Columns

I last wrote about how, aboard the Italian Line’s Saturnia on my family’s way to Italy when I was 9, I found myself attracted to one of the girls who was (at the very least) 13. Tall and shapely, with a bronze complexion, she had a braid of thick black hair resting on her shoulders. She wore a ladylike wristwatch but, in an attempt to shake off the torpor of being cooped up on the ship, she ran wild with the rest of us kids on deck like a feverish Amazon until her cheeks bloomed kiss-me red. She seemed to …

For many Italian Americans with personal, family or investment ties to Italy, opening an Italian bank account is a necessary step, but it’s often one of the most complex obstacles they encounter. What appears, from the outside, to be an inefficient or overly rigid banking system is in fact the result of a precise regulatory choice driven by anti-money laundering rules, tax transparency obligations, and an increasingly cautious approach by Italian financial institutions. Italian banks operate within a strict national and European framework, particularly under legislation implementing the EU Anti-Money Laundering Directives, which impose extensive Know Your Customer and Customer …

The Italian verb  chiudere  is often used to describe physically closing a thing, most often a door or a window, and can be translated as “to close” or “to shut.” When the reference is to fastening a lock, the translation changes, and is “to lock,” or “to bolt.” When a shop physically “closes” or “shuts its doors” and stops offering services for the day, this act can be described with chiudere. As far as other physical endeavors go, chiudere is often used when an English speaker would describe “turning off” or “shutting off” an appliance or an electrical switch. Stretching the …

There are normal, obvious places we can go, to improve our genealogy skills and to find information to advance our research. We have the many websitess that I talk about all the time, and you don’t even have to leave your house! Those same sites may have additional data if you travel to a FamilySearch Center. (formerly known as a Family History Center. Don’t ask me why they changed the name!) You can try to find other researchers on FamilySearch in the Tree who are working on your town(s) or families. You can try to find researchers on social media …

Recently, as often happens among Roselandites from the Pullman/Kensington neighborhoods, the topic of Sherwin Williams came up. Everyone recognizes first that SW was a major employer of neighborhood residents and second that it had specific impact upon the community. One visual impact SW had was in the testing of exterior paints in the SW lot east of 115th and Cottage Grove. There were rows and rows of slanted metal sheets on stands, all facing southeast to catch the sun’s rays at their highest point. These exposed paint samples provided data for SW and helped them determine the right chemical composure …

Gianfranco Rosi’s acclaimed documentary “Sotto le nuvole” (Below the Clouds) is set to open at Film at Lincoln Center on March 6. The film, which won the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival and was featured in the New York Film Festival’s Main Slate, explores life in an area of Naples situated between Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields (Campe Flegree), an active volcanic caldera. Rosi, known for his immersive portraits of communities in crisis, turns his lens on archaeologists uncovering ancient artifacts and dealing with the aftermath of tomb raiders, emergency responders strained by constant threats, and …

In early July 1960, my parents, sister, great-uncle Ernie and I sailed from New York City on a ship of the Italian Line, the “Saturnia.” Its name evoked Italy as the land of Saturn, where the old god, father of Jupiter, ushered in the Golden Age with his reign. The hulk itself, however, built in 1927 and only five years from the scrapheap, didn’t quite do that for us, especially in tourist class. A little sink garishly illuminated by an overhead light was the focal point of our cabin, which was below deck, so forget about the portholes I’d been …

Italy’s special tax regime for new Italian tax residents — the one often compared to the UK “non-dom” concept — has long been one of the country’s most effective magnets for internationally mobile families, executives, investors and retirees. (For previous coverage, click here.) It sits in Article 24-bis of the Italian Income Tax Code (TUIR) and, in plain English, allows eligible individuals to pay a fixed annual substitute tax on most foreign-source income, instead of being taxed under Italy’s ordinary progressive rules. The regime survives intact in 2026. But the price of entry has jumped again. And this time, the …

It has been years since I had a daily newspaper delivered to my house. I stopped it because A) I would have a week’s worth of papers that hadn’t been read, which made the entire exercise futile; B) I don’t care what happens in the Chicago City Council, since I don’t live in Chicago; and C) I find out most news on social media as it happens, rather than wait until the next day. My dad thought he was scooping the news organizations and Facebook when he would call me to tell me about the latest event. I had a …

St. Anthony’s is still my parish, and on Sunday mornings, you’ll find me at the 9 o’clock mass, just like when I was a good St. Anthony’s School student. One major difference is that the disciplinary Sisters of St. Joseph aren’t there to make sure I followed their laws. For the boys, that meant no hands in pockets and taking your hats off. For the girls, it meant making sure you had a head covering scarf or hat. Those were the good old days when, if you broke their laws, you could get a surprising smack on the head to …