’d like to know how many American feminists would have the nerve to do something they’re terrified of doing, something that everybody always told them was bad, just because they think it’s the right thing to do. Getting a job in a culture that encourages you to get a job, and tells you you’re inferior if you don’t have a job, is not exactly an extraordinary accomplishment that requires a great deal of courage.”

Kathy looked thoughtful for a minute.

“That’s true,” she said.

“I mean,” I said, “if you can’t resist the temptation to judge somebody, you should at least judge them in their context, not in your own.”

Kathy thought about that.

“You know what?” she said. “You should be a writer. You can see things like you’re other people.”

“I couldn’t be a writer.”

“Why not?” Kathy insisted. “All you have to do is write and you’re a writer.”

“But I have nothing to say.”

“So? Lots of writers have nothing to say.”

I told Kathy about the baby, about Mirella, about Mirella’s mother and how she had found the courage to go all the way to Genoa, leaving her little town in Sicily for the first time in her life.

I don’t know why I wasn’t expecting it, but Kathy made a little negative face.

“That’s so sad,” she said. “How could somebody be afraid to leave their town?”

“That’s what they’re taught all their lives. That’s what the culture is like. Everyone around them says it’s normal. She’s never even had a job.”

“But it’s not normal. My mother went to Torino by herself. Then she went to the United States. She had a job. What’s the big deal about getting a job?”

“That’s just exactly the point,” I said. “This is what American feminists don’t understand. Okay, it’s unfortunate that she’s afraid. But the point is, she is afraid. She was terrified. But she did it any-way. That took guts. I’d like to know how many American feminists would have the nerve to do something they’re terrified of doing, something that everybody always told them was bad, just because they think it’s the right thing to do. Getting a job in a culture that encourages you to get a job, and tells you you’re inferior if you don’t have a job, is not exactly an extraordinary accomplishment that requires a great deal of courage.”

Kathy looked thoughtful for a minute.

“That’s true,” she said.

“I mean,” I said, “if you can’t resist the temptation to judge somebody, you should at least judge them in their context, not in your own.”

Kathy thought about that.

“You know what?” she said. “You should be a writer. You can see things like you’re other people.”

“I couldn’t be a writer.”

“Why not?” Kathy insisted. “All you have to do is write and you’re a writer.”

“But I have nothing to say.”

“So? Lots of writers have nothing to say.”

I smiled. But that wasn’t really what I meant. It’s just that my life has been so ordinary that nothing I’ve experienced would be interesting to write about. I’d have to do research, research about history, about wars, about other cities and countries, about laws, about terrible diseases, about life-threatening illnesses, about different cultures, about psychology and maybe even religion. All I really know is what’s happened right in front of my face and none of that is worth writing down.