SERIES PREMIERE: Concluding next week, this four-hour, two-night documentary traces the emigration of Italians to the United States, recounting bias and difficulties as well as innovations and triumphs. One story it doesn’t tell, so I will: my grandfather, Vitale Bianculli, came to America in 1911, arriving from a small mountain village in what would be the “ankle” of Italy. He was a tailor, despite having lost a few fingers in a childhood firecracker explosion. And since U.S. immigration, at the time, would have rejected him as “deformed” and refused him entry, he waited until the dead of winter, and made the uncomfortable Atlantic boat crossing so he could hide his injury with specially finger-padded gloves he had sewn for the occasion. And because of that, he brought his wife and had a family here – and all these years later, here am I. So yes, I’ll be watching The Italian Americans. Proudly. Check local listings.