Old World daughter, New World mother
Subtitle: an education in love & freedom
By: Maria Laurino.
Publisher: W.W. Norton & Co.
Published: 2009
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 223
ISBN-13: 9780393057287
Subjects: Laurino, Maria; Laurino, Maria -- Family; Italian Americans -- Biography; Italian American women -- Biography; Mothers and daughters -- United States -- Case studies; Children of immigrants -- United States -- Case studies; Intergenerational relations -- United States -- Case studies; Italian Americans -- Ethnic identity -- Case studies; Feminism -- United States -- Case studies
Genres: Biography.; Case studies.
Description: A warm, smart, and witty personal investigation of ethnicity and womanhood.

In the second-generation immigrant home where Maria Laurino grew up, “independent” was a dirty word and “sacrifice” was the ideal and reality of motherhood. But out in the world, Mary Tyler Moore was throwing her hat in the air, personifying the excitement and opportunities of the freedom-loving American career woman. How, then, to reconcile one’s inner Livia Soprano—the archetypal ethnic mother—with a feminist icon?

Combining lived experience with research and reporting on our contemporary work-family dilemmas, Laurino brews an unusual and affirming blend of contemporary and traditional values. No other book has attempted to discuss feminism through the prism of ethnic identity, or to merge the personal and the analytical with such a passionate and intelligent literary voice. Prizing both individual freedom and an Old World in which the dependent young and old are cherished, Laurino makes clear how much the New World offers and how much it has yet to learn.