Each year on March 19th, Catholics in the New Orleans area celebrate St. Joseph’s Day by constructing altars honoring the relief St. Joseph provided during a famine in Sicily. The tradition began in the late 1800s when the city of New Orleans saw a large influx of Sicilian immigrants.

Peter Gilberte, President of the Italian American St. Joseph Society says, “The city was filled with Sicilians who moved to the region to work the farms. The ones who stayed in New Orleans ended up investing in the French Quarter and taking over. The French Quarter was actually dubbed Little Palermo in the 1800s because it was so populated by Sicilian immigrants who came here.”