ITALIANS NOT SO BLACK-AND-WHITE 

On Friday, October 24th, in an event sponsored by Cinema/Chicago in conjunction with the Chicago International Film Festival, director Spike Lee was interviewed by Dr. Jacqueline Stewart, film professor at the University of Chicago and host of “Silent Cinema...

The Faces of Reality

The mean-looking guy in front is Emperor Caracalla Among the traits we inherited from our Roman ancestors was a grasp of reality.  It’s not always pretty but it has made us a very pragmatic people. We don’t often mince words or suffer fools.  It may be...

What Kind of Fools?

Like many Americans I was addicted to the 1959 series The Untouchables, aka “cops & wops” which ran to 1963.  And like a tag team bout, that series spawned a nationally televised reality show in 1964 with mobster Joe Valachi testifying before a Senate committee on...

Italian American stereotypes are damaging

[This letter was published in the Chicago Sun-Times on 13 October] The selection of actor Chazz Palminteri (right) as a grand marshal in this year’s annual Columbus Day Parade is a sobering reflection of how the Italian American media image has deteriorated over the...

Columbus Should be a Hero for a Mayor

[This essay was published in the NY Daily News on Columbus Day October 13, 2025] In New York City’s volatile 2025 mayoral election, Columbus Day has become a visceral hot-button issue. Though people of Italian ancestry comprise more than 8% of Gotham’s population,...

It’s Not About Us.

President’s Trump’s proclamation for Columbus Day 2025 makes no mention of Indigenous peoples and only a sentence honoring Italian Americans.  That’s about the right mix. Columbus Day was and always should be about 1492 and the man who bet his life on sailing...