L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, JULY 23, 2015 www.italoamericano.org 15 L'Italo-Americano Dear Readers, A July assortment of Italian connections for you: Mauro Battocchi, Consul G e n e r a l o f I t a l y f o r N o r t h W e s t e r n U . S . A . , a n d r e c e n t g u e s t s p e a k e r a t t h e I t a l i a n American Heritage Foundation in San Jose, California, encour- aged the audience to learn more about Italy today, along with its r i c h H e r i t a g e o f t h e p a s t . "Grazie" to I.A.H.F. Cultural C h a i r a n d " F l a v o r s f r o m a Calabrese Kitchen, California S t y l e " a u t h o r K e n n e t h J . Borelli, I can share these insights into Italy today with you. Ken states: "Sometimes as Italian Americans we are in a time warp, and when we visit current day Italy we may experi- ence a type of culture shock via "current events". It happened to me last year when I visited the small seaside town of Scalea in Calabria, close to my ancestorial village, Verbicaro, only to find a growing Russian community with property signs written in Russian, a few kilometers away visiting a friend from England who was part of an English com- munity who had summer homes in the mountains. At one time this was a very isolated part of the country, no longer now! As part of the global econo- my, Italy is in a major transition, not only in areas of cultural plu- ralism but also "being center s t a g e " o f a m a j o r c o n f l i c t regarding "Immigration". Partly due to geography and partly due to history, Italy is now part of the pathway for literally thou- sands of refugees and migrants from take off points in North Africa, via the Italian mainland and then dispersed throughout Western Europe with some of t h e s e r e f u g e e s r e m a i n i n g i n I t a l y . I t h a s b e c o m e a d a i l y occurrence to read about people lost at sea attempting to reach t h e I t a l i a n m a i n l a n d a n d o n many occasions the President of Italy has asked for more Western E u r o p e a n a s s i s t a n c e t o h e l p t h e s e w a r a n d e c o n o m i c refugees. Pope Francis from C i t t à d e l V a t i c a n o , h a s a l s o j o i n e d i n , c a l l i n g t h i s m a s s migration of peoples one of the major issues confronting human- ity today. These issues are also very complex and similar to many of the concerns we in the USA are also confronting. As a reminder, Italy is geo- graphically a large mass protrud- ing into the Mediterranean and centered in the heart of a migra- tion pattern that has been a part of Italian History since Roman Times. From recent history, howev- er, with Italian Unification, like other Western European coun- t r i e s , t h e r e w a s a m a r c h f o r colonies. This 90 year period saw Italian influence in North Africa, East Africa and even in Albania and parts of the old Yugoslavia expand and later decline. While formal colonial ties ended, many economic and social ties that were established still exist even today. It is also no coincident that many of the "hot spots" in the world today were former Italian colonies. The most glaring example, of course is Libya, followed by i n t e n s e c o n f l i c t s i n S o m a l i , Eritrea, Ethiopia and later with t h e f a l l o f C o m m u n i s m , i n Albania and the old Yugoslavia, all combining to add further complexities to this migration toward Italy. Today, when you visit most of the large Italian cities, one of the first impressions will be the level of diversity of communi- ties and it seems with every new crisis in the Middle East, the refugee and migratory problems increases, sadly with not too much of an ending in site. It almost feels like it's a full circle o b s e r v a t i o n , s i n c e s o m a n y Italians left Italy for many of the same reasons as others are leav- ing their countries of origin. And to make it more personal, I have the 1911 draft riot trial records in a book entitled "La Paura di V e r b i c a r o " , o r F e a r o f Verbicaro, by Felice Spingola. In the early 1900's in the south of Italy, there were serious draft riots by village people, protest- ing the drafting of their youth to fight Libya. A review of the draft trials listed the names of t h o s e a r r e s t e d . I r e c o g n i z e d m a n y f a m i l y n a m e s o f Verbicarese immigrants to pri- marily the San Francisco Bay Area. Now, I bet, that's not a family tale of the "old country" much discussed and got lost on our understanding of why our families left their communities. Sadly, today's immigrants, like our ancestors, have a lot in com- mon, only the scenarios have changed and let's hope even these tragedies will be a post- s c r i p t i n h i s t o r y s o o n ! A l s o "what's a new understanding of Italian life "today" has roots in many old stories too. *** July Dates with an Italian Connection : Carlo Lorenzini, whose pen name was Carlo Collodi, pub- lished the first chapter of his classic tale Pinocchio in July 1881. Lorenzini (1826-1890) was a journalist turned chil- dren's author. Among his works for young people were an Italian translation of Perrault's tales (c.1875) and a series of amusing instructional books, the first of which was titled Giannettino (1876). But Lorenzini's most famous work was the history of t h e m i s c h i e v o u s b o y - p u p p e t Pinocchio. Lorenzini first introduced Pinocchio in an Italian children's m a g a z i n e , t h e G i o r n a l e p e r Bambini in July 1881. The serial was published in book form in 1883 and enjoyed immediate success, as did it's English trans- lation when it was published in 1892. M o s t p e o p l e d o n ' t k n o w Pinocchio was Italian and not the original work of Walt Disney, w h o s e f i l m p o p u l a r i z e d Pinocchio in the U.S.A. The film related Pinocchio's most exciting and memorable adventures. With the help of a talking Cricket and a good Fairy, Pinocchio learned s o m e o f t h e m o r e d i f f i c u l t lessons on childhood and eventu- a l l y r e a l i z e d h i s d r e a m o f becoming a real live boy. *** A t e l e v i s i o n s l u r a g a i n s t Italian-Americans was protested in July 1980. A vigorous protest w a s r e g i s t e r e d b y U N I C O National to NBC over the use of d e r o g a t o r y w o r d s m a l i g n i n g Sicilians in a recent game show aired nationally by the network. Fred Silverman, NBC's presi- dent, received a blistering letter f r o m J o s e p h J . M i c c i c h e , UNICO's National president, requesting an immediate apology f r o m t h e s h o w ' s p r o d u c e r s H o w a r d F e l z e r a n d R o b e r t Sherman. The game show, known as Pass-Word, asks contestants to identify the key work from cer- tain clues. One contestant was given in succession the words "Gangster", "Prostitute" and "Sicilian". The purported answer was "Mafia". *** Filippo Mazzei was honored in 1980 by the United States Postal Service with a 40-cent stamp issued to commemorate t h e 2 5 0 t h a n n i v e r s a r y o f Mazzei's birth. Mazzei was a Florentine-born physician, political agent and p a m p h l e t e e r , w h o c a m e t o Virginia in 1773. He saw that the colonies were not at that time interested in independence from E n g l a n d a s h e h a d h o p e d . However, he succeeded in win- ning over many young people to his point of view. Jefferson credited his influ- ence, using Mazzei's words "All men are by nature equally free a n d i n d e p e n d e n t " i n t h e Declaration of Independence. Mazzei's last service to his adopted homeland was to return to Italy at Jefferson's request to hire sculptors and stone masons t o w o r k o n o u r n e w F e d e r a l Capitol in Washington. *** Compulsory Military ser- vice was abolished by the Italian Government on July 1, 2005. This converted Italy's armed forces to all-volunteer enlistment for the first time in the nations history. *** T h e A n d r e a D o r i a , t h e Italian luxury liner sank after colliding with a Swedish passen- g e r s h i p o f f t h e c o a s t o f Nantucket, Massachusetts late at night on July 25, 1956. At least 51 people were killed. Carlo Collodi, author of Pinocchio

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