by Joann Mackenzie

Just in case her name doesn't tip you off, Rockport resident Laura M. Alberghini Ventimiglia is Italian. Or, as she tells us in her newly published ancestral family memoir, "A Letter To My Children," Italian-American, and proud of it.

But like millions of grandchildren of immigrants from the Old World, Ventimiglia finds herself losing touch with her ancestral culture, a dilemma she identifies as a crisis among many third-generation Italian-Americans. It's one her book addresses with academically precise research and a personal passion that led her back to Italy to the towns of the ancestors from which she and her children are descended. Although the author dedicates the title of her book to those children, she might just as well have dedicated it to those ancestors; particularly to her grandparents, Luigi and Maria, better and lovingly known as Nonno and Nonnie.

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Source: http://www.gloucestertimes.com/