American Dreaming: A Memoir of Interracial Love, Estrangement, and Race Equality

In a country that can't seem to close the divide between Black and white Americans, Dianne and Ronald's enduring love shows how. In the 1940s, Liuzzi Hagan's father, Frank, an Italian-American, met Ruth, an Australian of Irish descent, in Ryde, Australia, where he was stationed during World War II. They married and settled in Albany, New York, where Frank's family refused to accept a foreigner into their fold. Much like our country today, the resulting division, vitriol, and isolation were overwhelming for the couple, and their relationship disintegrated into arguments and alcoholism. Thirty years later, in 1976, their daughter, Dianne, met Ronald, who is Black, during their freshman year of college at Syracuse University. Against external judgments, threats of violence, and her family's strong disapproval, they fell deeply in love. Unlike her parents, Dianne and Ronald found solace, equality, acceptance, and a peaceful reconciliation in their relationship-a lesson for America on healing the racial divide. Liuzzi Hagan artfully weaves the stories of two generations, who struggle against convention, with dreams, commentary about the state of systemic racism and race relations in America, and an intimate portrayal of fractured family relations.