Ciao from Rome to all the friends of We the Italians!
There are some very important news coming up! The first, officially, we can announce now: on October 12, 2019 in Siena, Tuscany, we will organize the first Columbus Day in Italy! We don't know yet what it will be: certainly not a parade like the ones that are organized in America. It's a first test, we'll start small and it will probably be an event more symbolic than grandiose: but we have worked very hard to imagine it and we are happy to officially say now that we'll do it. We will let you know the details in the near future, but we are very happy to be able to make this announcement, which I personally already made in the episode of "L'Italia con Voi" on RAI Italia which aired on Friday, May 17.
Columbus is also the protagonist of one of the two new sections of our site. We decided to come out and clear up on this subject: from today We the Italians represents the Italians who want to defend this Italian hero under attack by some who make the mistake of misinterpreting history and judge a navigator of the 15th century with the parameters of the 21st century: an absurdity, to us. Ours is not an initiative "against": we respect the opinions of all, first of all of those Italian Americans who absolutely legitimately do not consider Columbus as their champion and are in favor of the cancellation of Columbus Day now happened in 8 states, several counties and cities. But we are in favor of defending Columbus and Columbus Day: and we are the only ones to do so in Italy.
To do this, today we are launching the "We love Columbus" campaign. Our site will host a Manifesto (also present, in the English version, in the It and US section of this magazine) to which we ask everyone to join through our call to action; a page with link to our page with the tag "Christoper Columbus", the most complete archive you’ll ever find, always updated with all the news about him - there are currently 640; a page dedicated to a few gadgets that we ask you to buy in order to show your support to Columbus and help us in our campaign; a page dedicated to the Columbus Day 2019 in Siena; and a last surprise that we are sure you do not know and that will astonish you. We discovered that in 2004, through a directive of the Italian Prime Minister, the 12th of October of each year was officially designated by the Italian Government as "National Day of Christopher Columbus". Yes, we are not joking: no one knew it, but since 2004 every year Italy officially recognizes Columbus Day on October 12! And it will be on that date that we will organize the first Italian event of celebration of Christopher Columbus and what he means for the Italian American community. Isn't this amazing? We’re very excited!
There are two other news that we would like to point out to you. The first is that the section dedicated to the events organized by We the Italians or to which we have participated, including the appearances on RAI Italy, is finally online. We couldn't believe the final number: there are photos and sometimes videos of 72 events! And already in this month there will be a new one, very important and prestigious, but I'll talk about it in the editorial of June. The events section is divided into events that took place in Italy and events that took place in the United States. We are very proud of these occasions we had to celebrate Italy and the United States with thousands of friends!
Another new exciting topic, the last for this issue, is the first article written by our friends and partners of the Italian Citizenship Assistance. We are happy and grateful to them for being able to donate you an article that I’m sure you will find very interesting about the Benefits of Italian Citizenship. We remind you that you can take advantage of a 10% discount on their services, reserved only for our readers, by writing an email to [email protected] and quoting the code WTICA.
Finally, the Italian proverb. This month the letter is “D” and the proverb of the month of May 2019 is: Da chi mi fido mi guardi Dio, da chi non mi fido mi guarderò io (Let God protect me from those I trust, I'll protect myself from those I don't). It means that a man’s worst enemies are often those of his own house.
That’s all for now. So stay tuned, fasten your seat belt and enjoy the ride. The future’s so bright, we gotta wear shades!