INTRODUCTION

Over the years, whenever our family was gathered around the dining table, I would tell stories about growing up on the East Side of Youngstown, Ohio.  These are fond memories of my youth, of my Italian-immigrant parents, and of the shared experiences of family.

I hope that some of the pleasure and the sense of the past that I get from telling them comes through in this podcast.

—Marco Zaza, Wilmington, NC, 2021

Coverage about Concettina Died on Youngstown’s WKBN Channel 27, August 3, 2021

I've been listening to my father tell family stories for over fifty years now—funny or sad or nostalgic stories—around various dinner tables, my parents’, my own, my sisters’, but particularly around his sister's—my Aunt Martha's—dining room table. Two decades ago, when I started a blog, I asked Dad if he'd like to join me by writing down some of these stories and posting them for all to read. He embraced the project and posted a story every couple of months. We ended up with 24 stories on that blog. 

Ten years ago, I compiled those stories into a book, this time illustrated with family photos to better evoke the time and place of the events my father wrote about. And now, remembering that these stories are best experienced in oral retellings, I am collaborating with my dad to put them into the broader context of this podcast. Marco can tell the tales just as he has done over the years, but now we can illuminate them with added details or tangential stories, and share a bit of the laughter and tears that always accompanied their tellings.

Concettina Died and Other Stories of the East Side reveals one family's experience as immigrant and first-generation Italian-Americans. Over twenty-four episodes, we explore this history together, from Youngstown's East Side to Pennsylvania, New York, Texas, Germany, and of course, to the motherland—Italy.

—David Zaza, New York, 2021