Sixty-six years ago, Landa Masdea Brunetto's father and grandfather hurriedly worked through the night in the family's machine shop to fabricate specialty bolts and washers unexpectedly needed by the next day to erect the newly arrived statue of Christopher Columbus outside Columbus City Hall.

"My dad and grandfather literally stayed up all night," Masdea Brunetto said. To members of the city's Italian community, the 7,000-pound bronze gift from the residents of Genoa, Italy, Columbus' sister city, was more than just a statue of the city's namesake. It was a coming of age for a people who long had felt the sting of discrimination and second-class citizenship.