By Melissa Powell
Over the soft background music of Frank Sinatra, Stanislao Pugliese, Associate Professor of History, addressed the University as part of the Italian-American Lecture Series.
Pugliese, a book reviewer and member of the National Book Critics, discussed essays in the book “Frank Sinatra: History, Identity and American Culture” by Palgrave McMillan, which he contributed to.
His essay, “Longing, Loss and Nostalgic,” was given this title he said, because all of Sinatra’s songs dealt with these three emotions.
So much of American culture was written in the second half of the 20th century by Sinatra, he said. Besides Madonna, Sinatra was the first person to reinvent himself before any other entertainer.
“There are almost as many Sinatra’s as our imaginations can will into existence,” he said. “For example, the self destructive flame of Ava Gardner and the original gangster come from Sinatra. Black hip-hop artists today point to Frank Sinatra as the first gangster. Sinatra invented the word cool.”
The middle third of the 20th century was a momentous time for both Sinatra and Italian Americans, Pugliese said.
“Before I started being involved in the conference, I didn’t consider myself a Frank Sinatra fan,” he said. “The experience of the conference was really an eye opening one for me. I came to see Sinatra in a different light and I came to appreciate what he did for Italian-American culture and American music.”
He learned some interesting facts on the famous musician
“More people were conceived to Sinatra’s music than any other musician,” he said. “Sinatra almost opened up the entertainment industry to African Americans. He supported civil rights before it was popular to do so.”
Pugliese compared Sinatra to different Italian cartoons that represent immigrants- a romantic, a peasant and a dreamer. He said there is a similar trait in all these Italian cartoons.
“They are always attempting to create and control anarchy at the same time,” he said.
Sinatra betrays his Sicilian roots, whenever he sings a song. Sicilians tend to ask for silence when confronting a stranger because they don’t want to reveal anything about themselves, Pugliese said.
“Never reveal any piece of information no matter how trivial because it could always be used against you,” he said.
He also discussed the nostalgia in Sinatra’s music that comes along with immigration. Nostalgia is a painful desire to return home, he said.
“Nostalgia both in the mind of immigrants and in the mind of Sinatra’s music is one of the many strategies available to the individual to constructing an identity,” he said.
Sinatra was loved by immigrants because of the necessity of assimilating into American culture while retaining a distinct ancestral identity, Pugliese said.
There was a specific point in time when Sinatra dealt with identity. When Sinatra was asked to be a part of a band, the leader wanted him to change his name to Frank Satin. As history goes, Sinatra didn’t change his name.
Pugliese’s most recent books are “Desperate Inscriptions: Graffiti From the Nazi Prison in Rome, 1943-1944” and an anthology, “Fascism, Anti-Fascism and the Resistance in Italy.”
The Italian-American lecture series will continue next Thursday with Cav. Uff. Aldo Mancusi, director of Enrico Caruso Museum of America.