Program 449: Siena Palio; Mississippi Delta; Asian-American Immigration Stories

Art-history scholar and tour guide Anna Piperato tells us how Siena’s high-spirited Palio horse race is a high point of the Tuscan summertime. Then author Richard Grant shares road-trip recommendations for a blues-inspired pilgrimage to the Mississippi Delta, and historian Erika Lee discusses how newcomers from Asia are making an impact on the US.  

• Anna Piperato, Italian-American art history professor and tour guide from Siena, Italy
• Richard Grant, author of "Dispatches from Pluto"  (Simon and Schuster)
• Erika Lee, director of the Immigration History Research Center at the University of Minnesota, and author of  "The Making of Asian America"  (Simon & Schuster)

• Anna Piperato posts online photos of Siena.
• Rick writes about his impressions of the Palio horse race in Siena.
• A Sienese guide to the Palio, in English.
• A list of the 17 contrade of Siena, with their emblems and websites, for the Palio race.
• The Friends of the Palio have created an English-language app about the race in Siena.
• Richard Grant writes about his move to the Mississippi Delta in "Dispatches from Pluto."  He summarizes his impressions about life in the Delta in an article for The Telegraph.
• The Mississippi Blues Foundation has a website listing attractions along the Mississippi Blues Trail, and a calendar of music performances throughout the region. 
• Richard Grant, and listener Alyse, agree that Po Monkey's Lounge in Merigold, Mississippi throws a good party on Thursday nights. 
• The Oregonian writes about the young blues guitar sensation from Clarksdale, Mississippi, Christone "Kingfish" Ingram.
• The Delta Bohemian provides customized Delta tours and accommodations in Clarksdale, Mississippi.
• Martha Hall Foose writes about Southern cooking from her home base in the Delta.
• Erika Lee is director of the Immigration History Research Center at the University of Minnesota. She's also the author of "The Making of Asian America."
• The Immigrant Stories Digital Storytelling Project features more than 150 personal stories of immigrants to the United States from some 44 different ethnic communities.   
• San Francisco's Chinatown is the largest and oldest Chinatown in North America.
• The Angel Island Conservancy is preserving the Angel Island Immigration Station, the "Ellis Island of the West," in San Francisco Bay.
• Slides from a special exhibition on Vietnamese immigration to America at the University of California Irvine.   

Delta fine dining
pulled pork sandwich and salad
with comeback dressing

Highway 61
headlights pierce delta darkness
Crossroads at midnight
— Deborah Guy, Columbus, Ohio

I went for a walk
Twenty some odd years later
I came home again.
— Larry Berger, Sinks Grove, West Virginia

It's time to come home,
dear daughter, world traveler.
No more Skype for me!
— Sarah Tuttle, Corvallis, Oregon