L'Italo-Americano

www.italoamericano.org 18 L'Italo-Americano THURSDAY, AUGUST 22, 2019 LA VITA ITALIANA TRADITIONS HISTORY CULTURE D ear Readers,  an Au- gust assortment of Italian connections: Automotive lumi- nary Lee A. Ia- cocca,  left us last month at age 94. In an industry that had pro- duced legends, from giants like Henry Ford and Walter Chrysler to the birth of the assembly line and freedoms of the road that led to suburbia and the middle class, Mr. Iacocca, the son of an immi- grant hot-dog vendor, made his- tory as the only executive in modern times to preside over the operations of two of the Big Three automakers. In the 1970s and '80s, with Detroit still dominating the na- tion's automobile market, his name evoked images of executive suites, infighting, power plays and the grit and savvy to sell American cars. He was so widely admired that there was serious talk of his running for president of the United States in 1988. Lee Iacocca clawed his way to pinnacles of power in 32 years at Ford, building flashy cars like the Mustang, making the covers of Time and Newsweek and be- coming the company president at 46, only to be spectacularly fired in 1978 by the founder's grand- son,  Henry Ford II, for reasons of "gelosia", because it was Ia- cocca not Ford who became known as the face and father of the Mustang... and both men had Big Egos. *** Lee landed on his feet after his dismissal and, in a 14-years second act that secured his worldwide reputation, took over the floundering Chrysler Corpo- ration and restored it to health in what experts called one of the most brilliant turnarounds in business history. He accomplished it with a controversial $1.5 billion federal loan guarantee, won by convinc- ing the government that Chrysler was vital to the national economy and should not be allowed to fail, and with concessions from unions, new lineups of cars, and a new national spokesman -him- self- featured in a decade-long television advertising campaign. "If you can find a better car, buy it," the blunt Mr. Iacocca challenged the public. His 1984 book Iacocca: An Autobiography became a run- away best seller, the leading non- fiction hardcover of 1984 and 1985. I have a copy on my book shelf. TV commercials and news photographs had made him one of the nation's best-known faces, on oval of grandfatherly features: a balding pate, a fleshy nose, mischievous eyes behind half- rim glasses, thin lips chomping an imported cigar. A heroic figure to many Americans, he became chairman of a project to restore the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island in 1992, the Centennial year of its 1892 opening. He was in demand for speeches and public appearances that took on the color of a cam- paign. The Iacocca magic, like Chrysler's earnings, faded as the nation dipped into recession. Iacocca established partner- ships with Mitsubishi, Maserati and Fiat, but they were no panacea. He retired as Chrysler's chairman and chief executive in 1992. *** Boxers with Italian surnames often changed them. A number of Italian American boxers went by Irish pseudonyms because of anti-italianism. There also was a misconception that no- body could be successful in the ring unless they had an Irish name. Irish Americans dominated boxing. Following are a few of the many Italian American cham- pion prizefighters using Irish names from 1900 to 1955: Kid Murphy (Peter Fascella), Bushy Graham (Angelo Geraci), Young Corbett III (Raffaele Giordano), Hugo Kelly (Ugo Micheli), Johnny Wilson (Giovanni Pan- ico), and George Nichols (Phillip Nicolosi). Angelo Dundee, the Italian American legendary box- ing trainer said, "In the early 1900s it wasn't advantageous to have an Italian name." Even Frank Sinatra's father Anthony Martin Sinatra, who had arrived as a child from Agrigento, Sicily first started out as an apprentice in a cobbler's shop. He was known in his neighborhood, where everyone had a nickname, as "Tony the Shoemaker." He took up prizefighting and, be- cause it was better in those days to have an Irish name than an Ital- ian one (the Irish politicians con- trolled Hoboken), he adopted his manager's name and became known as "Marty O'Brien." Most of his later working years were with the Hoboken Fire Depart- ment. He was a good fireman, al- ways first to arrive at the fires and he rose through the ranks to captain.  *** Cabot is the Italian (Giovanni Caboto) explorer that Italic Insti- tute of America founder and di- rector, John Mancini, wants Ital- ian Americans to embrace and celebrate. You can read John Mancini's blogs and a lot more at www.italic.org but for now, let me  share some snippets of Mancini's recent blog on John Cabot, which he titled A Best Kept Secret. Giovanni Caboto is celebrated in Newfoundland and Labrador with a 3-day holiday named Dis- covery Day. After all, Cabot was the first European to claim those islands as well as North America in 1497, and launch the British Empire at his own expense. Cabot is our best kept secret. I doubt you can find one hundred people in all of the United States who remember him from school books or know his real name was Giovanni Caboto. He didn't wipe out any Indigenous people or en- slave anyone. But his direct legacy includes our English- speaking nation and English democracy. Italian Americans have an un- canny knack for burying their grandeur with piles of immigrant flotsam. Better to be eternally grateful for entry to Ellis Island than bragging that we opened the New World. Right now, we battle to save Columbus Day from ingrates who think crossing the dark At- lantic was child's play. All our chips are on poor Christopher. (And, we only embraced him when WASPs made him a hero at the Chicago Columbian Ex- hibit in 1892). In contrast, Cabot doesn't exist in our communal memory. Verrazzano only saw the light of day when Italian American researcher Giovanni Schiavo wrote of him in the 1950s and activist John LaCorte of Brooklyn lobbied to have a new bridge named after him in 1964. How many people know that Verrazzano was to France what Columbus was to Spain and Cabot to England? He estab- lished France's title to Canada and the Louisiana territory. Sadly, he was murdered and eaten by indigenous people in the Caribbean. Keep that quiet, we don't want to offend anyone...

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