. . . A strong sense of commonality is that necessary ingredient for the population to cohere and this to progress: for the study of all things Italian/American to become part and parcel of the dominant culture, as it is for other United States hyphenated groups.
All of this is dependent on an Italian/American commitment (impegno) to the appreciation of our culture. This entails an active participation in cultural activities of all sorts; it requires that Italian/American groups make a concerted effort to go beyond those one or two activities they have identified as their own, and make attempts to expand their agenda to include a new, more encompassing form of cultural integration. All of this, as we shall see, is dependent on a combination of cultural awareness and appreciation: namely a new sense of the Italian/American self that ultimately leads to an appropriation of one's cultural legacy.
-From the introduction