Teaching the Letters of Sacco and Vanzetti In and Against the American Grain

Sacco from Torremaggiore, the boot of southern Italy, and Vanzetti from Villafalletto, a province in northwestern Italy, emigrated to America not as stereotypically impoverished and jobless Italian peasants (both families owned land in Italy) but for their own complicated reasons - grief over a dead mother, independence from parental control, employment opportunities, rejection of Catholicism - and the lure of an ideal America of freedom and liberty. [...] in addition to the pedagogical and historical consciousness involved in assigning Sacco and Vanzetti's letters, consider using their letters more personally, perhaps as a means to surface family political silences.