L'Italo-Americano

www.italoamericano.org 8 THURSDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2025 L'Italo-Americano in 2024, Italy is encouraging descendants of emigrants to rediscover their ancestral towns and connect with local communities, and Tracing Italian Roots offers a comple- mentary approach from the American side, creating a digital bridge before visitors even set foot in Italy. For many Italian-Americans who grew up hearing fragments of family history, this kind of resource may provide the first concrete link between memory and geography. Behind the technology, though, there is a human m o t i v e : a s t h e C O M I T E S website explains, the project aims to gather "known sto- ries and those never told," giving voice to the people who kept Italian culture alive abroad in their own ways. Some of them were part of organized associations; oth- ers worked alone, quietly m a i n t a i n i n g t r a d i t i o n s , recipes, or crafts. In collect- ing these fragments, the map becomes both an archive and a gesture of recognition. Of course, there will be challenges, too, above all, keeping the platform active: digital archives depend on participation, and the success of Tracing Italian Roots will rely on the community's will- ingness to share. To that end, COMITES plans outreach tion of Tracing Italian Roots took place on October 20, 2025, at the Italian Cul- t u r a l S o c i e t y in C h e v y Chase, Maryland, in col- laboration with GlobalMe- dia IT. The event introduced the project to the community, showed how the digital plat- form works, and explained how people can contribute their own stories or suggest new entries. The project's two-way per- spective makes it truly dis- tinctive. Each story entered in the Washington database links back to a specific place in Italy, and the connection is visual: the user can see a line joining the two locations. A family from Abruzzo who opened a café in Georgetown, an architect from Florence w h o w o r k e d o n a f e d e r a l building, a musician from Sicily who taught in a D.C. conservatory, all will appear as points on a living map of exchange. In time, the Italian municipalities involved may add their own data, turning the platform into a shared record of migration between Italy and the United States. The idea fits neatly within Italy's broader effort to pro- mote what the Foreign Min- istry calls turismo delle radici, or "roots tourism." Through programs such as Italea, launched nationwide programs in schools and Ital- ian-language classes, where teachers can integrate the m a p i n t o l e s s o n s a b o u t migration and heritage. The project team also hopes to i n v o l v e t h e I t a l i a n Embassy in Washington, w h o s e s u p p o r t h a s b e e n e s s e n t i a l s i n c e t h e i d e a ' s early stages. A preview of the platform shown at recent community events suggests a user-friend- l y i n t e r f a c e d e s i g n e d t o encourage exploration; visi- tors can zoom in on neigh- borhoods, filter results by period, or search by Italian region of origin. Over time, it could evolve into a resource for cultural tourism, allowing travelers to design itineraries based on the Italian land- marks of the D.C. area, from historic churches to new Ital- ian businesses. I f t h e e x p e r i m e n t s u c - c e e d s , o t h e r C O M I T E S o f f i c e s a c r o s s t h e U n i t e d States may adopt the same model, creating a national network of regional maps that together tell the story of the Italian diaspora in Ameri- c a . F o r n o w , W a s h i n g t o n leads the way, offering an example of how local com- mitment and institutional support can turn history into something living, searchable, and shared. umented Italian connec- tion; clicking on a location will reveal short texts, pho- tos, and links to the individ- ual's or family's town of ori- gin in Italy. Some entries will tell familiar stories of scien- tists, artists, and diplomats, while others will focus on everyday figures who built communities far from home. T h e a i m i s v e r y m u c h t o record what has gone unno- ticed up to now: small gro- cery stores, artisan work- shops, teachers, families, and second-generation Italian- Americans who contributed to local life in quieter ways. The platform is combining the work of historians, stu- dents, and volunteers: this s u m m e r , C O M I T E S launched a call for two young collaborators to assist with research, data entry, and community outreach. The notice, published on Italian and Italian-American news sites, invited applications from students or recent grad- uates who could dedicate three months to the project. The collaboration helped establish a working method for gathering and verifying stories, with the long-term goal of involving schools, universities, and local associ- ations in expanding the data- base. The official presenta- T he traces of the Italian diaspora i n t h e U S a r e countless, but we tend to find them sitting quietly in archives, street names, or family mem- ories. Things are bound to change, however, thanks to a new project launched by the COMITES of Washington D.C., aimed at making all these traces visible again and connecting them, one by one, to the places in Italy where e a c h s t o r y b e g a n . C a l l e d Tracing Italian Roots, the project is an ambitious digital map that will record Italian and Italian-American contri- butions to the capital region and link them to their home- towns across the Atlantic. T h e i d e a c o m e s f r o m a simple question: what does the Italian footprint in Wash- ington actually look like? Churches, cafés, schools, and cultural institutions all tell a part of the story, but the goal here is to build a single, interactive map that unites them and fills in the gaps with personal stories that never reached the history books. The project, devel- oped as said by COMITES D . C . w i t h t h e s u p p o r t o f Italy's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MAECI), is the first of its kind in the United States. Washington has been cho- sen as a pilot city, but the ini- tiative will later likely expand to other American regions. Certainly, the capital, with its embassies, universities, and long history of Italian pres- ence, offers the perfect start- ing point: over the past cen- tury, Italians have helped shape its academic life, archi- tecture, and food culture, yet no comprehensive record has ever brought their stories t o g e t h e r . T r a c i n g I t a l i a n Roots intends to do exactly that through a web-app that allows users to explore a digi- tal map and discover how much of Italy still lives in the D.C., Maryland, and Virginia area. Each point on the map will represent a person, an insti- tution, or a place with a doc- FRANCESCA BEZZONE Tracing Italian Roots: mapping Italy's story across America COMITES' new project aims to highlight Italian and Italian-American contributions to US culture (Image created with DALL-E 2) NEWS & FEATURES TOP STORIES PEOPLE EVENTS

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