Sicily Not Alaska explores the surprising bond between Sicily and America that has its roots during WWII, when with 'Operation Husky' American soldiers of the Allied Forces landed in Sicily to fight the Fascist powers.

Sicilians – who never felt Italian to begin with, having been forcibly annexed to the new Italian Kingdom a little over 80 years before – then felt and still joke about feeling more American than Italian, so much so that in 1947 a famous Sicilian bandit and local leader, Salvatore Giuliano, wrote to President Truman asking him to consider annexing Sicily to the US as their 49th state. We all know history took a different course, with Alaska taking Sicily's place. From that time on, the US arose to the level of a myth in Italian popular culture, a legendary optimal standard people aspired to.

Di Gregorio embarked on a spiritual and physical journey through his island, indulging in the fantasy of a Sicily that actually got to live its American dream, uncovering the actual legacy of the American culture embedded in today's local social fabric.

The project will become a book published by GOST. To help us fund the project please support our Kickstarter campaign.