My Turn

On March 14, 1891, in New Orleans, 11 Italians found not guilty in a murder trial were dragged from their jail cells by thousands of enraged citizens, who promptly shot and hanged them. More than eight decades later, on March 14, 1972, another assault on Italian immigrants took place, this time on a cultural level. On that day, “The Godfather” premiered at the Loew Loew’s Theater in New York. The epic gangster film broke box-office records and set the standard for movie blockbusters on the way to becoming an American classic, replete with memorable quotes like “Leave the gun. Take …

The picture at the bottom of this column truly is worth a thousand words! It depicts the largest gathering of major Italian-American leaders in history. The photo was taken on Dec. 4, 2021, in Washington, D.C., at a meeting of the Conference of Presidents of Major Italian American Organizations (copomiao.org). The conclave was held the day after an unprecedented reception between the delegation and Italy’s new ambassador to the United States, Mariangela Zappia. The bond forged at this gathering allows our community to begin working with the ambassador’s staff to implement an exciting new strategic program. The subsequent COPOMIAO meeting …

To edit Fra Noi is to live in a time warp in which months fold in upon each other, and the present and future blur. As I write this column for the January issue, Thanksgiving is two days away, Christmas decorations are about to emerge from their boxes in the basement and the New Year seems like a distant dream. In the midst of this befuddling cocktail of holiday spirits, it’s hard to know which tone to strike. Should I be thankful? Joyful? Resolute? One thing is certain, though: When I think of our advertisers, it’s easy to feel all …

October through December is my favorite time of year. I’m that person who decorates for fall in August and drinks pumpkin spice lattes when it’s still 90 degrees. Out of that whole glorious season, Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. Last year, I spent Thanksgiving in Treviso, Italy. I hadn’t planned on still being there that late in the season, but I can hardly complain. With 2020 being, well, 2020, it was a miracle I was in Italy at all. Since Thanksgiving is a uniquely American observance, it had me reminiscing about a magical celebration back home almost 20 years before. …

When I chat with a new friend or someone I just met and mention my fig trees, they almost immediately shake their heads and ask, “Did you just say fig trees?” Living in the Midwest as I do, it comes as a surprise to most people that we raise figs. And believe me, keeping these beauties alive in this region is truly a labor of love. I have vivid memories of the 22 fig trees my father kept when I was a kid growing up in Chicago. We all know the size of a city lot, but my parents owned …

From the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, as case numbers multiplied with each passing week, it was apparent there would be only one solution to this global health crisis. The answer fell in the domain of what I believe is the single greatest advancement in modern medicine — vaccination. Over this last year, we all witnessed what our world looked like when a vaccine didn’t exist for this highly contagious illness. Worldwide, there have been nearly 200 million cases of COVID with nearly 4 million lives lost, more than 600,000 of these in the U.S. alone. I received my first …

In 1819, English poet John Keats wrote a series of odes celebrating such things as a nightingale, the goddess Psyche, autumn and most famously a Grecian urn. Two years later, he died at the age of 25 in the midst of a pandemic that caused a quarter of the deaths across Europe in the 19th century. Here we are today — 100 years after the Spanish flu ripped through the world killing 50 million people — in the middle of our own pandemic: COVID-19. I first became familiar with odes in 1994 while watching the Italian film “Il postino” (The …

Saturday, Feb. 20, 2021, will be remembered as one of the most historic dates in Italian-American history. It’s the day that representatives of 354 Italian-American organizations from across our country joined together to participate in the first-ever National Italian American Summit Meeting. From New York to California to Hawaii, from Michigan to Louisiana, and from nearly every state in between, Italian-American leaders did something they had never done before: They joined hands in a show of national unity. The idea for the summit meeting stemmed from a discussion I had with Frank Maselli, president of the American Italian Museum in …

Even though only 25 percent of my DNA leads back to Italy, I have always considered myself Italian. Given my surname, everyone assumes I’m pure Italian. (Everyone except my Irish mother who always reminded me that the majority of my roots lay in Ireland.) The fact that I grew up in a part of Illinois inhabited by few Italians did nothing to separate me from my heritage. Whatever everyone else was, I was Italian! On my first trip to Europe when I was 23, I discovered I felt more comfortable in Florence than in any other city I had visited …

Private 1st Class Vincent J. Ferrara was never forgotten by those who loved him. His name would come up at every family gathering, and his siblings would always share fond memories. He was born on July 8, 1925, to Damiano and Giovanna “Jennie” (Nigretto) Ferrara and raised in a strong Catholic family. His uncle, Fr. John Ferrara, was the pastor at St. Callistus Parish in Chicago, and his father was very active in the Maria SS. Lauretana Society. Vince grew up in St. Michael Parish on the Near North Side of Chicago. He had a sunny disposition even though his …