I started this blog to catalog the experiences I was about to have as a Fulbright U.S. Scholar in Rome, Italy, in Spring 2020. For some months I had envisioned my biggest challenge as a Fulbrighter, and one likely to be of interest to a lot of people, would be how to explain U.S. history and politics at the current moment. See, my grant meant I would be teaching two graduate courses in the Political Science department at the University of Roma Tre: the history of American Foreign Policy, and U.S. Immigration History, in addition to advising graduate students, working on a second book project, arranging workshops and hopefully a mini conference, and giving talks on my research in the history of U.S. gatekeeping policy. I thought my life over the next few months would make for a fantastic segment on This American Life. Like, how does a U.S. historian sent to Italy to promote mutual understanding even do that in the Trump era? Seriously, Ira, call me!

As you’ll read in this blog, basically none of that happened. I dragged my whole family with me to Rome for a grand total of two weeks of chaos. I may never be able to speak Italian with my kids, another dream I had; or travel well off the beaten path around a country I love immensely and worry about now almost daily; I may never be able to re-create the opportunities in teaching and research that Fulbright offered – or at least in a form I can currently outline. And right now I’m stuck writing this under a mandatory stay-at-home order in New Jersey.

I do not know what will happen, but I am dedicated to chronicling the ups and downs of being a U.S. historian who cares a lot about Italy, both personally and professionally, and who is trying to figure out this brave new world. Join me.

Here’s a bit about me from an academic viewpoint that lets you know more about who I am.

I graduated from the University of Illinois at Chicago with an M.A. and a Ph.D. in U.S. history, with a focus on labor, immigration, and the American South. I also hold a B.A. in history with honors from the College of William and Mary. While at UIC I was among the first cohort of the program in Work, Race, and Gender in the Urban World (WRGUW), then directed by Leon Fink. I taught in the program in American Studies at Temple University before I began a tenure-track job at Raritan Valley Community College in 2010. Since then I have served in many roles that testify to my interest in the scholarship of teaching and learning, mentoring, shared governance, and academic leadership, as well as my scholarly interests in the history of U.S. gatekeeping in the earliest years of federal control of immigration.

I earned tenure in 2015 and have received numerous accolades and awards for my research in immigration history. As a historian of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era who researches primarily in Italian and U.S. diplomatic archives, my work (and my heart) have brought me to Rome to live many times: in 2004, 2005-6, 2014, 2018, and 2020. (I first visited Rome as a teenager in 1993 and gave the city a piece of my heart forever.) I was the inaugural American Academy in Rome – Community College Humanities Association Affiliated Fellow in 2014, where I got to introduce my husband and then-baby daughter to Rome. I was honored with a John Hope Franklin Award for research in 2018 from the American Philosophical Society. In 2020 I was awarded the highest honor of my career thus far: a Fulbright U.S. Scholar Award in U.S. History/American Studies at the University of Roma Tre.

Recently I have served as elected Chair of Raritan Valley Community College’s faculty senate (2015 – 2017) and as the Co-Director of the Center for Teaching, Learning, and Scholarship (2018-2019). My deep interest and dedication to improving teaching and learning in history – especially in the introductory classroom – is evident through my involvement with the American Historical Association’s Tuning Project from 2012-2017, my publications on the scholarship of teaching and learning, and my record of service to the profession. I have a research article forthcoming in the journal Labor: Studies in Working Class History. I am currently completing a book manuscript on Italy’s role in the creation of a gatekeeping nation in the U.S. from 1891 to 1908, under review by the University of Illinois Press.