Laura Ruberto Presents Such is Life at the Heinz History Center

Apr 13, 2013 1865

Laura E. Ruberto presents the bilingual version of the memoir Such Is Life/Ma la vita e' fatta cosi' (Bordighera, 2010) by Leonilde Frieri Ruberto on Monday, May 6, 2013 from 6-8 PM at the Heinz History Center, Pittsburgh.

The memoir is considered the first published in the United States written in Italian by a first-generation Italian American woman. It tells the story of Leonilde Frieri Ruberto, Laura Ruberto's paternal gradmother, who was born in Cairano (Avellino), Italy in 1913 and emigrated to the Bloomfield neighborhood of Pittsburgh in 1954. Although there are testimonials narrated in Italian by women immigrants, as well as memoirs written in English, nothing quite like this exists. The memoir describes the often-overlooked period of post-war emigration to the United States through the voice of a woman with a fourth-grade education who never mastered English or standard Italian.

Laura Ruberto is a Humanities Professor at Berkeley City College in California. She is the author of Gramsci, Migration, and the Representation of Women at Work, the co-editor of Italian Neorealism and Global Cinema, and the translator of Such Is Life: Ma la vita e' fatta cosi: A Memoir. She was born in Pittsburgh, Pa.

Admission to "Laura Ruberto Presents Such Is Life" is $5 plus the cost of museum admission, which includes access to all History Center exhibitions. Admission for History Center members is $5. Copies of Such Is Life will be available for purchase and signing at the event. For more information about this event, please contact Melissa Marinaro at [email protected].

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