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Title: Inquieto

Inquieto

A Transnational Autoethnography of Identity, Belonging and Racism in Sicily and the United States

by Michelle Reale (Author)
©2026 Monographs XIV, 124 Pages
Science, Society & Culture
Series: Interdisciplinary Studies in Diasporas, Volume 21

Summary

Part autobiography, part ethnography, Inquieto is a moving and original study of how migration shapes lives and generations. Seeking to understand the everyday racism experienced by refugees and asylum-seekers in present-day Sicily, author Michelle Reale delves into her own family’s history of immigration to the United States. Encounters with African refugees in Sicily offer a counterpoint to her family’s experience of migration, highlighting a common sense of precariousness, restlessness, exclusion, and (non)belonging. Allowing for dramatic differences in circumstance, she shows how racism, practical challenges, heartbreak, and political complications influence the life of those seeking to make it in a new country.
This is a remarkable new contribution to diaspora and migration studies, connecting human experiences across time and space, and confronting entrenched stereotypes. It will be essential reading for anyone interested in how profoundly migration affects the individual, and how it can haunt future generations.

Table Of Contents

  • Cover
  • Half Title
  • Interdisciplinary Studies in Diasporas
  • Title
  • Copyright
  • Contents
  • List of Figures
  • Acknowledgments
  • Author’s Note
  • Prologue
  • Working My Way In
  • At Home in Italy? Not Quite
  • Narrative Inheritance: A Story Many Times Told
  • For Lack of What is Found There: Encountering the Void of Silence
  • Who Belongs?
  • Unseen in Plain Sight: Strategic Invisibility and Disenfranchised Grief
  • At Home in the World? Conviviality and Hospitality for Immigrants and Refugees
  • A Problem of Racism
  • Coda

Interdisciplinary Studies in Diasporas

Irene Maria F. Blayer and Dulce Maria Scott

General Editors

Vol. 21

Contents

  1. List of Figures

  2. Acknowledgments

  3. Author’s Note

  4. Prologue

  5. Working My Way In

  6. At Home in Italy? Not Quite

  7. Narrative Inheritance: A Story Many Times Told

  8. For Lack of What is Found There: Encountering the Void of Silence

  9. Who Belongs?

  10. Unseen in Plain Sight: Strategic Invisibility and Disenfranchised Grief

  11. At Home in the World? Conviviality and Hospitality for Immigrants and Refugees

  12. A Problem of Racism

  13. Coda

Figures

  1. Figure 1. Cappezale

  2. Figure 2. My Grandfather

  3. Figure 3. My Grandfather’s passport, 1927

  4. Figure 4. Mary

  5. Figure 5. An Emergency Bus in a refugee camp in Sicily

  6. Figure 6. Friends

  7. Figure 7. Parallel living in Ortigia

  8. Figure 8. In the refugee camp

  9. Figure 9. Bajhet being photographed

  10. Figure 10. Freshly picked lemons

  11. Figure 11. Passing the time

  12. Figure 12. A Welcome Center in Sicily

  13. Figure 13. Civics class for refugees

  14. Figure 14. Fresh air on the balcony

  15. Figure 15. My grandparents wedding, November 1932

Acknowledgments

A huge debt of gratitude to Dr. Christopher Varlack for unwavering and consistent support with this project as both a friend and esteemed colleague. To have someone not only believe in my work but actively support and promote it is a gift.

Details

Pages
XIV, 124
Publication Year
2026
ISBN (PDF)
9783034357098
ISBN (ePUB)
9783034357104
ISBN (Hardcover)
9783034366632
DOI
10.3726/b23801
Language
English
Publication date
2026 (October)
Keywords
Italian-American Studies refugees immigration migration cultural studies Autoethnography
Published
New York, Berlin, Bruxelles, Chennai, Lausanne, Oxford, 2026. xiv, 124 pp., 15 ill. b/w.
Product Safety
Peter Lang Group AG

Biographical notes

Michelle Reale (Author)

Michelle Reale, Ed.D, is a professor at Arcadia University.

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Title: Inquieto