PragerU Video on the Importance of Columbus Day Features Breitbart News Reporter Alana Mastrangelo
In case you wondered
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The Old Italians Dying // Lawrence Ferlinghetti
For years the old Italians have been dying
all over America
For years the old Italians in faded felt hats
have been sunning themselves and dying
You have seen them on the benches
in the park in Washington Square
the old Italians in their black high button shoes
the old men in their old felt fedoras
with stained hatbands
have been dying and dying
day by day
You have seen them
every day in Washington Square San Francisco
the slow bell
tolls in the morning
in the Church of Peter & Paul
in the marzipan church on the plaza
toward ten in the morning the slow bell tolls
in the towers of Peter & Paul
and the old men who are still alive
sit sunning themselves in a row
on the wood benches in the park
and watch the processions in and out
funerals in the morning
weddings in the afternoon
slow bell in the morning Fast bell at noon
In one door out the other
the old men sit there in their hats
and watch the coming & going
You have seen them
the ones who feed the pigeons
cutting the stale bread
with their thumbs & penknives
the ones with old pocketwatches
the old ones with gnarled hands
and wild eyebrows
the ones with the baggy pants
with both belt & suspenders
the grappa drinkers with teeth like corn
the Piemontesi the Genovesi the Siciliani
smelling of garlic & pepperoni
the ones who loved Mussolini
the old fascists
the ones who loved Garibaldi
the old anarchists reading L’Umanita Nova
the ones who loved Sacco & Vanzetti
They are almost all gone now
They are sitting and waiting their turn
and sunning themselves in front of the church
over the doors of which is inscribed
a phrase which would seem to be unfinished
from Dante’s Paradiso
about the glory of the One
who moves everything…
The old men are waiting
for it to be finished
for their glorious sentence on earth
to be finished
the slow bell tolls & tolls
the pigeons strut about
not even thinking of flying
the air too heavy with heavy tolling
The black hired hearses draw up
the black limousines with black windowshades
shielding the widows
the widows with the black long veils
who will outlive them all
You have seen them
madre de terra, madre di mare
The widows climb out of the limousines
The family mourners step out in stiff suits
The widows walk so slowly
up the steps of the cathedral
fishnet veils drawn down
leaning hard on darkcloth arms
Their faces do not fall apart
They are merely drawn apart
They are still the matriarchs
outliving everyone
in Little Italys all over America
the old dead dagos
hauled out in the morning sun
that does not mourn for anyone
One by one Year by year
they are carried out
The bell
never stops tolling
The old Italians with lapstrake faces
are hauled out of the hearses
by the paid pallbearer
in mafioso mourning coats & dark glasses
The old dead men are hauled out
in their black coffins like small skiffs
They enter the true church
for the first time in many years
in these carved black boats
The priests scurry about
as if to cast off the lines
The other old men
still alive on the benches
watch it all with their hats on
You have seen them sitting there
waiting for the bocce ball to stop rolling
waiting for the bell
for the slow bell
to be finished tolling
telling the unfinished Paradiso story
as seen in an unfinished phrase
on the face of a church
in a black boat without sails
making his final haul
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“Rich Hated By Assassin,” Border Cities Star. February 16, 1933. Page 1.
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Would-Be Killer of Mr. Roosevelt Tells His Story
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Always Oppressed
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Pain in Stomach Intensifies Zangara's Hatred For Rulers and Powerful
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By United Press
MIAMI, Fla., Feb. 16. Guiseppe Zangara, the bricklayer who shot at the president-elect, has. according to police, told this story of his crime:
HATES RICH AND POWERFUL
"I HAVE hated presidents and kings since I was a boy. I have always hated the rich and powerful.
"I have a sore stomach, too, and that has made me hate.
"When I read in the Miami newspapers that Roosevelt was coming to Miami, I bought with $8, a gun with which to kill him.
"I got to the scene early, but the crowd was too big for me to get near the platform.
"I meant to shoot him while he was talking, but the crowd was in the way and I am short man. I have always hated the rich and powerful, i hoped that I would have better luck this time than I did ten years ago In Italy when I bought a pistol to kill King Emmanuel. The same thing blocked me in Italy as blocked me here. There was too big a crowd.
"I guess I tried to kill Roosevelt because I have been troubled by a stomach operation.
ALWAYS OPPRESSED
"I would not shoot a working man or a policeman. It is the rich and powerful I hate. I am poor. I have always been poor. My people have been oppressed. As a child I had to work hard in the fields, and when I was 16, I had to go to war.
“I hated all my officers. I determined that some day I would do my share of wiping out every official and every rich man I could find.
"Life has been very bad for me.
"When I was a little boy In school I began to hate very violently my richer school mates who had money to spend and who had more privileges than I.
"I am 33 years old, and was born in Calabria, Italy.
HATRED GREW
"As I grew older, this hatred for the rich became more intense and 10 years ago it reached a climax when I purchased a gun and determined to kill the King of Italy. As I told you before, this plan did not work.
"I came to Miami from New York City, but I have also lived In Hackensack, N. J.
"I thought it would do my stomach good to come here, but it seemed to be getting worse instead of better. The pain seemed to make my extreme hatred for the rich and for everybody in authority all the more intense."
The Italian was stripped of all his clothes as he reached the jail and his clothing thoroughly searched.
Rogue's gallery pictures were taken of him clad only in his underwear. Later even that bit of clothing was taken from him.
When News Syndicate photographers attempted to take pictures as he stood nude in his cell, Zangara demanded a shirt which he held in front of him. [Seen in the picture]
BOUGHT PISTOL
"After I read about Mr. Roosevelt coming here, I went to a store on North Miami avenue, and bought a pistol I paid $8 for the gun.
“I tried to get to the park early so as to be as close as possible to the president-elect, but some people were there before me. I sat there in the park and my stomach kept aching more than ever. Maybe the excitement was responsible. I kept thinking if the crowd does not get too thick around me, I will not fail like I did 10 years ago."
"I meant to shoot Mr. Roosevelt while he was talking, but the people in front of me were standing, and I am short. I did not have a chance.
ONE BIG CHANCE
"My one big chance came when some people got tired of standing and sat down.
"I stood on a bench and pointed the gun at Mr. Roosevelt. But the people around were pressing against the bench and making it wobbly. The gun started to shake, but I pulled the trigger anyhow I don't know how many times.
"I do not know whether I shot Mr. Roosevelt, but I want to make it clear I do not hate Mr. Roosevelt, personally. I hate all presidents no matter from what country they come, and I hate all officials and everybody who is rich.”
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How does a false prophet rise to power?
In 1919 Brooklyn, Giuseppina Carbone is another racially suspect “dark white” immigrant with empty pockets and waning faith in the indifferent-to-hostile ’merigan Catholic Church. The staid Irish priests don’t want to hear about mysticism—the nerve of these “guineas” to worship La Madonna Nera when everyone knows the Virgin Mary is as white as fresh Irish cream! Being southern Italian is the original sin that can’t be baptized away, even when Giuseppina and Filippo christen their two-year-old daughter at Our Lady of Loreto, the rare Brooklyn Catholic church built by and for Italian immigrants.
Filippo is a laborer making $1.50 a day. Like many immigrant women, Giuseppina takes on piecework, in her case paid by the buttonhole. At least she works from home rather than in a tinderbox of a factory. Not long ago, on a clear, cold day in March 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire killed 146 garment workers in Manhattan. Giuseppina resembles the mostly Italian and Jewish teenagers and young women who jumped to their deaths to escape the smoke or succumbed inside the factory’s locked doors, a so-called loss-prevention measure. She is dark-haired, dark-eyed, and just five feet tall. Her daughter may soon eclipse her. At almost nine years old, Caterina—“Catherine, Mamma!”—can read and write English, courtesy of P.S. 178.
Giuseppina cannot expect much from life, until she hears Sister Josephine Zollo’s Italian sermons wafting through the air as she walks home one day, or a neighbor eagerly repeats them to her. Giuseppina’s mother tongue cleanses her like a newborn kitten. Salvation, she is told, can be hers.
A Pentecostal awakening has been sweeping across America for a decade. In early April 1906, Brother William Joseph Seymour, the Catholic-reared son of formerly enslaved parents, moved his rapidly expanding prayer meetings into a run-down building on Azusa Street in Los Angeles. By then, he and his followers were speaking in tongues—a sign, they believed, of internal salvation, or “baptism in the Holy Spirit.” Seymour’s religious creation would be emulated, imitated, or appropriated, depending on who’s telling the story of its spread. In Chicago, Luigi Francescon and Pietro Ottolini spearheaded the world’s first Italian Pentecostal church, and before long the faith reached Brooklyn. Perhaps the promise of un miracolo drew Josephine Zollo to Brooklyn City Mission, a Pentecostal church in East New York. She had been ill before she first attended a service there in 1912. Whatever happened that day, Josephine’s health soon improved. She decided that the Lord had healed her body and saved her soul.
— The Shadow and The Ghost
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Sharing this video for that italian-american anon who send us an ask. We hope op's explanation adds more nuances to the answer we attempted to give you and clears up any lasting doubts you might still have.
The language and cultural barriers are real, but be assured we love and appreciate all italians (or Italy lovers in general) around the world. ♥
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Rocky Marciano: A Life Story (2004) | Full Movie | Marino Amoruso
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fan fiction question: where do the italians in chicago live? I know it ain't the southside but what neighborhood would you say an average italian grew up in? thank you italian chicago people
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For America Domani, I wrote about five new novels coming out by Italian American authors.
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One time my grandpa referred to Hatsune Miku as a "creature" and it'll never not be funny to me
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"The origins of Columbus Day — commemorating Italian explorer Christopher Columbus — stem from efforts to combat racism against Italian immigrants, who endured everything from racial epithets to lynch mobs when they first arrived to the United States."
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The Ox, Joseph Stella, 1929
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“CROWNED "MISS ITALY, 1933″,” Toronto Star. March 7, 1933. Page 1.
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Miss Juliania Anere, of 502 East 16th St., New York, who was crowned "Miss Italy, 1933" in the ballroom of the Hotel McAlpin, Sunday, by Cav. Uff. Rosario Romeo, Italian nobleman. The coronation marked the close of a non-commercial beauty contest sponsored annually to discover the most beautiful Italian girl in New York and to promote good-will among the Italian people.
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Detective Cassidy arrests Reverend Mother for grand larceny in May 1939. Dressed in her trademark white when it happens, she must seem like a fallen angel. She posts her $1,500 bail, either from her coffer of tithes or from an emergency collection.
For her part, Helen Sebastiani tells investigators she’s never spoken to Reverend Mother‚ much less Angelo, about marriage. Helen also affirms her devotion to the defendant. “I never received any pay from Mother for my work; I did it for pleasure for what I had received from the Lord,” Helen says. “As soon as she comes out I will go back to her again.” Helen’s loyalty is a hallmark of Reverend Mother’s congregation, which investigators refer to as a “cult” in their report on the case. “The members … believe that many miracles of ‘cure’ have been performed by the Lord through the prayers of the Reverend Mother Carbone,” the report states. “It is apparent that they are, for the most part, simple minded Italians, and, in some instances, their abnormal psychological trends have been sublimated into religious fanaticism until now they are completely under the domination of the Reverend Mother.”
The jury convicts her on January 30, 1940. Newspapers across the country pick up a United Press wire story and truncate it for their audiences. Readers in Austin, Texas, wake up the next morning to the headline “Miracle Fails Reverend Mother.” In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, it’s simply “Miracle Fails.” Reverend Mother awaits sentencing in the New York Women’s House of Detention. She considers herself a martyr, the Joan of Arc of the House of D. At her behest, her followers travel from Brooklyn into Manhattan. They gather across the street from the prison and wait for her to wave a handkerchief, according to Joey Otranto. Hours pass. Without access to a bathroom, some parishioners resort to urinating on the steps of a neighboring apartment building.
The day of her sentencing, March 6, Reverend Mother protects her assets. She sells her eight-room house for $100 to Harry Brody, one of the two attorneys on her defense team, in the presence of Anna Grasso. It turns out to be an unnecessary step, because Judge Edwin L. Garvin implements the jury’s recommendation for leniency. In one breath, he lays out a prison term of three to ten years in Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women. In the next, he suspends Reverend Mother’s sentence—“on condition that she behave herself in the future and that she make restitution of the stolen money,” according to the Brooklyn Eagle—and places her on probation.
Reverend Mother’s brief cycle through the criminal justice system neither reforms her nor protects her victims, including 22-year-old Jennie Otranto. “When she came out of the court,” Jennie will later write, “she asked me to go home with her to resume my former duties.”
[...]
That night, Jennie assumes a familiar position: She curls up to sleep in her clothes, using her coat as a blanket. “She saw me lying on the floor,” Jennie will later say of Reverend Mother, “and said nothing.”
— The Shadow and The Ghost
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just like me 😌
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