9 - Italian-Americans today in the U.S.A.

New York-based daily America Oggi survives shake-ups as it satisfies readership

Andrea Mantineo, editor in chief of America Oggi, New York City's Italian-language daily, is quite satisfied, despite some reservations, with the law on voting abroad recently passed by the Italian parliament. "I think this recognition is late," he says. "By now, the Italians who live here have integrated in the social fabric of the U.S.A., and therefore take scarce notice of Italy's political events. This is why I think the turnout will be very low. Anyway, better late than never, because Italian citizens, wherever in the world they may live, must be allowed to exert their voting rights."
A mere 214,677 Italian-Americans are entitled to those rights, a ridiculous figure if compared to how many Italians one can encounter daily in New York City or San Francisco, Seattle or Miami; but that's exactly the number listed in the Consular Registrars. This is how they are distributed: 2,852 in Washington, 12,188 in Boston, 21,551 in Chicago, 26,208 in Philadelphia, 4,068 in Houston, 10,864 in Los Angeles, 15,948 in Miami, 71,849 in New York City, 9,591 in San Francisco, 13,453 in Detroit, and 17,062 in Newark.
Of course, even though the next political elections are still far away, people are already maneuvering for nominations. Every two or three days, someone's chances go up and someone else's down, so that any forecast is highly uncertain. "It's useless, it's far too early," confirms Mantineo. "Even if we don't underestimate any movement. We keep our ears up, in short." The journalists of America Oggi have been doing so for the past 14 years, since November 1988 when the paper first hit the newsstands.
In the beginning there was Il Progresso Italoamericano, the legendary daily that witnessed our emigration to the United States, our aspirations and victories, and also our defeats. One could immediately see whether someone else was Italian by the paper he stuffed in his pocket. That newspaper was for years a banner and an ombudsman.
The downturn began in the late Seventies. Italian immigration had stopped, also because the U.S. government had kept reducing the number of foreign workers admitted (through various Quota Acts), and the readership had consequently changed. The newspaper was repeatedly sold, and after several changes in ownership it ended up in the hands of Italian entrepreneurs, who saw it as merely a business. They were quick in tossing out the editors, all 20 of them, when they noticed that the business was unprofitable. "In practice, however," remembers one of them, Massimo Jaus, current vice editor of America Oggi, "they took the money and ran; despite repeatedly winning in court, none of us was ever hired back."
The fired journalists did not lose heart. Andrea Mantineo, former national editor of Il Progresso Italoamericano, took the leadership: he had the idea to create a partnership among the editors and launch a new daily. They wasted little time in theoretical debates and opened their wallets and paid $5,000 each. With that money they bought desks, computers, and drawing boards for the new publication. They called it America Oggi (America Today), giving a clear indication of the kind of readership they wanted to address: second- and third-generation Italian-Americans, to keep their roots alive, and all those Italians who, in increasing numbers, went to New York City for business or on holiday and wanted detailed information about what was happening in Italy. Our immigration had changed this much.
"We rented a building in Westwood, a few miles from downtown New York, in New Jersey," remembers Mantineo, now chairman of the company (Gruppo America Oggi Inc.) and editor in chief of the new daily, "and in there, working day and night, we backed our challenge. I can now say that we've won."
In that period (late Eighties) teletransmission was still in its infancy, and Italian newspapers, flying in from Rome and Milan, reached the newsstands one or two days later, and cost three times as much as a local newspaper.
In summary, finding fresh information from Italy wasn't easy. America Oggi jumped on this market niche, hitting the stands in the early morning for 75 cents.
Success was immediate, due to the fact that, in addition to punctual news from Italy, there was just as punctual news from the United States. With the passing of years, this would be enriched with columns, specials, prestigious collaborators (Mario Cuomo and George Pataki, for instance, both governors of the State of New York; Mayor Rudolph Giuliani; Antonio Di Pietro), and a newsmagazine, Oggi7. Finally, two years ago, a circulation partnership with La Repubblica:, two newspapers sold together for the price of one, an operation closely mirroring the pilot experiment in Toronto by Corriere Canadese.
Like every editor of Italian newspapers abroad, Mantineo must deal with the problem of a language going progressively out of use. This is the greatest editorial problem outside of Italy: whom should the newspaper be done for, if even its readers cannot understand the language any more? But it's not just an editorial problem. "In the past, the issue of the language was truly ignored," says Mantineo. "Maybe not in the U.S.A., where links with Italy were always closer than elsewhere, thus allowing the language to survive somehow. I'm thinking more of smaller, more remote countries, where our first immigrants, who frequently could only speak dialect, had negligible opportunities to learn and maintain our mother tongue."
What about the United States?
"Even here, we have to save what we can. Due to the policy of the "melting pot", the U.S. government never encouraged the teaching of any language outside of English. Now this policy, previously oppressive, is being weakened a bit, and more and more people look with interest to multiculturalism. However, the problem of the language is real."
Is it a tough problem?
"Apparently not. In the past 10-15 years we have seen a revival of the Italian language. This is not a mass phenomenon yet, but it's interesting. In many colleges, schools, and universities, thanks to donations from private individuals and Italian-American foundations, our language is strengthening, after surviving the melting pot policy. Nowadays, surprisingly, we found 1.5 million speakers in the metropolitan area of New York City, out of a population of 20 million."
What caused this renaissance of Italian?
"The permanent fascination of Americans for Italian culture. Speaking Italian, in some circles, is a status symbol. But, I'll repeat, this is still not a mass phenomenon."
What is the profile of today's Italian-Americans?
"Let's clarify. If you mean Americans of Italian heritage, e.g. third- or fourth-generation, I must say that they cannot be distinguished from other Americans, because they are fully integrated. They are totally Americans, you see. If, on the other hand, you mean Italians who arrived in the last 10 or 20 years, the situation is different. Theirs was an immigration of brains, not hands: middle to high education, needs, expectations, high profile jobs. These Italian-Americans keep coming and going to and from Italy, maintain links with it, keep themselves up to date. That's why the Italian language press, in addition of course to electronic media, still has a function."
They are the children of globalization, or its promoters, aren't they?
They are indeed. I was thinking of them when we talked about Italians being entitled to vote regardless of where they live. These Italian-Americans, or maybe we should say these Italian citizens of the world, will be a boom for Italy, which proved its will to get even more international by recognizing this fundamental right."
Maybe these people, living in the United States, Canada, Europe, South America and Australia, will update and return to Italy the great ideas that made the country great in the past.

Publication Date: 2002-09-22
Story Location: http://tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=1765