Linciati: Lynchings of Italians in America

Heather Hartley, Pennsylvania State University

Heather Hartley will present and discuss Linciati, her video about the story of prejudice and violence against Italian immigrants and Italian Americans in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  Her documentary examines the social, economic and historical causes of lynching of Italians and links this brutality to violence experienced by other ethnic and racial minorities in the United States.  Linciati presents the collision of the hopes, dreams, and traditions of Italian immigrants with the economic and political changes and long-standing racial hostilities of post-Civil War America.