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Licia Canton, Ed., Introduction by Christl Verduyn and Licia Canton. Montreal, QC: Cusmano Communications, 2002. 264 pp. $18.00 sc. [email protected]
The Dynamics of Cultural Exchange is a welcome addition to the field of Italian Canadian studies. A heterogeneous mixture of prose, poetry, drama, commentary and critical articles, this trilingual collection in English, French and Italian provides a forum for exchange between the producers of Italian-Canadiana and its critics. While the boldness of presenting some articles in their original Italian may give pause to those who are not fluent in the language, it strikingly illustrates that the business of cultural production in this country is not limited to either of its official languages, that there is indeed rewarding dialogue across linguistic lines.
While the collection may have profited from being divided into critical and creative sections, its contributors touch upon a wide variety of issues pertinent to the Italian immigrant experience. For instance, in "Pier 21 and the De-emphasization of the Cafone Class in Canada," Joseph Ranallo prefaces his analysis of the changing image of the working-class, southern Italian farmer with a personal account of his experiences at Pier 21 in Halifax, where immigrants' foreign bodies are subjected to the scrutiny of Canadian immigration officials: "examined and palpated... our semi-private body parts including our teeth, tongue, chest, eyes, hair, groin and the like. I wondered how we could have remained so passive and compliant while total strangers invaded our privacy, unrestrained" (p. 104). Ranallo offers an interesting account of the ways in which differences of class and status within the Italian immigrant community are erased by the orientalizing gaze of the majority: "For these people, Pier 21, like death and bodily functions, became the great...