To Hyphenate or Not to Hyphenate

Anthony Julian Tamburri examines the history of Italian/American writing and the concept of the hyphen as representative of the reluctance of the dominant culture to accept newcomers. He maintains that the hyphen in "Italian-American" creates a physical division between the two terms where the ideological gap should be filled Tamburri proposes instead to turn the hyphen forty-five degrees: "Italian/American."