The American Dream

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Written and produced by John Maggio and narrated by Academy Award-nominated actor Stanley Tucci, “The Italian Americans” explores the evolution of the Italian community, from “outsiders” in the late nineteenth viewed with suspicion and mistrust to some of the most prominent leaders of business, politics and the arts today. This film begins in postwar America, when Italian Americans moved to the suburbs and entered the middle-class. But even as crooners such as Frank Sinatra defined cool, they were haunted by accusations of Mafia ties reinforced in the media by Mario Puzo’s “The Godfather.” Over the next decades, Governor Mario Cuomo achieved success; Antonin Scalia became the first Italian American on the Supreme Court, and Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi was elected Speaker of the House of Representatives. But have Italian Americans finally shed the old stereotypes and become fully accepted in America? Distributed by PBS Distributions.