We The Italians | What's up with WTI: Editorial # 138

What's up with WTI: Editorial # 138

Ciao from Rome, my dear friends readers of We the Italians. This new editorial has a lot of news regarding the activities and family of We the Italians. The first is that after Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube and Anchor, from this month you will find an account of We the Italians also on Tik Tok. It's an experiment, luckily it won't be me who manages it, but two wonderful Italian-American girls who join our family: Elaina Savino (who has also started managing our Instagram account), from Massachusetts, East Coast, and Juliet Hallier, from California, West Coast. They will be the ones to populate our account with funny videos, which we will then try to enrich with many contents from Italy as well. Follow us!

Elaina currently works in the Mayor of Malden’s office in Massachusetts as the Communications Content Manager and specializes in Social Media Management. She is a first generation Italian American and has a great passion for Italian tradition and preserving the cultural heritage in the United States.

An active California teen with Sicilian roots, Juliet keeps busy with her Italian language studies, multiple sports, and modeling. As the founder of Poggioreale in America Junior, Juliet has created a youth platform to facilitate communication efforts between Sicilian and American teenagers. When Juliet isn’t studying, she loves to travel, bake, and wakeboard on any of California’s gorgeous lakes.

There are some new features affecting our website, www.wetheitalians.com. The first is that we have a section dedicated to our partners, where at the moment there is Italian Citizenship Assistance, and soon other partners will arrive. There will be opportunities for our readers, so stay tuned. Also, finally on the site there is the section dedicated to podcasts, with more than 200 videos (yes, last March 24 we reached the round number of 200 videos of We the ItaliaNews!) and audios, divided by month. You can find it here. Finally, is online the page of our Team, our family, which now has more than 50 members! You can find it here.

About our Instagram account, in addition to the posts about some daily news, those of the videos of We the ItaliaNews, those of the interviews and the magazine, there is a new strategy that I'm sure you will like. Every day there is a photo with an Italian dish and then after 12 hours another photo in which in rotation we will show you other Italian beauties: churches (outside and inside), landscapes (sea, lake, mountains, countryside), cloisters, castles, buildings (outside and inside), art (sculptures and paintings). Every day we will bombard you with Italian cuisine and beauty! We are waiting for you on our Instagram account. See you there!

There's good news about our magazine, too. Starting this month, the Italian traditions column, which has been so successful in the past, is back. It will be written by Giuliana Poli, whom I introduced to you last month because she is also our Ambassador in the Marche region. Moreover, we are very happy to have signed an agreement with one of the most interesting magazines we have in Italy: Millionaire. The editor is a friend of mine, a young and very good Italian journalist, her name is Eleonora Chioda, and she has accepted to make an agreement so that once a month we will bring a good news from her magazine to ours, translating it into English and telling something nice about Italians who do well. Also on this, We the Italians is growing!

And talking about growing, let me introduce you to four new members of our family. Two of them are our Ambassadors in two Italian regions, and we are now represented in 8 of them; while the other two are our Ambassadors in two more American States, and we are now represented in 20 of them.

Giuseppe Sommario is our Ambassador in Calabria. Giuseppe (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore di Milano) is an expert of Italian migratory phenomena, of linguistic history of cinema and theater, of linguistic and cultural traditions of Calabria. He created and directs the "Piccolo Festival delle Spartenze. Migrations and Culture", dedicated to the theme of migration. He is also the director of the literary series "Spartenze", he is a founding member of the Permanent Observatory on Italian Roots (ORI) of AsSud Association, he is one of the curators of the Research Project on Tourism of Roots "Scoprirsi Italiani, i viaggi delle radici in Italia", and he is a member of the Scientific Committee and teacher of the Master in "Progettazione e gestione dei viaggi delle radici" at the University of Calabria.

Marina Gabrieli is our Ambassador in Puglia. Marina was born in Galatina (Lecce) in 1985. In 2011 she graduated in "Design and Management of Tourism Systems" at the University of Rome "Tor Vergata", where in 2016 she got a PhD in "Cultural Heritage and Territory". She is president of "Raiz Italiana", an association that helps Italian descendants living abroad in the path of discovery of their family origins and assists public and private entities in the design of tourist offers. She is also the creator and author of the series “Guida alle radici italiane. A journey in the footsteps of your ancestors”, with the support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Marina is also part of the General Council of Pugliesi in the World. She is a lecturer in the master's program "Design and management of root journeys" at the University of Calabria.

Robert DiBiase is our Ambassador in New Jersey, the Garden State. Robert’s career has been in communications and municipal utilities for decades.  However, his pride and true calling has been to assist Italian American Organizations by developing programs for educating and raising public awareness of Italian achievements and contributions to America and the world. He is the chairman of the New Jersey Italian Heritage Commission, one of only two legislated commissions of this type in the USA. He is part of many Italian American groups in the NJ / NY area. 

Claudia Costantino is our Ambassador in Nevada, the Silver State. Claudia was born and raised in Bari, Puglia. She studied both in her native city and at the University of London, England, until she earned a Bachelor’s degree in Social Semiotics at the University of Foreign Languages and Literatures of Bari. In 1998, she moved to New York, where she worked as Director of Marketing and PR for over five years at The Magazine of La Cucina Italiana, and the Italian Culinary Institute. The passion for adventure led Claudia to move to Las Vegas in 2007. In October 2016 she joined Casa Italiana di Las Vegas, a non-profit organization whose mission is the promotion of traditional and contemporary Italian culture. At Casa Italiana Claudia runs the marketing and PR department. In her free time, Claudia enjoys interior design, dancing, reading and traveling.

Please keep following We the ItaliaNews, the video and audio podcast about what happens in Italy at the time of the coronavirus. It has now become a real news program on Italy in English, each episode of which is seen by more than 1,500 of you. We have reached 208 videos. It's a big effort, but we care about it and it's part of the service we give to all of you, everything for free.

Also, please remember that our new book is available: the 2020 Yearbook of We the Italians. It contains 23 interesting interviews – both in English and in Italian - that touch on many topics regarding Italy and the United States: trust me, you won't be disappointed. You can buy it here: please, buy the book! For you, as a gift for friends and family. Please check a preview here. Thanks

And please, check our virtual store. Now 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!

Well my friends, once again it’s all for now. Please stay safe, please stay healthy. I won’t gonna stop saying this: the future’s so bright, we gotta wear shades! But please, protect yourselves and wear the mask, too. Ciao from Rome