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# 68 • SEPTEMBER 21 , 2015
of this institution?
Well, back in 1979 I called together other
college professors and we discussed that
at that time we heard people starting to
realize we had a wonderful cultural heritage. These professors agreed with me
that we should start an organization to
record and preserve our Italian heritage.
I met them in the Syracuse University Law
School and then, from there, we continued to meet, and build and grow, and
then we founded the American Italian
Museum. This museum is different from
the museums in Italy, because its purpose is to honor the Italian immigrants and
made possible for other Italians to have
the kind of life that we have in America
thanks to their sacrifice. This sacrifice sometimes was huge: I have a plaque here
that shows all the Italian Americans that
were lynched here in the US.
have exhibits about our history and a gift
shop. On the second floor, there is the
Italian Cultural Center where we have a
small art gallery, a classroom, a chapel.
The building was completed in 1922: it
is a very unique architectural, it resembles a mission that you would find in the
south west of the US, it is very unique.
Before it was a church, we made it a
5,800 square feet museum and it took us
five years to restore it, and nine years to
get to the second floor, so we have really achieved something outstanding: and
we all volunteer, no one gets paid.
Unfortunately, we Italian Americans are
not united, we do not work together. The
other Italian American museums existing
in New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, New Orleans, Philadelphia … we
all would be much stronger working together, because the question is “How is
our culture going to survive in the US?”
Another mission of the Museum is to in- I am concerned because I have a treaform people of the contribution that the sure here it took 35 years to collect, and
Italian Americans gave to the US, so we we do not have an endowment. You’ve
8 | WE THE ITALIANS
www.wetheitalians.com