THE CONTRIBUTIONS OF ITALIAN AND ITALIAN-AMERICAN
LUMINARIES TO THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

   Perhaps one of the best-kept secrets in the United States of America is
the contribution made to this country by Italians and Italian-Americans from
its inception to the present date.  While such a list would be extensive,
I'll deal here only with those of Italian ancestry who made a national
difference regarding our very foundation, our national artistic treasure,
and our national strength.

  Of course, perhaps the very first contribution one makes to the world is
their name, and, thus, it is so with the name the United States of America.
America, as you already know from your grade school history books, came from
the early Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci.  Thus, the very name, America,
is of Italian origin, prior to which it was merely known generally as The
New World.  And a New World it would be indeed, with new ideas of equality
and rights and liberty, of which an Italian physician played a most
prominent role.  But more on this Italian physician later.  First, America
had to be discovered and that task too fell to two Italians:  Christopher
Columbus and Giovanni Caboto.

   The first discovery of the New World was by Christopher Columbus, of
course, in 1492, when he landed in the Americas, although Columbus did not
land on the actual North American landmass.  Another Italian, Giovanni
Caboto, performed that feat in 1497/98.  The names of both Columbus and
Caboto would be held in high esteem thereafter.  The name Columbus can be
found everywhere from within our national song, "Columbia, the Gem of the
Ocean," to the name given Washington, D.C. or Washington, the District of
Columbia, or in the name of Columbus Circle, or in the name of Columbia
University, etc.  Caboto was to become one of the names of a most prominent
family in America:  the Cabot family.  Giovanni Caboto was an Italian
merchant, who in 1497 or 1498 landed probably on the shore of Newfoundland,
North America and helped England secure claim to Canada.

While the United States of America is a geographic landmass, it is, also, a
hallmark along the way regarding man's evolution of Spirit.  This Spirit of
equality and rights and independence was born in the mind of the Italian
physician, Filippo Mazzei, who was a friend and mentor to Thomas Jefferson
and George Mason, and for a while lived quite close to their residences in
Virginia.  It is from this relationship, between Mazzei and Jefferson and
Mason, wherein the concepts expressed by Jefferson and Mason in the National
Declaration of Independence by Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence
of Virginia by Mason were planted.  Mason's Virginia Declaration of
Independence was perhaps the seed thought that brought about our National
Declaration of Independence and our break from the yoke of England.

   Mason wrote in the Virginia Declaration of Independence, "That all Men
are created equally free and independent, and have certain inherent natural
Rights, of which they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their
Posterity…"  Jefferson echoed these words and concepts in his National
Declaration of Independence, "We hold these truths to be self-evident. That
all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with
certain unalienable Rights…"  These words and concepts of equality and
independence and natural rights were borrowed from the pen of earlier
writings of Filippo Mazzei, "All men are by nature equally free and
independent.  This equality is necessary to establish a free government.
Each one must be equal to the other in natural rights."

   John F. Kennedy gave credit to Mazzei, in his book entitled A NATION OF
IMMIGRANTS, when he said, "The great doctrine 'All men are created equal'
incorporated into the Declaration of Independence by Thomas Jefferson, was
paraphrased from the writing of Philip Mazzei, an Italian-born patriot and
pamphleteer, who was a close friend of Jefferson."
As an aside, it should also be noted two Italian-Americans, William Paca,
first Italian-American governor of any State, Maryland, and Caesar Rodney,
bravely wrote their names on our Declaration of Independence from England.
So far, as you can see, the land mass of the United States of America was
discovered by Italians, the Country was named after an Italian, and the seed
thoughts of equality and independence and natural rights, which are the
bedrock of America ideals, came from an Italian.  No small series of
contributions.

   As we move down the corridor of American history we find that when the
National Capitol was built, the same thoughts of Mazzei and Jefferson and
Mason, the founding fathers of the mental body of these United States, were
ironically put into artistic form and image by another Italian, christened
"The Artist of the Capitol," Constantino Brumidi.  Brumidi's art graces the
Capitol dome and its walls and gives expression in artistic image to the
concepts of the genetic brother of Brumidi, Filippo Mazzei.

Perhaps the national strength America possesses came from another Italian by
the name of Enrico Fermi, the Father of the Atomic Bomb.  Fermi won the 1938
Nobel Prize for Physics in regard to nuclear processes.  During World War
II, Fermi headed up the harnessing of atomic energy and the containing of
that atomic energy into a workable atomic bomb.  When it was finally
assembled and successfully detonated at the White Sands Proving Grounds and
all of Fermi's colleagues cheered, Fermi was busy calculating the power of
the atomic bomb by the distance the confetti travelled, which he, Fermi, had
thrown up in the air upon the detonation of the first atomic bomb.  When
Fermi's fellow scientists' celebration calmed down they noticed that their
leader, Fermi, was not amongst them.  They found him working with his
calculator some distance from them and crying.  They clustered around him
and inquired why he was crying.  He showed them his calculations as to the
power unleashed by the atomic bomb and stated, "We have created a monster."

   Thus, you see that Italian thought and genius is woven quite tightly
within the warp and woof of our America, from its name to its founding
ideals to its depiction of such ideals in the art within the Capitol to the
atomic strength which makes America a world power of astounding and awesome
proportions.  Perhaps the next time you get that knowing wink that the
speaker talking with you knows of your supposed connection to organized
crime, the Mafia, you might ask such a misinformed person whether they know
of the contribution that Filippo Mazzei made to their right to wink and
mouth false generalizations regarding a great genetic strain who contributed
so much to America.  Am sure, at the mention of Mazzei, the next facial
gesture coming from this misinformed person will be one of surprise and
hopefully embarassment for lumping we of Italian ancestry with the Mafia.

PLEASE REMEMBER YOUR BIRTH RIGHT AND NEVER TAKE A BACK SEAT TO NEGATIVE 
STEREOTYPING FOR YOU COME FROM A PEOPLE WHO CONTRIBUTED MUCH TO CIVILIZATION 
IN GENERAL AND TO AMERICA IN PARTICULAR.

Thank you for travelling with us these few minutes down these hallowed halls
regarding the Italian love affair with America.