It’s October, and every year I find myself reflecting—and maybe scratching my head a little bit—about the connection between Columbus and Italian Heritage Month. At first glance, the connection seems obvious enough. But it’s my contention that if we dive a little deeper into this discussion, the relationship gets cloudier.

Rick Zullo · Columbus and Italian Heritage Month – FCI 046

These thoughts first occurred to me several years ago when I was passing through Genova, Christopher’s hometown in the Liguria region of Northwest Italy. Ever since then there’s been this nagging question that I can’t quite reconcile.

Here it is in a nutshell: If most Italian-Americans trace their roots to Southern Italy (ex. The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies), why do they identify so strongly with a historical figure that came from a different country (The Maritime Republic of Genoa) 350 years before the unification of Italy? Two different political entities, two different cultures, two different languages. Not to mention that his famous expedition was funded under the flag of Spain.

I’m I the only one who finds this connection misplaced and a bit odd?

Columbus and Italian Heritage – Related Topics

During the podcast, I also reflected on a visit to Little Italy in Manhattan several years ago. Interestingly, this was a three day stop-off as I traveled from Italy to my home in Florida, so I had a fresh perspective having just spent the entire summer in the Old Country. Which might explain my “reverse culture shock” when, during my stroll down Mulberry Street, I couldn’t find a decent cannolo or a single person that spoke any Italian. (There is an excellent Italian American Museum, however.)

And I’m often confused about the tendency of some Italian-Americans to exalt fictional mafia characters like Don Corleone or Tony Soprano. This was on my mind recently as I watched the new HBO movie, “The Many Saints of Newark,” which premiered, NOT coincidently on the first day of Italian Heritage Month.

Side note: a few minutes into the movie, I realized that the title comes from the main character’s last name, Moltisanti, who happens to live in Newark. The story is mostly about him, Dickie Moltisanti and his family, so the title could have been “The Moltisanti’s of Newark,” but interestingly the producer chose to translate his last name to English. I’ll give him points for cleverness on that.

Anyway, this sort of ties into what I was saying earlier. I often find these tedious discussions on Facebook about fictional mafia characters, attempts to translate “Italian” words (which are almost always a bastardized mixture of dialect and nonna’s pidgin-English), and the great debate between “sauce” and “gravy.” (The correct answer: it’s neither of those; it’s sugo.)

I realize that this topic can be contentious, but during this month of recognizing Columbus and Italian Heritage, I think we’re overdue for an honest look at what we’re identifying as Italian-American so we can focus on the real foundations of our ancestry that...