Existence, migration, history -- One: con/texts before the journeys: migration, narration, and historical identities -- Two: dabblers, small fry, Canon fodder: problems and perspectives in Italian American literary history -- Three: the silence of subalterns: contact, conflict, consolidation during the first wave (1880s-1913) -- Four: places, processes, positions in Italian American poetry and poetics -- Five: Anthony Valerio and the refashioning of an American idol -- Six: naming identity in the poetry of Maria Mazziotti Gillan -- Sven: the historical poetics of Robert Viscusi -- For a topological critique of Italian American culture