This March marks Women’s History Month as well as the release of Linda Stasi’s new novel The Descendant (2026) from Regalo Press. Embracing the resilience of strong women, the award-winning journalist presents the American West through the eyes of Italian immigrants.
The sweeping saga is inspired by Stasi’s own relatives and is anchored in tragic facts (the 1914 Ludlow Massacre and the 1921 Great Pueblo Flood) that mainstream American history neglects to address. Rebellious was fortunate to discuss this with the busy writer, TV personality, social justice advocate, and platform shoe enthusiast.
Janet Arvia: While conducting research for The Descendant, did you find Italian Americans encountered bigotry in the United States during the 19th and 20th centuries?
Linda Stasi: Yes, and it is ongoing now. I can’t tell you how many times people say, “Eh! Gumbah!” to me as though I’m some idiot from the streets. The New York Times called Italian immigrants: “sneaky and cowardly descendants of bandits and assassins!…as good as rattlesnakes!” Another publication called them “herds of steerage swine!” And still another New York paper called Southern Italians, “Swarthy, kinky-haired criminals.”
In your book, the characters wind up in the American West (mining in Colorado and cattle ranching in Pueblo) before heading back east to the mean streets of Brooklyn. Although most people associate Italian immigrants with the latter location, was it common for this demographic to live and work out West?
Yes, it was very common. In fact, tens of thousands of Italians helped settle the West. I am trying to change this commonly accepted unconscious bigotry against Italians and the Italian immigration myth that they all came to New York to become criminals. There were 30 different languages spoken in the mines and on the trail rides. No—they didn’t all look or speak like John Wayne. The West was settled by immigrants.
What kind of obstacles did Italians and Sicilians face before and after migrating to the States?
In the early 1900s, Sicily was hit with the worst recorded earthquake in European modern history. That was followed by a tsunami. These events caused more than 120,000 deaths and total destruction. Those who fled to the mountain towns such as Lucca Sicula, where my ancestors lived, found drought and bandits. The land was dying. So J.D. Rockefeller, Jr. sent “padrones” into these devastated areas looking for strong young bucks. He promised them land, and he promised them the good life, but instead they were taken to the horrific coal mines of Colorado and put into bondage.
In 1914, the United Mine Workers came in, and Rocky fired everyone who went on strike. The UMW set up a tent city to house the strikers and their families. Rocky hired the Colorado National Guard, who’d go in with a machine gun-mounted armored vehicle to shoot strikers at night. The strikers—almost all immigrants—hid their women and kids under the tents. So, the Guard went in and poured oil on top of the tents and burned dozens of women and children alive like pigs in a BBQ roast. It is called the Ludlow Massacre, and is mostly wiped out of history.
Instead, people know about the Mafia due to popular gangster movies. By setting The Descendant in the past, does it help dispel the media-driven misconception that Italian Americans are connected to the mob—when 99.9 percent are not.
That was the purpose of the book. The reason the Mafia grew in the USA is because in Colorado, two years after the Ludlow Massacre, in 1916 the state declared prohibition. That was four years before the rest of the country. So, these Italians, living wild in the mountains who were fired from mining jobs, couldn’t read, write or speak English but they did know how to brew wine and sugar moonshine. It gave them four years to perfect their craft before New York or Chicago. BUT, the Colorado sheriffs hired members of the Ku Klux Klan as prohibition agents. It gave them a license to kill Italians, claiming everyone was a bootlegger, so Italian immigrants formed into “families” for protection.
Would you categorize the book as a crime story, sweeping saga, action adventure or historical fiction?
I think it’s both historical fiction and a multi-generational saga. It’s not just about how and why the Mafia was formed but how the women worked to raise families, do the bootlegging, farming and ranching. They fought impossible odds to succeed when success was deemed impossible.
I’ve seen a lot of Westerns but can’t recall any with Italian-American cowgirls. Why do you think they lack cinematic representation?
Because Americans grew up with the TV images of cowgirl actors like Dale Evans and the only other “cowgirls” were Annie Oakley (cleaned up to look like a shampoo ad), and Calamity Jane. Women, especially immigrant women, are mostly wiped out of the accepted American history of the West. Well, I’m here to tell you that these women helped settle the West as much as the men did. My Italian mother and aunts all rode their donkeys and horses to school and everywhere else.
If The Descendant is made into a movie, who would your dream cast and director be?
Oh wow. There were so many sisters and my tough-ass gramma, it would take a whole army of women. BUT, I’d say, Linda Fiorentino, Maria Grazia Cucinotta or Marisa Tomei, all could play the mother from youth to her death at 38, then as the grown sisters: Drea De Matteo, Alicia Keys, Ariana Grande, Lady Gaga, Selena Gomez and Hayden Panettiere. The sisters as little children? I can’t begin to guess. Director? Hmmm. Taylor Sheridan, Ridley Scott, Kathryn Bigelow. Taylor gets the old West, Scott got it down pat in House of Gucci, and Bigelow, well, she’s the greatest.
So are you.
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The Descendant can be purchased on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Bright Side Bookshop.
