Dear Readers,
October, official or not, will always be Italian Heritage Month in the hearts of Italo- Americans throughout the United States of America.
Back in the days when Readers sent their “Italian Connections” to me via “snail mail” I received a couple that I would like to share with you:
Signora Madeline C. of Utah wrote it was Fortunato Anselmo, a gentleman with “roots” in Calabria (province of Cosenza) that was responsible for establishing Columbus Day as a National Holiday after WWII.
I remember Fortunato as a warm, congenial friend who was very debonair and intelligent. I remember the warm friendship he, his wife Anna and their daughters Emma, Gilda and Annetta, extended to me and my family. I was a very young girl when we would visit in their kitchen, sharing wonderful Italian courtesy.
I remember the dolci they had for me....the almond cookies, wrapped in colored paper, the confetti. I still remember the very smelly dried cod fish Mamma would purchase every Christmas from Fortunato’s import store. I also remember the saporito dish that stinky fish provided every Christmas eve.
Fortunato Anselmo, the Italian consul to Utah and Wyoming, was responsible for the national holiday! It was Mr. Anselmo who lobbied the Legislature to establish the Utah holiday in 1919.
He faithfully spent years pursuing his dream in encouraging Congress to create the national holiday we celebrate now. His efforts came to fruition over three decades later in 1971. He was honored for his contribution by Utah’s then Senator Frank Moss in an October 11, 1971 entry in the Congressional Record: “Mr. President, in a few days the nation will pay tribute to a truly courageous explorer, Christopher Columbus...I want to give special recognition to a truly dedicated American, Fortunato Anselmo. Over 60 years ago, Mr. Anselmo fully understood the great contribution that Columbus has made to the world. Through Mr. Anselmo’s efforts, Utah became one of the first states to declare a state holiday in honor of Columbus.
“Mr. Anselmo’s efforts did not stop there. He turned his attention to getting a national holiday...and for the next 30 years, this was diligently pursued.”
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If you are ever in Salt Lake City, check out the large Victorian mansion on 164 So. 900 East St. The Italian Olympic Team of 1933 slept there. So did Italian heavyweight champion Primo Carnera and Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli, the man who later became Pope Pius xII.
Fortunato Anselmo used the home as his base for a 30-year quest to persuade Congress to create a national holiday honoring Columbus.
Mr. Anselmo was a unique figure in Salt Lake City and Utah in the early part of the century. He came there in 1913 to engage in the wholesale food- importing business after emigrating from his native Italy to Colorado in 1901.
In 1914 he was the founder, publisher and editor of La Gazzetta Italiana, an Italian language newspaper. He sold the paper in 1915 when appointed Italian vice consul for Utah and Wyoming. Mr. Anselmo’s friendship with several Utah governors, senators and other state and national figures was a key to his long campaign to enshrine Columbus Day for all Americans.
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In the early 1900’s the chief industry in Utah was mining and copper, lead, coal, silver, gold and zinc were raised. And, while the Mormons may have come to Utah for religious freedom, the Italians (many from Calabria) came to work in the mines of Utah.
Mr. Anselmo spent much of his time in the shanties of Salt Lake City’s west side, helping supply food, medicine and companionship to Italian immigrants and others. “If you need me, call me”, he often said to the miners, railroad workers and laborers who lived there.
After World War II, Mr. Anselmo sent 647 bundles of clothing, shoes and food to his devastated birthplace, Grimaldi, in the Italian province of Cosenza.
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Signor Joseph A. of New York, wrote that many words in English have an Italian Connection and sent along some examples:
Words in the food industry are one area in which Italian has made a most durable impact. Pasta has become an all-purpose word in American English, as in Italian. Ravioli, spaghetti, vermicelli and maccheroni immediately come to mind, but to these have been added of late other varieties: cannelloni, lasagne, rigatoni, fettuccine all to be cooked al dente. Semolina and farina, the ingredients for pasta have made vast strides. So have pizza and the pizzeria where it is produced and sold. All should be preceded by the appropriate antipasto.
Chianti is the best-known of Italian wines, but we have also moscato (or muscatel), barbera and the generic spumante.
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A land that specializes in excellent cheeses has given us Gorgonzola, Bel Paese, mozzarella, ricotta, provolone, parmesan (or parmigiano) and pecorino (or romano). Bologna sausage has really penetrated the American vocabulary, to the extent of giving rise to Baloney, even in a slangy sense.
American supermarkets now stock and label prosciutto, salame, coppa, and capacollo. Vegetable markets are filled with authentic Italian produce, from chickory to anglicized endive, radish, and artichoke, down to the latter-day un-corrupted broccoli, fava and zucchini. In fruit stalls we find not only Arabic oranges and Persian pistachios that come to us by way of Italy, but also cantaloupes from Cantalupo in Calabria.
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Among semi-artistic products we find terra cotta, majolica, porcelain, and filigree. The carton in which our cigarettes come, the laundry to which we send our wash, the cafeteria where we eat lunch, along with its manager and management are also Italian, as is the artisan who works at skilled trades. The verb to launder and to manage have acquired numerous extended meanings.
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Many words bear a purely Italian form, like ghetto, gusto, imbroglio, incognito. Others show signs of change, like ditto and mustachio, or the more anglicized mustache. Some have taken on a thoroughly English form, like attitude, brave, capricious, caress, disgraceful, fracas, grandiose, group, guide, isolate, jealous, jovial, race, rebuff, scaffold, tirade and infuriate.
Italian influence does not stop at mere words. It penetrates our tongue to the extent of giving it two productive suffixes,- ade and –esque, as well as many phrases and expressions: al fresco, poco a poco, mano a mano, dolce far niente.
The motto that stands sculptured above the portals of the Naval Academy at Annapolis I was told reads: Fatti maschi, parole femmine (Deeds are masculine, words feminine).
