Specials

I am the president of the Columbus Citizens Foundation of New York City, which has a national presence because of our sponsorship of the Columbus Day Parade and our philanthropic work. Each year the foundation gives over $2,000,000 to italo-american students for educational scholarships.

We have 570 prominent Italian American members, which includes leaders in industry, finance, education, government and culture.

The foundation was born when Generoso Pope an Italo-American immigrant decided to promote the first modern Columbus Day Parade in New York City in 1929. Pope came to America like most of the other Italian immigrants and became the most important philanthropist in the Italo-American community supporting Italian culture and education.

Today the parade is the largest celebration of Italian heritage in the world. The celebration runs for two weeks and includes an exhibition in Grand Central Terminal and has become a showcase for Italian culture each year. A gala dinner is held at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel on Saturday evening and the Columbus Day Parade on New York's Fifth Avenue on Monday hosting over 1,000,000 spectators. The parade is broadcast in America for 3 hours and internationally by Rai international.

Our mission at the Columbus Citizens Foundation is to celebrate Italian culture.
My responsibility as president of the foundation is to be aware of cultural initiatives that impact the preservation of Italian culture. In that regard I am happy to have joined the former first lady of New York state Matilda Cuomo and her daughter Margaret Cuomo to support Italian language education in all American high schools in the United States

Our collaboration has resulted in the formation of the Italian Language Foundation (ILF). I am proud to serve as the chairman of the board of governors. The Columbus Citizens Foundation has joined the National Italian American Foundation (NIAF), Order of the Sons of Italy and UNICO as founders of the ILF.

The ILF has one goal, to support Italian language education in USA high schools at the same level as French, Spanish and German, Chinese and Japanese.

The advanced program Italian language and culture course was first offered in the 2005/2006 academic year. This was the first new language to be offered by the prestigious college board in over 50 years.
The college board supervises the annual testing of USA high school and international students for entrance into us universities. The college board also offers 37 advanced program courses in many subjects which are taught at the university level to high school students.

The ILF was founded after the college board notified the Italo-American community and the Italian government of budgeting shortfalls that threatened the cancellation of the program. We were told that the Italian language and culture course needed external funding.

We are working with the college board to not only fund the program but also to increase the number of schools offering the course, also promoting the examination and course to students worldwide, especially in Italy. The examination which results in free tuition for students is also offered in Italy.
In addition we will work with the republic of Italy, regions of Italy, and public and private institutions to provide for Italian language teacher training for teachers from the united states, exchange programs for Italian teachers from Italy to teach in the united states, and to facilitate student exchanges.

The basis of all human culture is language. Supporting Italian language education in the USA and abroad is the best way to support Italian culture.

* This text is the abstract of the paper presented by Mr. Louis Tallarini to the conference "Memories of the Future" (Palermo, 28-29 November 2008)