October is National Italian-American Heritage Month
Every year, the U.S. Congress designates October National Italian-American Heritage Month. In the 1990 U.S. Census, 15 million Americans identified themselves as descendants of Italians. However, demographers estimate that the actual number, after taking into account the mixing of Italians with those of other ethnic and national groups, at over 26 million. Many communities across the nation, including six in California, will be in some way celebrating their Italian heritage.
Like many other ethnic groups, Italians were instrumental in the cultural development of America. Our art, food, fashion and other facets of our culture are greatly appreciated, and some are even now considered part and partial of the American experience as a whole. Where would American college students be today without pizza?
There were northern Italians in America long before the Revolutionary War, prominent among them being two of the original signers of the Declaration of Independence, William Paca and Caesar Rodney, and Filippo Mazzei, a friend of Thomas Jefferson who inspired the phrase: "All men are created equal" when he wrote "All men are by nature equally free and independent." However, the majority were of southern Italian and Sicilian descent and came between the 1880s and 1920s. The experience of these “new immigrants” was very complex and varied, dependent on specific times and places. In some parts of the country and in some times, they were welcomed with open arms; in other parts of the country and in other times, they fought rampant and oppressive prejudice. Most of these newcomers to the American scene were also poor and many settled down in urban slums, while still others found the countryside and eventually started farms and vineyards, particularly here in California.
Over time, these immigrants, and particularly their America-born offspring, assimilated into the American mainstream, some at a high and unfair price of totally losing their rich cultural heritage, while others were able to hold onto the best parts of it while becoming loyal and patriotic Americans. From Rudolph Giuliani and Sam Alito, to Tommy LaSorda and Francis Ford Coppola; the Italian contribution to American politics and culture, including sports and entertainment, is way too vast to enumerate here. And while Italian-Americans are very loyal to this great nation and are very patriotic, with 1.5 million of them serving during WWII alone, a full 10 percent of the military at that time, many today who may have lost their roots are rediscovering their great heritage knowing that part of what makes America so great, along with her freedoms, are her cultural diversity, under the cloak and protection of her national unity.
Without the Italians, America would be a very different place today, indeed, because so many of her discoverers, explorers, and colonizers were of Italian descent, one might even conclude that without us Italians, America may not even exist.
So I hope that you who read this will in some way celebrate with me National Italian-American Heritage Month. Thank you.
Viva Italia e America!
