Author Donna Clementoni, mining the resources of history and hearsay, pens a portrait of her Italian-American relatives in poetic tribute to their immigration to America in search of a better life for their families. Their trials and tribulations are recounted in charming and colorful verse as they assimilate into their new land, move into its neighborhoods, fight in its wars and pursue the American Dream. They were not to the manor born. Intrinsically, they understood that there are those who lord over the land and those who labor. Immigrants from the Mezzogiorno, Italy's poorest region south of Rome, belonged to this less fortunate fraternity. These amazing pioneers, out of sheer desperation or fearless determination, charted the course for all their descendants to follow.