Dear friends,
Even this month, there have been many things that have kept us at We the Italians busy.
Let’s start with the big news: We the Italians: the surveys. It is a new tool to further enhance our role as a platform for listening to and discussing the interests and opinions of this community. We’ve launched an observatory dedicated to this mission, involving a significant number of distinguished individuals both in Italy and the United States.
We began by surveying the Italian American community on a particularly sensitive and important issue that has recently been the subject of a controversial reform: dual citizenship. The title of this survey is: Two passports, One heart. We asked our audience whether they agreed with the new law. Of the 350 responses received, 35% agreed, while 65% disagreed. All the very interesting data are here.
This is just the first survey: we’re working to involve key Italian American and Italian institutions to give this initiative an even broader scope.
From 2022 to 2024, June was the month in which we successfully hosted our gala here in Rome. This year, our friends at the National Italian American Foundation are celebrating their 50th anniversary and asked us to give up the June slot for their own gala dinner here in Rome, since Lazio is their Region of Honor this year. We have been pleased to pass the baton to our friends at NIAF for June 2025 and to celebrate their first extraordinary 50 years: our best wishes and thanks go to NIAF for all they have done so far. The We the Italians gala in Rome has become a well-established tradition in celebrating the Italian American community and the relationship between Italy and the United States, and it will return in June 2026 with even greater enthusiasm.
Three more recent events saw We the Italians representing the friendship between Italy and the United States. I had the pleasure of speaking at one of the “Thought Leader Talks” organized by the Rome chapter of the Order Sons and Daughters of Italy in America, led by my friend Carmelo Cutuli. It’s always interesting to engage with fellow Italians who share the mission of promoting the Italian American community here in Italy.
A few days later, in the beautiful Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, our Ambassador to Tuscany, Maurizio Mancianti, together with our friend Marco Gianni, organized a very important event on luxury and Made in Italy, which also focused on the U.S. market—crucial for high-end Italian products. We the Italians is a partner in this initiative called “Florence Capital 2025: Value as Treshold, Identity as Strategy” and is working on an agreement that we can’t reveal just yet, but it’s looking very promising. Hopefully, we’ll be able to share more details soon.
Finally, We the Italians’ Managing Director, Fabrizio Fasani, had the opportunity to highlight the potential of the Italian American communities during the ”Festival dell’Imprenditore” here in Rome, speaking to an audience of stakeholders, institutional representatives, and entrepreneurs.
There have been some minor delays with our new website, which we had previously announced. We will be online soon—hopefully as early as July. There are 90,000 pieces of content, and it is not easy to implement all the ideas we have to improve We the Italians. In the meantime, we would like to remind you that we will be reduced from nine to six the areas of the Us States. The new areas (which we already used in the survey) will be New England, New York, East, South, Midwest, West.
With the end of June, it will already be six months since we launched our two new podcasts: We the ItaliaNews: Italy in English and We the ItaliaNews: L’Italia in America. This week, we’re reaching 20 episodes for both podcasts. You can find them all here - and they’re truly very interesting!
The We the Italians family continues to grow wonderfully, and today I am happy to welcome three new friends as our Ambassadors.
Bill Cerruti is our new Ambassador in Sacramento (California). Bill was raised in East Sacramento, an area heavily populated by Italian Americans. He later obtained a law degree. In 1981 he incorporated the Italian Cultural Society of Sacramento, which soon became the dominant regional Italian organization in the area. In 2007, The Society built a multi-million-dollar Italian Center after a ten-year fundraising campaign. The Society obtained recognition of the “Little Italy Historic District” in the East Sacramento area. Today, Bill is the Executive Director of the Society and also chairs the California Italian American Task Force.
Jennifer Caito is our new Ambassador in Iowa. Jennifer is the President of the Little Italy Foundation–Midwest, a mentor for Italian American Future Leaders (IAFL), and an active member of the Council of Presidents of Major Italian American Organizations. Deeply rooted in her Sicilian American heritage, Jennifer has proudly served on numerous Italian American nonprofit boards and committees to preserve and promote Italian American culture.
Alberto Improda is our Ambassador for Design: he is the ninth thematic Ambassador of We the Italians. Alberto is the CEO of Studio Legale Improda and the President of the Centro Studi Cross Route Impresa, the Malacoda Cultural Organization, and Fondazione Città Italia. He serves on the Board of the ESG European Institute and on the ESG Committee of Ream SGR. Alberto is also a member of the Scientific Committee of Fondazione Messina, the Art Thinking Project, and the Italian Sharing Economy Association. A lecturer at the ISIA University Institute in Rome and a Senior Fellow at the University Institute of European Studies in Turin, he has authored an extensive body of essays and publications.
If you like what we do, let me remember you to please subscribe to We the Italians, here. Every month we give you 50 news excusive for our subscribers, at the cost of one single espresso, one for month. You can subscribe on our Facebook page. besides, as already announced, the eleventh book, the ninth annual yearbook, is available for you: twelve interviews from 2024 on twelve different topics that have in common Italy and the United States. On this page, you will find a preview and the link to purchase it.
It’s all for now. Please stay safe and take care, and enjoy our magazine and our contents on our website. Stay safe and take care: the future’s so bright, we gotta wear tricolor shades! A big Italian hug from Rome.
