The Leamington Italian Community intertwines personal and family stories with both empirical and intuitive writing to offer new historical in- sights into the complex social, economic, and psychological causes and effects of the migration phenomenon. Walter Temelini meticulously reconstructs the history of immigration and settlement in Leaming- ton, Ontario, of Italians from the southern regions of Lazio, Molise, and Sicily. He explains how, de- spite their regional differences, three generations between 1925 and the 1990s forged a cohesive, so- cially conscious, and unique agricultural commu- nity by balancing their inherited values and their newly adopted Canadian economic opportunities. Temelini’s groundbreaking research draws on testi- monial and documentary evidence gathered from in-depth interviews with hundreds of residents, as well as on original archival information and Ital- ian-language histories translated by the author and previously unavailable to English-speaking read- ers. He concludes his study with an investigation into the award-winning novel Lives of the Saints by Nino Ricci, one of the community’s most cele- brated descendants. Drawing parallels between Ricci’s narrative and the development of the com- munity, Temelini demonstrates that ethnicity can be transformed successfully into a powerful univer- sal archetype, and a creative force of identity. A pioneering and authoritative work, The Leamington Italian Community creates an inti- mate portrait within a global framework, delving into issues both timely and timeless, that will interest and inform the general and specialized reader alike. Walter Temelini is professor emeritus of Italian and multicultural studies at the University of Windsor. 4 1 M Q U P F A L L 2 0 1 8 C A N A D I A N H I S T O R Y The Leamington Italian Community Ethnicity and Identity in Canada walter temelini A socio-cultural and historical study of pre- and post-WWII immigration and settlement of three major southern Italian groups in southern Ontario. S P E C I F I C AT I O N S GdT5t.$aCZ)0sZr$aZ’aoktpxr0pZF0koZb5dT December 2018 -i2l9lii87l7Sh-lhZZ uh7n996ZbmU4Zuh7n996ZA64Zg79n99ZZ150r$ hZBZ-ZZ2,h33ZZ,hZ3$0r0.4Z,7ZroT5a. a:00£ZoDot5oT5a