My Turn

A tough kid from the Taylor Street neighborhood, Louis Grippo ended up sparring under the tutelage of a world champion while training at Ft. Riley during World War II. This is a story about Pfc. Louis Grippo and his travels during World War II. But a little background first. I grew up in my father’s family building on West Taylor Street in one of the Italian enclaves of Chicago. My mom’s family lived on South May Street, two blocks away. In my early years, we went over there almost every day. When I was in grammar school, I was there …

The Italian-American community is about to embark on its most challenging and important project in recent history: the creation of a National Museum of Italian American History on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Italian Americans have made tremendous sacrifices while making monumental contributions to our country. A national museum would serve to memorialize our exceptional history and preserve it for the benefit of future generations. This initiative began last year when the Museum and Cultural Affairs Committee of the Conference of Presidents of Major Italian American Organizations recommended to me that we begin to explore the prospect of creating …

Can two centuries of Italian diaspora across the globe fit into a 30-second sound bite or a 280-character tweet? “No, no and no again,” say the faculty of the fourth edition of the Italian Diaspora Studies Summer Seminar. Sponsored by the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute and Roma Tre University, the session took place in Ostiense, a southern quarter of Rome. The 16 participants arrived from Turkey, Canada and Italy, and from California, Colorado, Indiana, New York, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania in the United States. The IDSSS is the dream child of a team of innovative scholars who have supported …

  As an author, I’ve had the pleasure of meeting hundreds of Italian Americans at book signings. It’s always my pleasure to chat with these fine people. I enjoy their family tales and always encourage them to tell the stories of their immigrant ancestors to their children and grandchildren to help preserve the memory of the incredible accomplishments of their forebears. That’s not to say that only Italian immigrants had it rough. The opposite is true: All new arrivals struggle and immigration is still a challenge today. I write about Italian immigrants and speak to groups about them coming to …

Last October, I found myself strolling through the cobblestone streets of Rome taking in the sights and sounds of the magical “This is Wonderland” event. It was like stepping through the looking glass in more ways than one. “Alice in Wonderland” is a story we all adore, but did you know that Lewis Carroll’s famous tale was inspired by a potentially dubious love connection with a 10-year-old muse? It invites us to contemplate the delicate balance between innocence and unseen dangers. And just as the origins of “Alice in Wonderland” are hidden and blurred, so too are the potential risks …

The cover of Fra Noi reads “Embrace your inner Italian”: words that inspire us to explore every aspect of our heritage and community. In my case, the catchy phrase opened the door to the Italian Cultural Center at Casa Italia. An oasis of italianità in Stone Park, the center is home to a hardy band of volunteers who truly live this calling. I paid my first visit in 2015 and was introduced to Dominic Candeloro, a pensive curator with glasses that often slide down his nose. He, in turn, introduced me to the vast cultural riches of the center: its …

As a third-generation Italian American born in the baby boomer era, I remember growing up getting bits and pieces from my parents about my paternal grandparents who emigrated from Southern Italy around 1910. My aunts and uncles also provided insight into their upbringing as children of Italian immigrant parents. I grew up in the Little Italy of South Philadelphia, and my childhood was filled with the typical Italian-American experience of family traditions that so many of us enjoy. In my mid-20s, I started to wonder about my family tree: Where did my grandparents, Francesco and Caterina Leto, come from in …

I am writing this the morning after Aaron Judge of the New York Yankees hit his 62nd home run of the season, breaking Roger Maris’ American League record of 61, which he set 61 years ago. I immediately thought of my dad, his youth, my life as his son and our relationship with the American pastime. Anthony Quilico was born in 1901 in the coal mining Italian enclave of Seatonville in Bureau County, Illinois. His dad worked the mines until 1909, when the mine fire in nearby Cherry, Illinois, convinced him to take a job with the railroads. Many miners …

Between 1893 and 1940, hundreds of Italians from Sassano, a small commune in the region of Campania in Southern Italy, settled on Armour Avenue (now known as Federal Street) between 47th and 51st streets in the Bronzeville neighborhood of Chicago. My sojourn began in 2002 when my oldest daughter, Elizabeth, received an assignment from her eighth grade social studies teacher, Dan Wall, to “Find out which ancestors came to America, when and why.” My father’s sister, Rosemary Cavallone, and her husband, Rosario di Miele, told the tale of Francesco “Thethen Cheek” Cavallone and Rosa Libretti, who were among the first …

Between July 1, 1847, and July 14, 2021, 5,614 U.S. stamps were issued. Among them, eight Italians and 21 Italian Americans were depicted. Thirty showed Christopher Columbus. He initially appeared on two stamps in 1869. In 1893, a set of 16 stamps commemorating the discovery of America was released, 12 of which portrayed Columbus. In 1992, the Postal Service issued a modified version of one of the 1869 stamps; reissued the set of 16 with the date changed from 1892 to 1992; and released a new set of four stamps for the quincentennial of Columbus’ first voyage. The first Italian …