Culture

This month, despite autonomist and separatist claims from some regions, Italy proudly celebrated its 153rd anniversary as a unified nation.   But how does a country become a nation-state? In the 19th century, Italy was divided into a number of …

Easter is the most important holiday in the Christian world, on par with Christmas, as it commemorates the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Besides religious practices, each culture has its own ways of celebrating this festivity, which reflect people’s lifestyles and …

Dear Readers, San Francisco’s Marina District has many Italian connections. The neighborhood known as the Marina District did not exist one hundred years ago. Much of the land where homes, stores and streets were built had been either salt marshes …

We are approaching the one year anniversary of the Rana Plaza building collapse in Bangladesh.  The building housed several garment factories owned by European and American apparel companies. While the news of this horrible incident unfolded and the dust clouds …

Dear Readers, My South Bay friend Ken Borelli, author, president emeritus and longtime cultural chair of the Italian American Heritage Foundation (I.A.H.F.) based in San Jose, California, shared with me this fascinating bit ofCalifornia history. Ken recently was vacationing in …

Since Antonio Meucci invented the telephone – and yes, by now the whole world knows it wasn’t Alexander Graham Bell who invented it – so much has changed, especially given the recent news.   Last month, the Michigan State House …

Ironically, the most well-loved manufactured two-wheeled object of Italian pride takes its name from one of the most hated and petulant insects, a wasp, vespa in Italian.   While the new Vespa campaign aims to target people who follow their …

A mile and a half from the Circus Maximus, sheep graze in Caffarella Park. Warming themselves in the April sun, they are indifferent to the ruins of towers and mausoleums and oblivious to an annual rite of spring. Shepherds gather …

Five years after his last visit to Italy, on the occasion of the G8 held in L’Aquila in June 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama was in Rome on March 26-27, following the summit on nuclear security in the Netherlands and a …

Over two thousand named characters, action which spreads across the earth and even to the moon, female warriors, monsters, magic, three main plots, numerous sub-plots, and witty asides by the author all woven together into a veritable “page turner”  make …