Searching for Italy in America's Rural Heartland tells the stories of Italian immigrants who, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, came to the United States to find work in the nation's coal mines and on railroads and farms. Focusing on the rural rather than the urban immigrant experience, this book takes readers on a journey to samll towns in six states- Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma- and through dozens of interviews with immigrants and their descendants, provides a glimpse into the past.