Go West! - the book

An Italian history professor, along with two students from the University of Florence, Italy, set out to discover the long forgotten stories of Italian immigrants who sought their fortunes in the gold fields of the Western United States during the 1848 Gold Rush. 

During their month– long field study, they maintained a diary of their experiences and impressions as they searched the small towns and deserts of Southern California, Arizona, and Nevada.  While retracing the routes of early immigrants, they encountered well preserved family memories and artifacts, along with cultural idiosyncrasies of both past and modern Italian immigrants. 

Their journey became a more personal discovery of how one’s culture is reshaped when it comes in contact with another culture and how each person is forced to reconcile the differences.