L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, AUGUST 4, 2016 www.italoamericano.org L'Italo-Americano 2 T he first Columbus Day was celebrated in 1972, a good three hundred years after the arrival of the Genoese explorer in the A mericas . A t that time, Columbus was not even Italian because Italy, in the form of a kingdom entrus ted to V ittorio Emanuele II of Savoy, came about only in 1861. Born in 1451, Columbus was a sailor of the Republic of Genova. He later became a subject of the Kingdom of Castile, where he then w ould die in 1506 and w here today, there is the house where he lived his final years in solitude after the court had turned their backs on him. After the refusal of the Portuguese, who were rivals in the conquest of new markets, the powerful Spanish kings were those who financed his venture, which sailed from Palos de la Frontera, a small anonymous port where today stands a small museum and a sad replica of one of the three ships that sailed towards the Indies. The dimensions of the boat are surprising: a nut shell to face unknown currents and routes, holding in his hands what would later prove itself to be a miscalculation. Italy does not celebrate Columbus Day nor has it ever had a national holiday dedicated to the great Italian explorers like Amerigo Vespucci, to whom we owe the name of the New World. It was he who realized that the land on which Columbus had arrived at was not the shortest way to get to Asia in the Indies, but a part of the independent globe and one separated from the Asian continent. Those who celebrate October 12th, Dia de la Hispanidad, are Spain and many countries of Hispanic culture because was Columbus' discovery that allowed the crown of Castiglia to create an empire on the other side of the Atlantic. In the United States, the modern day tradition of the impressive parade on Fifth Avenue, began on October Columbus Day: History and Controversy... From the director 12, 1866, when the Italian community of New York organized the first festival. In San Francisco, with its strong sense of Italian community, the tradition followed soon after, in 1869. Because of Columbus, a symbolic bridge between the Italians who immigrated to America and the first "Italian" who arrived in the New World was created. Since then, the parade, which has become an occasion to celebrate Italian identity in the U.S., is a symbol which helps strengthen the solidarity of the Italians in the New World. In the American context, the number of Italians who have contributed to the growth of the country is, without a doubt, quite significant. This is why Italian Heritage Month, which is celebrated in October and which includes Columbus Day, is more a time of recognition of those who are Italian or have Italian roots. It is a time to get together, rather than an exhalation of Columbus or a celebration of the discovery of America. In Los Angeles, the celebration has a much more recent history than that of its twin New York, but it has an important significance in a city that no longer has a Little Italy. Eliminating it would mean loosing the contemporary attempt to reinforce the links between one of the largest existing communities on the West Coast. Removing it from the calendar of events would mean to break up a social gathering, which gives the chance of meeting each other among the Italian-American community. All of this has to do with non reducing everything to an equation. Columbus Day today is a public celebration open to all those who share the warmth, the flavors, the history, and the values of Italy in the United States and of the Italian-Americanism in California. It is not a symbol of a conquest but of a belonging, of an arrival, in most cases, suffered and laborious yet strongly desired by generations of Italian immigrants. It is a linguistic and cultural bond which gathers millions of people from one side of the United States to the other and which recounts centuries of history which was built by leaving Italy across that ocean that Columbus traveled in the opposite direction. Simone Schiavinato, Director NEWS & FEATURES TOP STORIES PEOPLE EVENTS

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