“La mia vita” di Irma Testori. Memorie di una valligiana a New York (1919-1928)

In 1977, Irma Testori decided to write her memoirs, in order to capture in the form of an autobiographical narrative a transnational life-story between Italy and the US. Born in New York in 1898, Irma was brought to Olda di Taleggio in 1906, where her mother gave her and her sister Giulia to their paternal grandparents. Twelve years later, after the death of their grandfather Giovanni and their mother Amelia, Irma and Giulia were sent for by their father Pietro, whom they re-joined in the US in 1919. In New York, Irma found a job in the textile industry, and decided with her husband to go back to Olda only in 1928. Fifty years after her final return to Italy, Irma wrote down her memories and retold the relationships and hardships of her entire life in the form of a story: on the one hand, she broke gender stereotypes and observed the American world through the lens of a foreigner; on the other hand, she found closure with people she had not loved.