Newest articles on The Sacramento Press tagged as "festa italiana"

Festa Italiana brings together Italian American community

2010-08-09T04:34:07Z

This weekend marked the 25th annual Festa Italiana celebration of Italian heritage in Sacramento.

Sponsored by the Sacramento Italian Cultural Society, Italians, Italian Americans and beyond gathered at the Croatian American Cultural Center Saturday and Sunday for a festival resembling a two-day-long Italian wedding.

Under the hot Sacramento sun, shaded by large canopies, festival-goers enjoyed musical entertainment by the likes of Italica and Moreno Fruzzetti and dancing from the society’s Balliamo dance troupe.

Husband and wife Victor and Eva Musammam have been attending the festival for 20 years and are big fans of Fruzzetti.

“I have all of his CDs,” Eva said.

Eva was born in Bari, Italy, and moved to Hoboken,N.J. (birthplace of Frank Sinatra) at age 11. Victor, who was wearing a T-shirt that said “Pray for me, my wife is Italian,” has Italian grandparents, although he is from Palestine.

“We come here every year with these friends, family,” Eva said. “Actually, we look forward to it. I enjoy coming, seeing people and listening to the music.”

“Every year they add more to the festival,” Victor said. “I think this year is the best organized. They improve every year.

Throughout the day, the main stage outside held raffle prizes announcements, singers and dancers. The inside of the cultural center had vendors selling everything from Venetian glass jewelry, to olive oil.

Walking through the mercato, the smell of fried calamari and pasta was apparent as local businesses advertised their products. One booth sold varieties of mushrooms, while the booth next to it sold Italian license plate frames with phrases such as “Happiness is being Italian.”

Activities for children were also available, such as an arts and crafts booth, face-painting booth and rides. Applicants for the 2010 Festa Queen pageant helped out in the children’s area.

Toward the late afternoon on Saturday, Jennifer Caruso Stone invited former Festa Queens on stage from the last 25 years for the coronation of the 2010 Festa Queen.

Jacqueline Traverso Hamilton, a UC Davis graduate, won this year’s title.

“My favorite part about the festival is working with the kids — it’s my passion,” she said. “And of course, spreading the Italian spirit.”

Applicants are judged based on an essay, panel interview and participation in the festival.

Nora Biundo-Salazar was one of the first Festa Queens, crowned in 1987. She said they also had to write an essay, but the interview was done on stage and in Italian if possible.

“We were escorted by Italian Marines in uniform” she said. “And the cars that were on display, the owners let us ride into the festival on them. Mine was a red Fiat.”

Today, the queen receives a $1,000 scholarship, although in 1987 the sum was much smaller. Biundo-Salazar, who now has three children, said the society has grown in these last 25 years.

“I’m proud to be Italian and grateful to have been a part of the society since 1985,” she said. “I’m thankful that this opportunity still exists and hope that it continues for at least another 25 years.”

For more information on the Italian Cultural Society, visit italiancenter.net

Photos by David Alvarez.

Italy comes to Sacramento this weekend at the Festa Italiana

2010-08-06T01:57:27Z

Everyone can be Italian this weekend at the Italian Cultural Society of Sacramento’s Festa Italiana.

The 25th annual Italian festival has much more to offer than the stereotypical spaghetti and meatballs. Once held at the Cal Expo, the fair is now at the Croatian-American Cultural Center at 3730 Auburn Blvd. This year’s Festa Italiana is set up to represent authentic festivals in towns across Italy.

It started as a small picnic in the park by the society’s Gioventú young people group, the festival has grown to an average 6,000 visitors per year.

Bill Cerruti, executive director of the Italian Cultural Society, said the Italian-American community of Sacramento wanted something to celebrate its culture.

“During the 1970s, we didn’t have much going on,” Cerruti said. “That was one of our goals: to recreate an Italian festival and take pride in our heritage.”

Festivalgoer’s can take a stroll down the marketplace, or mercato, while listening to Italian bands such as Italica, play on the main stage.

Staying true to Italian tradition for their love of food, visitors can taste selections from Sacramento’s best Italian restaurants, such as Il Fornaio and the new Fair Oaks branch of the San Francisco favorite, Dianda’s Bakery.

Attendees can also witness Italian folk dancing by the society’s two dance troupes: Balliamo,and the Bambini Dancers. Bambini means children, as the group is made up of kids no older than 12.

For those interested in Italy’s motor achievements, Italian cars, bicycles and motor scooters will be on display. Past festivals have featured Maserati’s, Ferrari’s and Vespa scooters from private owners and local car dealerships.

This year’s festival will continue to offer the chance to win a $1,000 scholarship for young women of Italian descent ages 16 to 22 through the Festa Queen Pageant. Jennifer Caruso Stone, coordinator for the competition, said this is not a typical beauty pageant.

“In villages in Italy, when they would have their annual festival, they would crown a festa queen. It has to do with how they honor their women in their culture,” Stone said. “It is something that’s traditional from Italy that we tried to recreate here.”

Applicants are required to write an essay, go through a panel interview and participate in both days of the festival. Stone said the panel members — which are made up of past queens, members of Gioventú and the board of directors for the society — make their decision based on these requirements and the person’s interest in Italian culture.

“It gives [applicants] an opportunity to meet others who are also interested in the Italian culture,” Stone said. “I think its important for the Italian Cultural Society to have that connection with the youth and to get them excited and want to give back to their culture.”

Stone’s husband Matt runs the salami toss at the festival — a crowd favorite. The object of the game is to try and hit a whole swinging salami hanging on a rope.

A potato wedge is traditionally used to hit the salami, though Stone said in years past the Sacramento heat made the potatoes brown. The prize, of course, is a salami.

“Some people take it very seriously,” Stone said.

“There was that one kid that won about 12 in one year,” said board member Julie Radke.

Cerruti described the festival as a two-day big Italian wedding. His favorite part is the outdoor setting with “all the people sitting around eating, drinking and enjoying themselves.”

Raffle tickets will be available for the chance to win a two-person round-trip to Italy.

Festa Italiana will take place from 11 a.m-10 p.m. Saturday and from 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Sunday. General admission is $10, and those 15 and under are free.

For more info on the festival, visit italiancenter.net

Angela Ruggiero is part of the 2010 Festa Queen Pageant panel. She was Festa Queen in 2008.

Mama Mia, what a Festa!

2009-08-02T04:56:01Z

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 food, art, leather and crafts.

Win a trip to Italy at the raffle.

For the kids there's the "Screamer"

and other inflatables and face painting.

Several Maseratis are on display near the front gate.

Miss the first day? There's always tomorrow,

Sunday Aug. 2 from 11am - 6pm. Parking is free.

Admission is $10. Located at the Croatian Park,

3730 Auburn Blvd (two blocks east of Watt Ave and I-80).

PRESENTED BY THE ITALIAN CULTURAL
SOCIETY OF SACRAMENTO

visit:www.italiancenter.net

Photos | Kati Garner

Traces of Italy in Sacramento

2009-08-01T03:17:50Z

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" area surrounding Sacramento were from the Liguria region of Italy -- specifically the city of Genoa. That was followed by a second wave of Italian immigrants from other areas such as the Veneto region.

By 1880 an estimated 10,000 people from the area around Genoa began to dominate the farming industries to meet the demands of the local population. The people are known as "The Genovese," which also refers to the regional Italian dialect they speak.

By the end of the century, Italians were one of the largest groups of immigrants working in the deep gold mines. But they were also masons, woodcutters and ranchers.

The Italians continued to thrive after the Gold Rush, Italian farmers produced large amounts wine, olive oil and other crops. Italian fishermen established themselves on the Northern California coast.

After the Gold Rush, Ligurians Antonio Cerruti and Marco Fantana founded the Del Monte canned food label. Giovanni Lombardo built the Lombardo Winery in El Dorado County, which is now the award-winning Boeger Winery.

Domenico Ghiradelli, who had traveled through the Gold Rush towns selling chocolate and candy, settled in San Francisco and built a chocolate empire. Many local Italian Americans shared similar stories of success.

"Italians in Sacramento had a concentrated community," said Bill Cerruti, founder and executive director of the Italian Cultural Society. "Many had farms and lived in East Sacramento near East Portal Park."

By the mid-1900s, the community, now unofficially referred to by elders as "Little Italy," had a weekly newspaper called La Capitale, which ran from 1906 to 1945, as well as festivals and dinners.

Men were known to play bocce ball in East Portal Park. The group is now the East Portal Bocce Club.

Italian American Internment

As America’s involvement in World War II became imminent, many Japanese, German and Italian immigrants in Sacramento were detained and forced to relocate. Italians, who were at the time the largest immigrant group in the United States, were interned, restricted and taken from their homes.

"Ten thousand were forced to relocate," Cerruti said. "The Exclusion Act used on Italian Americans destroyed the [Northern California coastal] fishing industry."

After the end of the war, Italians built East Sacramento's St. Mary's Catholic Church in 1948. This was the "golden era" of the community, according to Cerruti.

Italians from other areas in the city moved to East Sacramento, and the community reached new heights. But in the 1960s, Cerruti explained, many second generation Italian Americans looked to drop their "foreign" identity to assimilate into a more "American" identity. The next generation, in the '70s and '80s, wanted to learn about their Italian roots again.

Italian Cultural Society

In 1981 Cerruti created the Italian Cultural Society (ICS) with several goals in mind. His dream was to create a newsletter, have a location where Italians could gather and learn to speak Italian and hold a cultural festival. All of these dreams were realized in the first five years of the ICS' operation, which was originally headquartered in a room at the Sierra 2 Community Center in Curtis Park.

As the ICS grew, so did the need for new facilities. The group used a second classroom in the Sierra Center and other facilities such as Cal Expo and the Croatian Cultural Center, for its festivals.

Then, in 2007, the ICS moved into a building in Carmichael, near Carmichael Park.

Complete with custom marble flooring, a library, four classrooms, a full kitchen, a ballroom with multimedia equipment and alabaster chandeliers and a patio overlooking Carmichael Park, the Italian Cultural Center is a sight to behold.

Cerruti took out a mortgage for the center, located at 6821 Fair Oaks Blvd. The biggest question is how to pay it off.

"Basically we figured to pay it off in 10 years," Cerruti said. That was before the economy tanked. Now the ICS must cut costs and hold more fund-raising efforts, he said.

Currently the ICS has more than 1,000 members, and its monthly newsletter Altre Voci (other voices) is sent to nearly 11,000 households. Annually, more than 1,000 students attend 13 levels of Italian language classes at the center.

The original location in the Sierra 2 Community Center still holds half of the ICS' language classes.

Lately, Cerruti said, traditional dinner dances have become less popular. In order to increase community involvement, a youth group named Gioventú formed to bring together a younger 18- to 40-year-old Italian American crowd.

"I'm amazed at the activity in the Italian American community," Cerruti said. "Right now there's more activity than ever before, due to a revitalization in Italian American culture."

A "Hot" Italian

Igor De Angelis is one young Italian immigrant from Milan who wants to bring an authentic Italian flavor to the community. Currently working as a waiter at Hot Italian, Igor's dream is to be a successful rapper.

"It was an obsession," De Angelis said of his love of hip hop. "My dream was always to make my music."

As a teenager, he became a member of a graffiti team, break danced and studied the lyrics of American emcees. After moving to the United States to pursue his dream, he bought a laptop and began making beats.

By chance, De Angelis ran into an old friend of 2Pac's, who listened to his music. She told De Angelis that his beats were better than many other musicians’ who had been in the industry for years.

This motivated him to find a recording studio, and he eventually record an album. In 2008, De Angelis was finally able to achieve his dream of creating his own album, called La Nona - The Ninth District of Milan, rapped almost entirely in Italian. It was recorded under the stage name "Rigo of Di Casa Nostra."

"Rigo" was his nickname name back in Milan, when he was in a graffiti crew called Di Casa Nostra, or DCN for short. It means "our house."

A single from the album, "Grand Prix," was recently played on Yuba City's KRYC 105.9. Having a friend tell him, "I heard your song on the radio," De Angelis said, was a great moment.

Festa Italiana

This weekend, everyone is Italian at Festa Italiana. The ICS' 24th annual celebration of all things Italian will be held Aug. 1-2 at the Croatian Cultural Center at 3730 Auburn Blvd. (The Italian Cultural Center would hardly hold the estimated 3,500 attendees)

The highlights include an Italian marketplace, car show, children’s activities, festival queen pageant, bocce ball, music and dancing. The festival features food from Northern California's Italian restaurants and caterers. On the menu is calamari from Monterey Bay Calamari, lasagna from La Famiglia and Gelato from Hot Italian, among other dishes. The ICS describes the festival as "like attending two-day wedding reception."

Festa Italiana will take place from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday, and 11 a.m.- 6 p.m. Sunday. Admission is $10. Visit italiancenter.net for more information.