Hard to Stomach

One of our duties at the Institute is to monitor the media – how the Italian heritage is perceived and broadcast across the nation. The Learning Channel (TLC) has a popular series called My 600-lb Life, about morbidly obese Americans who decide to avert early death by...

A Real Insurrection

Turner Classic Movies (TCM) recent showed the 1962 Italian film The Four Days of Naples, the true story of the Neapolitan uprising against German occupation in 1943. I had seen it as a teenager at a Brooklyn theater when it first came out.  It was one of the...

It Takes All Kinds

I came across an interesting statistic last week on blood donations.  Of the 400,000 donors last year 78% were White, 16% Black, 2% Hispanic, and 2% Asian.  Whites and Blacks contributed more than their census populations would suggest: Whites are 60% of the...

Italy’s Meloni Wins Her Budget

…and Benito Mussolini Is Still Dead Mirabile dictu: Prime Minister Meloni’s center-right coalition is holding — thus far. The Italian parliament’s approval of Ms. Meloni’s annual budget without any political turbulence is the latest signal that she is governing...

That Fine Italian Glad Hand

Big-city American mayors have been in the news lately, specifically, Eric Adams in New York (decrying the busing of migrants to his city) and Lori Lightfoot in Chicago (the same, although she is also dealing with out-of-control crime). The first Asian American and...

The Other Storia Segreta

Eighty years ago today, a little known dispute between the Axis powers came to a head when the Royal Italian Army occupying southern France refused to turn over thousands of French and foreign Jews to their German ally. The Italians had been occupying a section of the...