Telling Her Truth

Angelina Mastrippolito's Debut Novel

Growing up among the rustling rows of sugarcane in Macknade, Angelina Mastrippolito never imagined she would one day write a book delving deep into the trauma of two world wars, resilience, and cultural clash that shaped her childhood. Now living in Sydney, the proud daughter of cane farmers and second-generation Italian immigrants is sharing her story in print with Australia, one that began right here in North Queensland.

Her debut book, Le Seconde: Inheriting the Unspoken, is an evocative and honest account of life caught between two worlds - the old traditions of Fascist Italy and the evolving, feminist wave of 1960s and ’70s Australia. But at its core, the book is grounded in the cane fields and tight-knit Italian community that defined Angelina’s upbringing.

Among the first generations of Italians to settle in the Ingham region, Angelina’s family found familiarity and comfort in the multicultural enclave known as “Little Italy.” But behind the vibrant community life were often untold stories of emotional hardship, trauma, and cultural displacement.

Born in 1961, she began school without speaking a word of English. Yet, she excelled, earning top marks in maths and physics, before going on to become one of Australia’s first female actuaries. Despite her academic and professional success, Angelina said she struggled with identity, shaped by the cultural expectations of her childhood and then the expectations of an Australia which had not yet come to terms with its multicultural identity.

“Quando una bambina nasce, nasce per essere solo un mucchio di paglia,” her mother would say - “When a girl is born, she is born to be just a pile of straw.”

The phrase, handed down from her mother, epitomises the gendered beliefs she fought so hard to escape, first in her own home, then in the male-dominated corporate world of Australia’s financial sector.

Her words not only bring to life the region’s unique social fabric, a place of gumboot-stained hard work and quiet sacrifice but also the resourcefulness and resilience of the migrant women who raised families under the North Queensland sun.

Le Seconde is a deeply personal and timely contribution to Australia’s evolving understanding of migrant identity, generational trauma, and womanhood. But for those in Macknade and Ingham, it’s also a poignant reminder of the stories, both spoken and unspoken, that live in the cane fields and family kitchens of our own community.

Angelina will be hosting a wonderful book launch in TYTO Conference Centre’s Jacana Room on Monday the 16th of June from 9:30am to 11:30am. Please RSVP on or before the 6th of June to Angie herself by emailing amastrip@outlook.com

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