Festa Italiana continues through Sunday, Aug. 2nd     Northern California’s Italian community gathers together for two days of Italian style food, music, dancing, fun and friendship at  its 24th annual Festa Italiana.The entertainment lineup features the popular singer Moreno Fruzzetti, and the great Italian and popular music of Italica and Don Garibaldi bands and dancers. There are Bocce games, Italian cars and a bicycle and motorscooter show.Try the Italian regional food specialties, Italian wines and beer, by some of Sacramento’s best Italian restaurants. Shop the market place and purchase traditional Italian products, free food tastings, Italian jewelry, ceramics, gourmet

Sacramento's Italian community is known to produce gourmet food, but there's much more to the community than Biba, Sofia's and Hot Italian. With this weekend's Festa Italian opening Saturday and running through Sunday at The Croatian Culture Center, we take a look back at the role Italian immigrants and their descendants played in Sacramento's history. Italian Americans have a long history in the Sacramento area. Agriculture and food processing are just some of the many successes of Italian Americans who settled in the area in the early 1850s, but their successes are hardly limited to that. Early Italian Americans Many of the earliest Gold Rush settlers who migrated in the "Mother Lode