Miscellanea - Rubrica d'attualita`

This message is sent primarily to Bob Rodino, the President, and to the Board of the American Italian Heritage Society of Omaha, Nebraska, as a thank you note for the warm reception they offered me on the occasion of my first visit there, October 15-16, 2001.

It was a real surprise to me when I realized to be the first Italian Consul General visiting Omaha since 1988 ! In all these years many things have changed in this booming Midwestern city, which now ranks among the 5-6 most important metropolitan areas of the Chicago-based Italian consular jurisdiction, together with St.Louis, Denver, Milwaukee, Kansas City and Madison.

Omaha is a very pleasant middle size city, laying on a series of hills along the west bank of the Missouri River. Travelers who get there have the impression that a Tuscan 'paesaggio' was waiting for them at the western end of the Great Prairies.

Nebraska has a long history of Italian presence. Since the early decades of the 20th century different waves of immigrants, namely from the towns of Lentini and Carlentini (South East Sicily) settled in Omaha and Lincoln. Following a pattern common to many other areas in the U.S., most of these immigrant families resettled in new locations away from the original ethnic neighborhood over the last fourty years, thus weakening that sense of cohesion and communication needed to keep a 20,000 strong community united. Ageing is another factor making it more complicate for the American Italian Heritage Society and the Order Sons of Italy to keep their membership up. Together with the Santa Lucia Festival Committee, a devotional group led by veteran promoter A.J. Alessandro, these two organizations are doing their best to keep a sense of ‘Italianness’ in a widely scattered and intensely assimilated community.

With them and with other distinguished participants, including the President of the City Council of Omaha, I was able to discuss the subject of reviving an interest for the Italian Language and Culture, and I urged my counterparts to unite and connect with the Italian Offices and the Italian American organizations in Chicago. FRA NOI and the AIHS News could play a significant role in facilitating the communications with between these two realities. The inauguration of the first Italian language courses in Nebraska, hopefully in the next 2-3 years, could be another common denominator between Chicago and Omaha. The Education Officer in the Consulate General is ready to help with all the assistance needed in programming your schedule. Clearly, a pre-requisite for the Italian language instruction is the availability of at least one local teacher, together with a minimum budget to for his/her salary.

Another area where we can work together is in connection with the Italian Cultural Institute of Chicago (Istituto Italiano di Cultura) annual program. An Italian film series with English subtitles is not impossible to get and it would be wonderful to see an Italian Cinema Retrospective organized in Omaha – say – in October 2002. And later on, why not, a concert by Franco Battiato, the famous poet-singer from Lentini, Sicily.

Among the people I met in Omaha, I found a young Italian entrepreneur willing to act as an ‘antenna’ of the Italian American Chamber of Commerce for the Midwest – Chicago. Again, the message that I tried to convey to our friends in Nebraska is that isolation is possible only when people want to isolate themselves.

In the age of the Internet and other multimedia technologies, a place like Italy is no longer a far away reality from Omaha. Chicago, 500 miles to the East is even closer. And we want Omaha and our Italian American firends living there to stay in touch with us for all the good things we have to share in the name of Italy.

Arrivederci e a presto,

CG Enrico Granara