An “Eye-talian” in the New World: Cognitive Estrangement and Diglossia in Antonio Gallenga's Early Italian American Narrative

"On the 15th of August, 1836, I was born again" is the incipit of that extraordinary and little known autobiography which is Antonio Gallenga's "Episodes of my Second Life" (1885). The 15th of August, 1836 is the day Gallenga embarked from Gibraltar for New York, and the opening of this text, as well as its title, emphasizes very well the beginning of the transoceanic journey as a turning point in the author's life. A close reading of the the text focuses on three central aspects: the narration of the self, with specific attention devoted to the migration experience as a source of estrangement and to the relationship between the narrating and the narrated "I"s; the linguistic self-consciousness of the narrator and the character; images of America and placement/locating of the self. These elements allow to explore how the migration experience was conceptualized and which critical and literary devices where put at work by an author whose literary awareness render this text a rare narration between autobiography, travel journal, memoire, auto-fiction. This essay – working at the theoretical intersection between Italian American Studies and Speculative Fiction Studies – puts forward new observations the role played by estrangement mechanism in early Italian American narratives.