The American Nightmare: Reading and Teaching Pietro di Donato's Ethnographic Novel Christ in Concrete

Abstract

In the interdisciplinary course entitled The Italian-American Experience, Pietro di Donato's Christ in Concrete is examined, explored, and analyzed within historical, socio-political, and literary contexts. The novel becomes a point of focus for the discussion of immigrant life and working-class people in a broader and contextualized understanding of Italian Americans. Students read Christ in Concrete in conjunction with essays documenting the history of workers' struggles in the United States. Read as cultural artifact, Christ in Concrete documents with historical clarity and brutal honesty the way in which the American Dream turned nightmare. Using language, religion, and social politics as focal points, the paper looks at Italian-Americans, their virtues and flaws, their struggles and triumphs, as it underscores the culture's unique contributions to the American mosaic not only in the lived lives of the novel's characters but also in the poetics of its discourse.