Immigrant

Salvatore DiMaria is an emeritus professor of Italian from the University of Tennessee. He has written several books and dozens of articles on the Italian Renaissance. He received his early education in the Italian public schools. Born in 1942 of a poor Sicilian family, he immigrated to the US in early 1961. Not knowing a word of English, he took whatever factory work he could that didn't require knowledge of the language. While working at odd jobs, he went to night school, eventually earning the GED-the equivalent of a high school diploma. He was then drafted in the US Army where he served honorably for two years. While in the service, he took college courses offered at the base by the NCSU Extension Program. By the time he left the army, he had earned enough credits to be admitted as a sophomore at the NCSU in Raleigh and, a year later, as a junior at UNC-Chapel Hill. Upon graduation from UNC, he went to the University of Wisconsin where he earned the PhD in Italian. In Madison, he met and married his wife Lynn, and the two began to raise their family. In 1985, he took a teaching position at the University of Tennessee where he taught for the next thirty-five years. Although technically retired, he continues to teach part-time while working on a novel set in the 1950s Sicily.