Everything Old is New Again

The title of my blog is the title of a 1974 song by Peter Allen (real name: Richard Peter Woolnough, an Australian). There is an Italic connection: Allen was singer Liza Minelli’s first husband. But there’s an even bigger Italic connection: the title...

The Outer Circle

As President-elect Trump creates his new inner circle of Cabinet and agency officials, not all loyalists are included.  Whether by their choice or his, Trump’s Italian American cohorts are out of the limelight. Mike Pompeo Mike Pompeo, Trump’s former CIA Director...

We Hear Your Concerns

This week I heard from three of our subscribers on what I’ll term our ethnic identity crisis. Subscriber Robert Randazzo forwarded an online essay by a filmmaker named Richard Stecz (pronunciation optional) reflecting on perverse Italian American values.  Stecz...

CHICAGO’s ITALIAN WOMEN: SECOND TO NONE

In 2006, our Institute co-produced a 60-minute documentary, shown on both local PBS/Channel 11 and NBC/Channel 5, called, And They Came to Chicago: The Italian American Legacy. As the title suggests, it highlighted the 150-year history of Italians in the Second City....

Made of Sterner Stuff

History is a blur to most people, but 3,000 years of Italian history is near impossible to believe. Our Institute Almanac notes that Sicily was reconquered by the Romans on December 31st, AD 535.  Barbarians had been running wild over the “western” Roman Empire...

A Reason to Travel

Since childhood it was explained to us at Christmas Mass: “In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered…while Quirinius was governor of Syria…all went to their own towns to be registered.” (Luke 2.1-3)....