La Dante is the official newsletter of the society. Its purpose is to inform and serve its members and the community. In
addition to information about the many events and programs at the Dante, in it
you'll find (in English and Italian) current news from Italy, articles of cultural
interest on Italian history, literature, and language as well as on the Italian American
experience as exemplified by Italian Americans from all fields of endeavor. It is
edited by Anna Quadri and Giacomo Rapa and published four times a year:
mid-September (Fall issue),
mid-December (Winter issue), mid-March
(Spring Issue),
end-May
(Summer issue).
We welcome articles for publication, or comments and suggestions by writing to:
Dante Alighieri Society ATTN: Editor, La Dante 41 Hampshire Street Cambridge, MA 02139
E-mail Dante Alighieri Society
Current issue of La Dante: (You will need Acrobat reader)
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From Our Archives:
The Dante Awards Scholarships for Study of Italian
Applications can be downloaded from the Dante website and you must submit it no later than April 1 of the year for which the scholarship is awarded.
The purpose of the award is to encourage students to continue the study of Italian or to pursue Italian American Studies beyond the High School years. While many, to their credit, submit applications for having studied up to five years Italian in High School, they sadly do not qualify unless they plan on extending their study in college.
Governor Cellucci Signs Legislation - Italian American Heritage Month
Una Storia Segreta - Internment of Italian Americans during WWII
Our Italian American Heritage - An overview of many contributions by Italian Americans in the USA.
Only listing of Italian and Italian American winners of the
following:
Governor Argeo Paul Cellucci,
joined by members of the legislature and a large and enthusiastic audience of supporters
and well wishers, signed an historic bill declaring the month of October as
"Italian-American Heritage Month." The Governor appeared before more than 600
people at a dinner gathering of the Justinian Law Society of Massachusetts at
Caruso’s Diplomat where he was honored as the "Justinian of the Year." In
signing the bill, Governor Cellucci declared that this was an important milestone in the
history of the Italian American community in Massachusetts and an appropriate way in which
to honor the contributions of Italian-Americans to our Commonwealth and our nation.
Several members of the legislature were instrumental in securing
passage of the bill including Assistant House Majority Whip, Representative Sal Di Masi,
Chairman of the House Committee on Bills in Third Reading, Robert DeLeo, and the
Vice-Chairman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee Robert Travaglini. The bill declares that:
"The governor shall annually issue a proclamation setting apart the month of October
as Italian-American Heritage Month, in recognition of the significant contributions
Italian-Americans have made to the Commonwealth and to the United States and recommending
that said month be observed in an appropriate manner by the people. After consultation
with Italian-American groups, the governor may include in the proclamation such
contributions as he shall see fit."
The legislation was supported by more than 40 Italian-American organizations in
Massachusetts who came together to form a coalition known as "The Committee to
Declare October as Italian Heritage Month" chaired by the Honorable Joseph Ferrino
(ret.). This was truly a collaborative effort of many organizations and individuals
devoted to promoting a greater understanding and appreciation for the contributions made
by Italians and Italian-Americans to the United States and to western civilization in
general.
The goal is to educate the public, especially school age
children, about these important contributions by means of events, educational and cultural
programs that are scheduled to take place throughout the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in
October. The Committee’s goal is to utilize a variety of methods such as essay
contests for students, exhibits, performances, and the publication of biographical
literature about notable Italians and Italian-Americans, especially persons who lived
during the twentieth century.
Plans are already being made for next years events. Participation
is open to any person or organization which shares the goal of promoting awareness of and
respect for the contributions made by Italians and Italian-Americans throughout history.
UNA STORIA SEGRETA:
Wartime Violations of Italian American Civil Liberties Act Becomes Law on Nov 7, 2000
By Francesco Castellano.
October 19, 2000, the United States Senate passed the Wartime
Violation of Italian American Civil Liberties Act and President Cinton signed it into law
on November 7, 2000.
The bill concerns the WWII restrictions, evacuations and internments of Italian Americans
which is the subject of the exhibit, Una Storia Segreta, sponsored by the Western
Chapter of the American Italian Historical Association. The exhibit, which was on display
at the Dante Alighieri Society in Cambridge during October, has been the prime instigator
of the movement to make these events better known, and to promote this legislation.
The bill provides for the preparation of a Government report
detailing injustices suffered by Italian Americans during World War II, and a formal
acknowledgment by the President that these events during World War II represented a
fundamental injustice against Italian Americans. It further requires that Government
agencies should support projects such as conferences, seminars, lectures, and
documentaries to allow this issue to be presented to the American public to raise its
awareness.
Great credit is due to John Calvelli, who wrote the legislation
when he was in Congressman Engel's office. He most recently brokered the deal that allowed
the bill to pass by unanimous consent. Credit is also due to Tony La Piana, of Chicago,
who managed to persuade the leaders of both judiciary committees--Henry Hyde in the House,
and Orrin Hatch in the Senate--to support the Italian American bill.
Senator Robert Torricelli, of New Jersey, introduced the bill in
the senate; Rick Lazio of New York introduced the bill in the house. Credit is due them,
as well as Sam Fumosa, President OSIA, New Jersey, who worked with Senator Torricelli.
Many others, including organizations large and small, supported this effort and are due
thanks as well.
Based in large part from information received from Larry DiStasi, Project Director
"Una Storia Segreta."
Our Italian
American Heritage
A history to be proud of
The oft
repeated anecdote about the poor Italian immigrant who came to America because the streets
were paved with gold, apocryphal or not, remains a pithy comment on the reality that
awaited many of the immigrants who came at the end of the 19th and the
beginning of the 20th centuries. The story has the surprised immigrant say:
"When I got here, I found out three things: first, the streets weren't paved with
gold; second, they weren't paved at all; and third, I was expected to pave them."
And pave they did. They build railroads, tunnels under harbors,
highways, and subway systems, extracted coals from mines, worked in factories almost
always in the most primitive of conditions and against all odds and obstacles - a new
language and culture, prejudice in the forms of ethnic slurs and negative stereotypes,
even violence directed against them. Other than the more famous case of the largest
lynching in U.S. history where eleven Italian Americans were lynched in New Orleans on
March 14, 1891, by a mob of upwards of twenty thousand people, many other Italian
immigrants were lynched in many states across the South and Midwest. The environment in
which the immigrants found themselves is best described by Giuseppe Prezzolini in his
novel I Trapiantati (The Uprooted). "…the Italian immigrant who did not
become a criminal, or go mad, was a saint."
Eventually they overcame many of the obstacles that came their
way. In the mid 1800’s there were barely 3,500. In 1910 there were over 130,000.
Ultimately over 5.4 million Italians immigrated to the United States between 1820 and
1991, making many positive contributions to the history of the United States. Now there
are about 26 million Americans of Italian descent making them the fifth largest ethnic
group. They have contributed in large measure in building this nation both physically and
spiritually. They have achieved greatness in many fields of endeavor, but that does not
diminish the many sacrifices that the anonymous mass of immigrants made. Many of these
facts are still not known by the majority of the population including those Americans of
Italian descent. In fact the population at large still seems to have a stereotypical view
of Italian Americans as evinced by the movies and television.
Governor
Mario Cuomo has been quoted as saying:
"I have always been intensely proud that I am the son of Italian immigrants and that
my Italian heritage helped make me the man I am." This is by no means a compendium,
but only an attempt at highlighting some of the contributions made by those that came
before us and those that are still working among us.
Exploration
Giovanni Schiavo, the author and historian who was the first to begin compiling the
history of Italian in America notes that there were "Six men who made America."
John Cabot, Giovanni Verrazzano, Marco da Nizza, Enrico Tonti, Father Chino, and Francis
Vigo.
It is an historical fact that Giovanni Caboto made possible the English settlements
in Virginia and New England, and Giovanni Verrazzano made possible the French
Empire in North America. Later Enrico Tonti, though La Salle, the leader of the
expedition had died, would add to the French acquisitions by being the first to sail down
the Mississippi and claim the lands for the French King.
Marco da Nizza, usually identified as Marcos De Niza, was the discoverer of
Arizona. H sent the Spanish Coronado to find riches, but found only open territory which
as to become state of Kansas, thus opening the Midwest and West to the world as early as
1540.
Father Chino was the founder of the truck farming and cattle industry in California. His
statue can be seen in Statuary Hall in the Capitol as a representative form Arizona.
Though he did not serve in any official capacity,
Francesco
Vigo, in addition to his military exploits, he helped finance the part of the war
against the British by giving his entire fortune, at the time, of over $8,000 to Colonel
George Rogers Clark, brother of Lewis Clark. In 1836 congress repaid his descendents in
full and with interest.
Government and Politics
We must all know that two men of Italian
descent signed the Declaration of Independence: William Paca of Maryland and
Caesar
Rodney of Delaware. In 1900 Andrew Longino was elected Governor of Mississippi.
Filippo Mazzei was a friend to Jefferson and a not
insignificant influence on his political and philosophical thinking. Mazzei’s
original writings stated that: "All men are by nature equally free and independent.
Such quality is necessary to in order to create a free government…"
There was a number of Italians who fought during American
Revolution some were officers. Their participation is not singled out because they fought
under the French flag. Also during Civil War there were Italians both in the ranks and in
the Officer Corps to include three generals. Some fought on the Confederate side.
There were also Italians serving as chaplains during that
conflict. One cleric, Agostino D’Asti from Piedmont, pastor of a church in
Houston , Texas was a chaplain in the Confederate Army. When he died his parishioners
would not permit that his remains be sent back to New York. His tomb is in Texas where it
is honored annually.
Linclon like Jefferson was an Italianophile. This may not be the
reason, but his private physician at the White House was one Dottor Tullio Verdi.
Lincoln went so far as to have his Secretary of Sate William H. Stanton contact
Garibaldi
on the Island of Caprera to offer him the rank of Major General in the Union Army.
Garibaldi was honored but refused saying that he still had the daunting task of reuniting
Italy.
Early in this century we have two Italian Americans whose
reputation went beyond their local districts or states. They are Fiorello La Guardia,
who was both a Mayor of New York and a Congressman, and Congressman Vito Marcantonio,
though much maligned as a socialist, he did much for the working man.
The Labor movement saw their champions in American born
Joseph
Ettor, Arturo Giovannitti, a writer and a poet from near Campobasso, and
Carlo
Tresca from Sulmona, a labor organizer and journalist.
During the Kennedy years
Anthony Celebrezze became the
first Italian American to be a member of the Cabinet. Later we had Joseph Califano
under Johnson and Carlucci as Secretary of Defense under Reagan. We have had many
more congressmen and several senators, but it is important to mention Geraldine Ferraro,
the first Italian American to be on the ticket of a presidential election,
and Mario
Cuomo, who almost was a presidential contender. A major first for the Italian
Americans was the appointment of Antonin Scalia to the Supreme Court in 1982. Judge
Guido Calabresi, former Dean of Yale Law School was named to the U.S. Court of
Appeals by President Clinton in 1994. And in the field of law we must remember that during
the Watergate years it was Judge John J. Sirica, who was named man of the Year in
1973 for "Standing Firm for the Primacy of Law."
Here in Boston we are proud to have two descendents of Italians
serving as Governor and Mayor. Governor Argeo Paul Cellucci and Mayor
Thomas
Menino. Cellucci is the third Italian American governor after Foster Furcolo
and John Volpe. Mayor Menino holds the distinction of being Boston’s first
Italian American Mayor.
Business
The very first record of trade between what
was known as Italy and the Massachusetts colony was in 1640. In 1649 the families of
Robert Child and Henry Saltonstall settled in New England. They were not graduates of
Harvard, of course, it was too early for that, but both had degrees from the University of
Padova.
It bears repeating Amadeo Giannini’s founding of the
Bank of America in San Francisco. In addition he financed the early movie industry in
Hollywood which could not have flourished without Giannini’s financing. Other
examples are Amedeo Obici who founded the most American of snacks, Planters
Peanuts.
Marco Fontana in the mid 1800’s founded the California Fruit
Packing Company. The Genoese Antonio Cerruti started a canning company under the
name Marca del Monte (Brand of the Mountain), later shortened to Del Monte.
Jeno Paolucci started a Chinese food business which would
later take over the entire market as Chun King and he would sell in 1963 for $63 million.
Explaining his success in an interview he stated that: "…when I was a kid and a
member of a real minority called a ‘dago’ and a ‘wop’, I felt
disadvantaged…I can’t think of a better way to pay America back."
Lee
Iacocca brought Chrysler Motors back to life as its President. In the early seventies
Ralph
D. Nunzio at the age of 39 became Chairman of the New York Stock Exchange. Today we
have another Italian American at the helm in Richard Grasso.
Two names that have become part of the American lexicon are
Jacuzzi,
the whirlpool bath tub and Zamboni the machine that resurfaces the ice during
hockey games and ice shows. Originally the Jacuzzi (pronounced Yacutsi) brothers emigrated
to California and made strides in aviation by inventing the first enclosed cabin,
high-wing monoplane, which carried mail for the U.S. postal service as well as passengers.
Later made great advancements in the agricultural pump industry, still their main
business. In 1968 Roy Jacuzzi invented and marketed the first self-contained, fully
integrated whirlpool bath. Frank Zamboni from California, originally from Arsio in
the Southern Tyrol region of Northern Italy, started with the first ice rink in the area
before inventing the "ice resurfacing machine". There is even a Zamboni Song.
The computer industry is full of successful Italian Americans.
Dan
Stanzione is President of Bell Labs, the premier scientific research laboratory for
the telecommunication industry (Antonio Meucci, the putative inventor of the telephone,
would find irony in this). Patricia Russo is an executive vice president there.
Carly
Fiorina recently left Lucent Technology to become President and CEO of
Hewlett-Packard. One of her earlier jobs was teaching English in Italy. Mario Mazzola,
from Milan, is a senior VP at Cisco, a company that furnishes 80% of the communications
hardware to the internet. Guerino De Luca has been since 1968 at Logitech, maker of
mouses for computers, and is now developing a wireless mouse. Locally, Gary T. Di
Camillo is Chairman of Polaroid Corporation. Recently Robert Madonna, of
Hyannis, sold his company Excel to Lucent Technologies for $1.4 billion.
Education
The Italian Jesuits did much to spur
education in the early days of the republic. Bishop Giuseppe Rosati of Naples
founded St. Louis University in 1827. St. Bonaventure University was founded by Fr.
Panfilo da Magliano, from Abruzzi. Four years later Fr. Diomede Falconio,
another Abruzzese, became president of St. Bonaventure at age 26. Later he was made
Cardinal and his picture, painted by the celebrated Thomas Eakins, hangs in the National
Art Museum in Washington. Although Bishop John Carroll was the founder of Georgetown, it
was under President Fr. Giovanni Grassi from Bergamo that the university was revived and
it was under his aegis that it became Gerogetown University by Act of Congress. The next
five presidents were all Italian, among them Fr. Leo Saracena from Calabria.
In the west there were other three famous institutions founded by
Italians: Santa Clara University founded by Fr. Joseph Nobili in 1851; Fr.
Antonio
Maraschi, from Piedmont, founded St. Ignatius College, now renamed the University of
San Francisco; and Fr. Joseph Cataldo who founded Gonzaga University.
The first to teach Italian in a University in the new colonies
was not Lorenzo Da Ponte but a Carlo Bellini at the College of William and
Mary in 1779. Incidentally he had joined Mazzei and others in forming a company of
soldiers during the Revolutionary War. It was not until the 19th century that
Italian came to be taught as a full fledged literary subject at Columbia and at Harvard.
At the latter it was Geroge Ticknor who set the stage for the teaching of Italian. He
appointed a Pietro Bachi, from Palermo to head the Italian Department. Bachi’s
students were: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Henry David Thoreau, Edward Everett Hale, James
Russel Lowell, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
In Massachusetts we had tow men who became presidents of two
outstanding Catholic Universities – Fr. Anthony Ciampi was president of Holy
Cross in Worcester for three terms beginning in 1843, and at Boston College there was Fr.
Nicholas
Russo who was also the author of the Summa Philosophica a treatise on moral
philosophy. Also in Boston, a Fr. Finotti, a Jesuit, was a prominent editor of the
catholic paper The Pilot.
In our century Dr.
Peter Sammartino, one of the early
sponsors of the National Italian American Foundation, formed Farleigh Dickinson
University.
Music
Filippo Traetta, a Venetian founded
the first "American Conservatorio" in Philadelphia. He went on to compose
several works along with texts on "Rudiments of the Art of Singing", and
"Solfeggio Americano". He composed The Venetian Maskers, which was the
first opera composed in America.
Spurred by
Lorenzo Da Ponte (Mozart’s librettist),
New Yorkers built an Opera House in 1833. "It was decorated by some of the most
skillful Italian artists of the day." There was even an opera house in Texarcana,
Texas founded by Antonio Ghio. In 1904 Giovanni Merola founded the
Santa Fe Opera.
Locally, it is not well known that the first conductor of
Boston’s Handel and Haydn Society in 1815, the oldest continuous musical organization
in the USA, was an Italian named Louis Astinelli. Giuseppe Campanari
(1855-1927), a baritone who had lost his voice and became a cellist for La Scala; later in
1884 he played for the Boston Symphony before returning to singing in 1893.
Alfredo Casella (1883-1947), noted composer, was conductor
of the Boston Pops for two years preceding Arthur Fiedler in the 1920’s.
Walter
Piston (Pistone), the dean of American composers, influenced many of his students,
among them Leonard Bernstein.
Today we have
Janice Mancini Del Sesto, General Director
of The Boston Lyric Opera.
Robert Bonfiglio is a virtuoso on the harmonica. will play a world premiere
of a Villa-Lobos concerto with the Pro Arte Orchestra. Early next year,
Michael
Gandolfi is a local composer who has had one of his works receive a world premiere
with the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra. The Managing Director of the Boston Symphony
Orchestra is Mark Volpe, formerly with the Detroit Symphony. Another
Volpe (no relation) is Joseph Volpe, General Manager of the Metropolitan
Opera in New York.
In the world of jazz it is acknowledged but not
well publicized that the Italians of New Orleans developed the Dixieland style, and
Nick
La Rocca made the first jazz recording. His descendants still play in a band made up
entirely of their family members. Other names are hidden in the anglicized forms. Jazz
guitarist Eddie Lang is actually Salvatore Massaro from Molise. Harry Warren, one
of the most prolific American song writers, is Salvatore Guaragna (Harry
Warren) with roots from Calabria. The late jazz guitarist Joe Pass
was really a Passalacqua. In the world pop, Bon Jovi is really
Bongiovanni
and Arrowsmith's Tyler is a Talarico of Calabrian descent.
Art
It is well known that Thomas Jefferson
loved Italy and things Italian. In a letter to his friend Mary Cosway, with whom he
practiced Italian he called Italy "Elysium" and regretted having spent too
little time there. His house Monticello, on a hill outside Charlottsville, Virginia, had a
definite Palladian influence.
Many artists and artisans have shaped and decorated the buildings
in this country, particularly Washington D.C. Early work on the capitol were done by two
Italians from Carrara, Giovanni Andrei and Giuseppe Franzoni who came
through the auspices of Mazzei who was asked to obtain sculptors in Italy. The best work
of these two artists was destroyed when the British burned the Capitol in the War of 1812.
Carlo Franzoni, Giuseppe’s younger brother also came
later and he created the Tobacco Column Caps in the small Senate Rotunda. He also carved
the Car of History in the old House of representatives Chamber, considered to be the
finest work of its kind in the city, and the high relief of Justice in the Supreme Court
Chamber. There were many others who helped fill the Capitol with art.
The most famous to come after them was
Costantino Brumidi,
a muralist who literally filled the Capitol with his frescoes. The Cornwallis fresco in
the House dining room is signed "C. Brumidi, American Citizen." He also did the
Apotheosis of Washington in the canopy of the dome. His work fills many other areas, but
we must mention the "Brumidi Corridor" on the first floor of the Senate Wing and
the President’s Room in the Senate Wing. He completed over half of the fresco in the
rotunda before he had a fall which led to his death three months later. For all his great
work he has been dubbed the "Michelangelo of the Capitol." His bust is near the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
The Lincoln memorial was designed by Chester French, but the
actual carving was done by the Piccirilli brothers. You can visit his studio with
the original model outside Lenox, Massachusetts. In the museum you will see an invoice for
$5,000 to be paid to the Piccirilli.
From 1907 to the dedication 1990, the Gothic Cathedral in
Washington D.C. on Mount Saint Alban off Wisconsin Avenue, was filled with carvings and
sculptures executed by Italians. There is even a sculpture, a memorial to one of those
Italians, the carver Joseph Ratti who fell to his death while working on April 1,
1955. Of the many known carvers who worked on the cathedral, 19 were Italians. Names like
Gino
Bresciani, Italo Fanfani, Vincent Palumbo, and Frank Zucchetti.
Luca
Petrini and Roger Remigi who carved some of the great pieces like the
Majestus,
a Christ figure above the main altar. There were also several sculptors like
Louis
Amateis from Turin, Theodore Barbarossa, who had a studio in East Boston,
Ettore
Cadorin from Venice, Joseph Coletti from San Donato, but lived in Boston, who
as a student had been an assistant to John Singer Sargent. Angelo Lualdi, born in
Genoa, created in his studio in Florence, all the statues for the high altar.
Don
Turano, born in New York, created the model of St. Hubert of Belgium for the nave
south outer aisle.
Ralph Fasanella, the worker's painter (d. 1997) is
considered the most famous naive painter since Grandma Moses. His paintings of the comkon
people are exhibieted in many public places. Most famous is his depiction of the Lawrence
strike of 1912. One of the most famous and influential artists today is
Frank
Stella from Malden, Massachusetts. He is still very much active and in 1998 he was
visiting artist at his alma mater, Phillips Academy in Andover.
Sports
This is one area that probably does not need reminding of the many Americans with Italian names who have dominated in many sports. We will only name a few, as we have not only famous or well known athletes, but also coaches in Baseball - Russo, La Sorda, Basketball - Carnesecca, Massimino, Carlissimo, and Rick Pitino of Boston Celtics, Football - the great Vince Lombardi, Joe Paterno, Bill Parcells who in an interview extolled the virtues of his Sicilian mother and the values that she imparted to him. And not to leave soccer out, the coach of the New England Revolution is none other then famed Italian goalie Walter Zenga.
Literature
There have been many Italian American
writers and poets whose work has been dubbed Italian American because it dealt with the
problems of emigration or simply because it dealt with characters who were of Italian
extraction. This did not deny the fact that these novels dealt with human and universal
problems. Take for example Pietro Di Donato’s Christ in Concrete.
Before him there was Pascal D’Angelo who died too early before his work became
well known. One of the aims of this publication is to feature American writers of Italian
descent. We have written on the great poet John Ciardi, writers like
John Fante.
Now the fact that a writer has an Italian last name does not mean that his or her writing
is restricted to the immigrant experience. Even the two names just mentioned were part of
the mainstream.
In spite of all these achievements some of the old stereotypes,
though abetted by some Italian American film makers or actors themselves, still remain.
Some are a little more subtle. If you look upon the landscape of the television
programming, you do not find too many characters with Italian names, and those you do find
are, for the most part, two dimensional cartoon representation of what we are supposed to
think is an Italian American. The NIAF keeps track of these facts and reacts quickly when
the outrage is too great to bear.
May be this is the way of the future. As group we will quietly continue to be great
Americans of Italian descent.
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