Migrant Ecologies in the Press: Chicago Italians and The Tribune

During the age of mass migration (1850-1940) more than 4 million Italians reached the United States. The experience of Italians in United States cities has been largely explored during the twentieth century and produced a vast amount of academic literature. However, the study of migrants’ adjustment practices connected to nature is a quite recent concern, also for Environmental History. Migrants' visions of nature influenced their practices and attitudes toward the environment, helping them to be resilient and adjust to different urban contexts and manage the sense of displacement provoked by their encounter with a U.S. metropolis at the turn of the twentieth century. Italians of Chicago, for instance, in their quest for a partial self-sufficiency brought into the urban space non-urban practices—like the raising of animals, the farming of many vacant lots in the city, and the collection of different kinds of materials from the urban landscape—which challenged the modernity project that was deeply embedded in the functionalist city enterprise. Their way of inhabiting the city was a performative activity, which generated hybrid spaces. In many cases though, these practices were perceived by U.S. authorities and public opinion as a sign of backwardness and an obstacle to modernity: this complicated immigrants' aim for self-sufficiency and generated conflicts over the uses of urban space. One of the challenges that emerge from the study of migration phenomena through the lens of environmental history is the lack of sources: where can scholars find the environment in migration studies’ sources? With this article we address such an apparent epistemological blank spot by analyzing one specific kind of written source: we aim to explore the Italian experience in Chicago through the articles of the newspaper The Chicago Tribune, which we analyze following the socio-ecological dichotomy of proper urban space vs. unruly migrant practices. Known for its nativist, isolationist, and anti-Catholic positions—which targeted the Irish before shifting to Italians—The Tribune played the role of an anti-Italian-immigrant press organ from the 1870s until the first decade of the twentieth century. In an era when white Anglo-Saxon primacy within society, racism, and discriminatory discourses on immigrants’ ethnic qualities were commonly accepted as scientific, The Tribune reportage of Italians’ poor conditions and livelihoods concurred in re-enforcing such a narrative. With this article, we want to show that through the often biased and deformed lens of the WASP middle-class press, it is possible to reconstruct Italians’ and other immigrant’s urban practices, as well as to show how so-called modernization processes were contested and resisted by various marginal urbanites. &nbsp

Home-based exercise program in the indeterminate form of Chagas disease (PEDI-CHAGAS study): A study protocol for a randomized clinical trial

BackgroundChagas disease (CD) is a neglected endemic disease with worldwide impact due to migration. Approximately 50–70% of individuals in the chronic phase of CD present the indeterminate form, characterized by parasitological and/or serological evidence of Trypanosoma cruzi infection, but without clinical signs and symptoms. Subclinical abnormalities have been reported in indeterminate form of CD, including pro-inflammatory states and alterations in cardiac function, biomarkers and autonomic modulation. Moreover, individuals with CD are usually impacted on their personal and professional life, making social insertion difficult and impacting their mental health and quality of life (QoL). Physical exercise has been acknowledged as an important strategy to prevent and control numerous chronic-degenerative diseases, but unexplored in individuals with the indeterminate form of CD. The PEDI-CHAGAS study (which stands for “Home-Based Exercise Program in the Indeterminate Form of Chagas Disease” in Portuguese) aims to evaluate the effects of a home-based exercise program on physical and mental health outcomes in individuals with indeterminate form of CD.Methods and designThe PEDI-CHAGAS is a two-arm (exercise and control) phase 3 superiority randomized clinical trial including patients with indeterminate form of CD. The exclusion criteria are <18 years old, evidence of non-Chagasic cardiomyopathy, musculoskeletal or cognitive limitations that preclude the realization of exercise protocol, clinical contraindication for regular exercise, and regular physical exercise (≥1 × per week). Participants will be assessed at baseline, and after three and 6 months of follow-up. The primary outcome will be QoL. Secondary outcomes will include blood pressure, physical fitness components, nutritional status, fatigability, autonomic modulation, cardiac morphology and function, low back pain, depression and anxiety, stress, sleep quality, medication use and adherence, and biochemical, inflammatory and cardiac biomarkers. Participants in the intervention group will undergo a home-based exercise program whilst those in the control group will receive only general information regarding the benefits of physical activity. Both groups will receive the same general nutritional counseling consisting of general orientations about healthy diets.ConclusionThe findings from the present study may support public health intervention strategies to improve physical and mental health parameters to be implemented more effectively in this population.Clinical trial registration[https://ensaiosclinicos.gov.br/rg/RBR-10yxgcr9/], identifier [U1111-1263-0153]

Italianness in the United States between migrants’ informal gardening practices and agricultural diplomacy (1880–1912)

First published online: 08 April 2021During the Age of Mass Migration more than four million Italians reached the United States. The experience of Italians in US cities has been widely explored: however, the study of how migrants adjusted in relation to nature and food production is a relatively recent concern. Due to a mixture of racism and fear of political radicalism, Italians were deemed to be undesirable immigrants in East Coast cities and American authorities had long perceived Italian immigrants as unclean, unhealthy and carriers of diseases. As a flipside to this narrative, Italians were also believed to possess a ‘natural’ talent for agriculture, which encouraged Italian diplomats and politicians to propose the establishment of agricultural colonies in the southern United States. In rural areas Italians could profit from their agricultural skills and finally turn into ‘desirable immigrants’. The aim of this paper is to explore this ‘emigrant colonialism’ through the lens of environmental history, comparing the Italian and US diplomatic and public discourses on the potential and limits of Italians’ agricultural skills.This article was published Open Access with the support from the EUI Library through the CRUI - CUP Transformative Agreement (2020-2022

Secondary phases in historical materials: a microstructural approach for interpreting correct sequences of crystallization

This paper reports on a number of case studies of post-depositional alteration of ceramic materials and concretes, from various environments, for which SEM analysis was crucial for defining the crystallization sequence of secondary phases. More in detail, it focuses on the study of secondary phases formed in some ancient potsherds from both terrestrial (Frattesina \u2013 North-Eastern Italy) and lagoon-like environments (Olbia \u2013 Sardinia, Italy), and in recent cement conglomerates from a heavily polluted industrial area (Porto Marghera near Venice \u2013 North-Eastern Italy)

Secondary phosphates in the ceramic materials from Frattesina (Rovigo, North-Eastern Italy)

The pervasive crystallization of secondary phosphates in pores and fractures of numerous potsherds from the archaeological site of Frattesina (Fratta Polesine, Rovigo e North-East Italy) indicates that contamination occurred after burial. The chemical composition of these phases, which are Mg-rich vivianite and mitridatite, shows that sources of phosphorus, calcium, iron and magnesium were locally available and that the precipitation and diagenesis of these minerals were strongly influenced by micro-environmental conditions within the archaeological deposit

Analisi dei processi post-deposizionali in ceramiche: il caso di Pontecchio Polesine, Frattesina e Adria.

Significant chemical and physical modifications recognized by several archaeometrical studies, indicate that these processes frequently involve buried potsherds. Recent archaeometrical investigations on ceramic materials from Pontecchio (Middle Bronze Age 2), Frattesina (Final Bronze Age - beginning First Iron Age) and Adria (Second Iron Age) revealed the presence of secondary phosphates in a set of samples. The present work deals with the mineralogical nature, origin and postdepositional environmental conditions which determined the formation of secondary phosphates