I’ve been asking myself that question for some time. Having participated in Italian American affairs for over forty years, it seems strange to ponder such a thing.
It is not so much a question for our Italic Institute, which has remained on course over the decades. Our mission is the same as it was in 1987: to educate Italian Americans in their classical heritage. Over the years we have evolved into a think-tank, publishing and pondering on subjects well beyond the food, travel, and fashion expected of our ethnic group. This blog is one example.
Other organizations have evolved too, but in ways that seem confusing to us. None of us works in a vacuum so change is often a reaction to the realities of the times. I hesitate to condemn other organizations because they are confronted with the same realities we are, and their reactions may make more sense than they appear.
The realities we are talking about deal with assimilation, intermarriage, ethnic image, and youth acculturation. For all organizations these challenges affect their bottom line—the financial one—attracting members and donations.
We are no longer producing Italian Americans with the values of yesteryear, for the reasons stated above. Intermarriage often takes away the one obvious sign of ethnicity by replacing many Italian surnames. And as I have repeatedly written, Catholicism does not support our Italian identity as do Judaism, Greek Orthodox, Hindus, and other dominations in their communities. We have had to try harder.
Our Institute’s strategy of increasing pride by offering better educated Italian Americans a “classical” view of heritage versus the common “immigrant” perspective, clearly overestimated the number of followers by the thousands! Still, we refuse to compromise our message. How else can we be the “alternative?” Other organizations appear to be shifting gears, trying other angles to stay relevant.
Some used to donate large sums to charities like Alzheimer’s and Cooley’s Anemia. Such generosity was also a marketing tool for membership and fundraising events. It also projected the image of an ethnic group that was “giving back” to American society. That has now changed.
Giving back now includes helping Italy. This year, the Sons & Daughters of Italy directed some generosity for storm relief occasioned by Mediterranean Cyclone Harry. The National Italian American Foundation just gave the Italian government $115,000 for that same storm relief. NIAF also funded a huge mosaic in Naples (not Ellis Island) honoring Italian immigrants.
NIAF has also embarked on a campaign of world diplomacy signing “strategic alliances” with the United Nations, with some Italian regions (including the Isle of Capri!), and the Polish American community. Such announcements make for inflated press releases but how do they address the fading Italian American legacy? Maybe there is no magic bullet. Being “Italian” means so little to the new generations.
One of NIAF’s late benefactors, Peter Secchia, funded the Voyage of Discovery program some years ago that now sends 48 qualified college students to Italy for ten days. (Secchia was the U.S. Ambassador to Italy from 1989-1993.) This program definitely helps but the numbers pale in comparison to Birthright Israel which sends some 10,000 American Jewish students annually to their ancestral homeland. Since its inception in 1999, the program has gifted over 900,000 young Jews from across the globe. We can never hope to match those figures.
But there are other ways to raise the awareness of Italian Americans and to enrich them. When I read of NIAF’s strategic alliance with the Polish community I found this site for a Polish American credit union, the Polish & Slavic Federal Credit Union (PSFCU). Here is what it does:
“Each year, the credit union directs approximately $3 million into community support. This includes more than $600,000 in scholarships for Polish American students (providing 7,500 recipients with more than $8 million in scholarships since the program began in 2001), direct donations to 142 organizations totaling more than $900,000, and roughly $2 million in sponsorships for cultural events, parishes, Saturday schools, and Polish American media. The PSFCU holds nearly $3 billion in assets, serves more than 126,000 members across 24 branches in five states, and invests roughly $3 million a year in the community that built it.”
Can we do the same? After all, a paesano founded the Bank of America. –JLM
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