Barattini, Kathryn DeFatta

Kathryn DeFatta Barattini is an Associate Professor of speech communication at Bossier Parish Community College in northwest Louisiana. She is a fourth generation Italian American and an avid researcher of Italian American immigration and culture. She earned her graduate degree in speech communication, specializing in intercultural and interpersonal communication, from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Academic Perceptions of Italian American Immigration as Seen in Scholarly Journals of the 1880s

2004 0-7734-6239-2
Book attempts to highlight anytime “Italian immigration” or “Italian immigrants” are mentioned in a scholarly periodical, including both passing notations and in-depth critical analyses of these topics. These references allow us to examine the initial and evolving perceptions of the academic community toward mass Italian American immigration from its basic beginnings in the early 1880s through the end of that decade. In addition, references about Italian immigration from the popular periodical press of the time are juxtaposed with the scholarly references to allow further insight into the erudite community’s perceptions as they are framed within the public opinion of the day.

Relationship of Ethnic Self-Identification of Latter Generations of Louisiana’s Sicilian-americans to Their Use of Ethnic Colloquial Phrases

2000 0-7734-7796-9
This study is unique in that it examines latter generation ethnic Americans, as opposed to recent immigrants, and their sense of ethnic self-identification as it relates to their use of limited colloquial ethnic phrases and words, as opposed to their fluency in their ethnic native tongue. It uses Correlational Analyses to identify relationships among the language use and ethnic self-identification variables, and multiple regression analyses were used to determine predicting variables for ethnic identification and the degree to which respondents felt close to their ethnic heritage when using ethnic words and/or phrases.