![]() Find out more about the historical backstory here, and through these links.Ī native Bostonian and die-hard member of Red Sox Nation, Ms. Together, they identified ten local families who had descended from the Jackson Barracks POWs and the local Sicilian-American women they met and married. Speranza started a treasure hunt for information, artifacts, and people. Working with Sal Serio, Curator of the American Italian Library, and Linda DiMarzio Massicot, the daughter of one of the Jackson Barracks POWs, Ms. ![]() ![]() In the course of her investigation, she connected with scholars, researchers, and others who’ve been piecing together the little-known stories of some of the 51,000 Italian POWs held in the US from 1943-1945, 1,000 of whom were held at Jackson Barracks in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward. Fascinated by this hidden chapter in history, she became determined to find out more. Speranza heard a friend’s story about his parents: an Italian prisoner of war and a French Quarter Sicilian woman who met during World War II in New Orleans. Her first paid job was in the children’s room of her town’s public library, and she was a journalist early in her career, before spending thirty-plus years in the water and critical infrastructure business. ![]() She’s been a writer and book nerd all her life. Speranza (she/her) is the granddaughter of Irish and Italian immigrants, raised Catholic, and educated by nuns. ![]()
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