If Italian immigration to Los Angeles is a little-known chapter in the history of Italian immigration to the U.S., then Italian immigration to San Pedro, 20 miles south of downtown L.A., may be an even more obscure component.

And yet, this coastal community located on the southern end of the Palos Verdes Peninsula, encompassing in part the Port of Los Angeles, one of the biggest in the country, welcomed, at the beginning of the 20^th century, approximately 10 percent of the region's Italian population, attracted by Southern California’s fishing industry (many immigrants came from Genoa and the islands of Sicily and Ischia - in 2006, the City of Los Angeles became sister cities with Ischia.)