Dear friends, I was about to write this editorial when the flood situation in Emilia Romagna has become dramatic. The photos and videos we see are devastating and make us suffer so much for our brothers and sisters in that beautiful region, where I personally have my roots, although in the part less affected by this horrendous catastrophe.

We partnerd up with NIAF to help Emilia Romagna. I ask you to please consider donating what you can to the National Italian American Foundation, which has activated for this type of emergency a special website, this one. We the Italians asks for help from you Italian American friends, help as you can by donating to the NIAF site, we ourselves will do our part. Emilia Romagna needs all of us, please donate.

And about NIAF, the We the Italians team is back from New York where once again we had the pleasure of attending the Spring Gala of our friends at NIAF. In New York we also met with some possible future partners, and we hope soon to be able to announce something new.

Last May 10, we also presented here in Rome exclusively for Italy the Italian American Reputation Lab's 2022 report on the reputation of the Italian American community. The report, which has already been presented in New York, Washington and Fort Lauderdale, was well explained by Davide Ippolito, our partner in the IARL, and commented on by Giulia Silvia Ghia, Councillor for Culture of the I Municipality of Rome, and Alberto Improda, Managing Partner of Studio Legale Improda, who were present with us at the beautiful Centro Studi Americani. We also had connected from Chicago NIAF President Robert Allegrini and from Detroit Italian Consul Allegra Baistrocchi, who announced that she has commissioned a report on Italy's reputation in Michigan, which we will present in Detroit in September during the LoveITDetroit event, organized by the Consulate. Stay tuned!

My friend Viviana Altieri asked me to be a guest on her YouTube show "The Italian Radio Hour." It was an interesting chat in which I got to tell more about We the Italians: you can watch the video here. Thank you Viviana!

This month we started a collaboration that I think is really very nice and important. It is the agreement with UniCamillus, an important university here in Rome that can be a concrete and very profitable opportunity for Italian American students who want to get a degree in medical disciplines, avoid having a huge debt on their shoulders once they graduate, spend a few years in the motherland capital, and - only through OUR agreement with UniCamillus - learn Italian language for FREE. If you are interested, you can email here specifying that you are a reader of We the Italians.

Last but not least, there was a small but important anniversary this month. Four years ago, on May 17, 2019, We the Italians was a guest on RAI Italia's broadcast for Italians abroad, then hosted by our friend Monica Marangoni. It was then that we announced an idea of Edoardo Colombo, our Public Relations executive and Ambassador for Tourism: our intention to convince Italian institutions to organize a Year of Roots, which we hoped then could be 2021. We all know what happened later, but now that we have come out of covid we are happy that the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has followed our advice, and announced that 2024 will, indeed, be for Italy the Year of Roots. We are proud to have inspired such an important initiative, on which we are working to make our contribution and help Italian Americans rediscover their roots.

Once again let me remind you that the new yearbook of We the Italians is available, with the 23 interviews (in Italian and English) published during 2022. You can find a preview and buy a copy here. Also, please use our virtual store to buy gifts and gadgets, where you can find more than 20 products in different colors: t-shirts, tank tops, hoodies, onesies, mugs, notebooks, pillows, totes, tapestries, pins, laptop and smartphone cases, magnets, stickers, masks. Buy We the Italians!

It’s all for now. Please stay safe and take care, and enjoy our magazine and our contents on our website. The future’s so bright, we gotta wear shades. A big Italian hug from Rome!