The Italian Connection

Dear readers, I know that for L’Italo-Americano readers, October will always be Italian Heritage Month, however, due to the “Indigenous People” politically correct nomenclature currently in use in many California School Districts, any positive, beneficial and enduring history of Italian …

Dear Readers, An August assortment of Italian connections for you: *** August was named to honor the first Roman emperor (and grandnephew of Julius Caesar), Augustus Caesar (63BC-AD14). *** August is the month of figs. The first plant mentioned in the Bible is the …

Dear Readers, August is a good month to remind you that St. Rocco and his dog, always pictured together on religious picture cards distributed on his feast day, August 16, was heaven’s first animal rights activist, if the stories we believe, in a …

Dear Readers, “Toot! Toot!” – That’s me, tooting my own horn. I began writing for L’Italo-Americano in mid-1977, forty-five years ago. As 2022 begins let me pass on some good advice and January jottings to you. *** Advice for the …

Dear Readers, November notes with an Italian Connection: Thanksgiving Day is celebrated the next to last Thursday in November since it was so fixed by Abraham Lincoln in 1864. Days of drumsticks and Thanksgiving turkey remind me that one of …

Dear Readers, Labor Day will be celebrated in  the US on Monday, September 6th 2021. In Italy, on August 8, Italy celebrated the Giornata Nazionale del Sacrificio del Lavoro Italiano nel Mondo, a national day to remember the sacrifices of …

Dear Readers, September dates with Italian American connections for you: World War II began on Sep. 1, 1939, when Germany attacked Poland. The Treasury Department of the United States was established Sep. 2, 1789. Mike Piazza, an Italian-American baseball player …

Dear Readers, As November Veterans Day approaches I am reminded that on November 11, 1918, the Armistice agreement was signed, and fighting on all battlefields ceased at 11 a.m., when the guns of World War I fell silent after 4 …

Dear Readers, Opera Season, after a long shutdown, opened recently in San Francisco with Puccini’s Tosca, to a fully vaccinated and masked audience of two thousand. This was the S.F. Opera’s 99th season, but without my friend Joe Brucia’s father …

Dear Readers, A minestrone of Italian connections for you: Topolino (little mouse) rolled off the Fiat assembly lines back in 1934, thereby introducing the first subcompact car to the world. For a mere $250 for a basic model, Italian drivers …