Modio Media logo

And They Came To Chicago: The Italian American Legacy

Winner of 5 Silver Telly Awards
Emmy® Award Nominee

A documentary tracing 150 years of the
Italian American experience

Narrated by Tony-Award winner
Joe Mantegna

Now available for rent and download

on Prime Video

on Vimeo

"My family always called America ‘Il Miracolo.’ They came to get rich and to improve their situation and they all were anxious for education and for status. So they followed the very same route that everybody else did when they came to this country. They worked very hard, set abundant tables, and sent their children to the best private schools. My entire generation had orthopedic shoes, piano lessons, braces whether you needed them or not, and all the American things that are tied to status. So they were quite comfortable here in Chicago and being American."
Michael Serritella

"Taylor Street now is thriving and there is still that sense of neighborhood. The old timers wonder what would it have been like if we didn’t have these forces literally just ripping us apart. When you are talking about bettering the neighborhood and what businesses come in you always have to worry if there is going to be another chain store where there used to be a mom-and-pop store. You don’t want it to look like every other neighborhood or a suburban strip mall."
Kathy Catrambone

"I grew up in Melrose Park, a little suburb, outside the city. To me, I thought it was Italy. If somebody saw an African American come into Melrose, everybody knew about it. And so I grew up with that black-white dichotomy constantly. Whenever a black person came across the tracks, people would comment on it, notice it. Later on in life, I was teaching at Columbia College and there was a black guy who used to tell me how he use to sneak across the railroad tracks to get Butch’s Beef Sandwiches. And I use to sneak across the railroad tracks to get these steak sandwiches in this black grill. We use to risk our lives to get food and we laughed about how silly that racism was."
Fred Gardaphé