Dear friends,

We the Italians is spending October, the Italian Heritage Month, back and forth between New York, Rome and Washington DC. This is the busiest month of the year for us, and for several friends in the Italian American community.

October began with a very special moment for me. As you may know, I have the honor of being the representative in Italy of the Italian American Museum in New York, which I know as “my home” in New York. The museum is a wonderful institution that in Manhattan's original Little Italy celebrates and represents Italian emigration to the Big Apple. Its founder and president, Joseph Scelsa, is a brother to me. On October 1^st the museum finally reopened, after years of renovation that from complex has become very difficult because of the pandemic. But today we are finally back on Mulberry Street, and I am proud and excited to be part of this big beautiful family. I couldn't miss the ribbon cutting, and of course We the Italians will be partnering in the future to promote the museum and its activities. Please come visit us. I love New York!

During the ceremony at the Italian American Museum, a wonderful and very important news was made public by Congressman Tom Suozzi: the bipartisan National Museum of Italian American History Commission Act. The bill would create a planning commission to examine the feasibility of establishing a Smithsonian Museum of Italian American History. Specifically, the commission would submit to the President and to Congress: 1. A detailed Plan of Action for establishing the museum; 2. A Fundraising Plan through contributions from the American people and by Italian American community groups; 3. A Report on Issues to include cost estimates, the impact of the museum on other Italian American museums; 4. Recommendations on whether the museum should be part of the Smithsonian Institution; 5. A governance structure through which the museum should operate; and 6. A draft legislative Plan of Action to construct the Museum. We the Italians is willing to help in any possible way, from Italy, to make this happen.

Back to Rome, We the Italians is having some meetings for some important initiatives programmed for 2005. One of these meetings allowed me to see again my dear friend Roberto Angotti, a wonderful person, director and expert on Italian and Italian American Baseball, who was part of the delegation that came from Fullerton in California to Tollo in Abruzzo: the two towns are sister cities and share a love for Tommy Lasorda, a world baseball hero of Italian-American descent from Abruzzo. With Roberto we talked about how sports-in general, not just baseball-are among the most interesting topics to work on, also and not only because in 2026 the Winter Olympics will be held in Milan and Cortina in Italy, the same year the World Cup will be held in the United States along with Canada and Mexico, and then in 2028 there will be the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. In the coming years We the Italians will be active in this field as well, stay tuned!

Also speaking of sports, Fabrizio Fasani, the Managing Director of We the Italians, and I had the pleasure of visiting the excellent new campus of our partner Rome City Institute, led by my friend Stefano Radio. The new campus is very nice, already hosting hundreds of American student athletes. We talked with them about a project we will soon tell you about. It is a great pleasure to work together with such inspired and successful people as these two friends I just told you about.

In late October we will return to America on the East Coast, first to Washington  DC for the NIAF Gala and the events associated with this very important meeting, then back to New York where on October 28^th at the Italian Cultural Institute we will present Italian excellence in healthcare with Medical Tourism Italy, which we are already telling you about in our magazine. We are waiting for all our friends on Park Avenue in New York on October 28 at 5:30 PM!

Finally, we are very happy to announce that a collaboration that came about thanks to We the Italians is bearing fruit. Two friends of We the Italians, Lucia Mauro and Silvio Manno, are respectively the director and inspirer of a beautiful documentary just released, entitled “The Loneliest Road” honoring the Italian-Immigrant Victims of The Fish Creek Massacre. It was thanks to our interview to Silvio that Lucia first encountered this story. Lucia asked me to put her in contact with Silvio, which I gladly did. That is how the collaboration between these two talented Italian Americans came about, to tell the story of an event as dramatic as it is unknown, which happened in the Italian community in Nevada in 1879. We are very happy when we can make connections, and we hope it happens more and more often.

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 tricolor shades. A big Italian hug from Rome, New York and the Atlantic ocean that we are flying back and forth over.