This weekend I had a moment of simultaneous panic and joy. My book, The Italians of Newark: A History, is now available for pre-order. I’ll be honest, when I saw it online, I felt the blood drain from my face. It has been 16 months since I signed the contract with The History Press, and another eight to twelve months of research before I made my pitch.

And now I’m roughly two months away from seeing it in print. And I owe it to a lot of people. Starting with my great-grandparents who came to the United States and settled in the Old First Ward. My grandparents, Rosina and Pasquale Fieramosca, who taught me to be “an American first.” My Uncle Chubby, who told us all to “never forget where we came from.”