Italian Americans and Memorial Day

 

Italian Americans and Memorial Day: Remembering Service, Sacrifice, and the Families Who Carried the Flag Forward

Each year, Memorial Day asks Americans to pause—not simply for the beginning of summer, not only for parades and barbecues, but for remembrance. It is the nation’s solemn day to honor the men and women who died while serving in the United States Armed Forces. In 2026, Memorial Day falls on Monday, May 25. The holiday is observed on the last Monday in May, though its meaning reaches far beyond a three-day weekend.

For Italian Americans, Memorial Day carries a special depth. It is a day when the American flag and the memory of immigrant sacrifice come together. It reminds us that generations of Italian families—many of whom arrived in this country poor, misunderstood, or discriminated against—sent their sons and daughters into uniform to defend the United States. In doing so, they helped prove that Italian Americans were not outsiders looking in, but Americans who loved this country deeply.

From Immigrant Neighborhoods to American Battlefields

The Italian American story is often told through food, faith, family, music, labor, and neighborhood life. We remember Little Italies, Catholic parishes, social clubs, bakeries, fishing families, farmers, laborers, and small businesses. But another part of that story belongs to military service.

Italian Americans served in every major American conflict, from the Civil War to World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and beyond. Their names appear on war memorials, church plaques, veterans’ halls, cemetery stones, and family photographs tucked away in old albums.

Many were the children or grandchildren of immigrants who had spoken Italian or regional dialects at home. Some grew up in crowded urban neighborhoods like New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego. Others came from fishing towns, farming valleys, mining camps, and railroad communities. When war came, they wore the uniform of their country.

World War II and the Italian American Test of Loyalty

World War II was especially complicated for Italian Americans. After Italy became an enemy nation, many Italian immigrants who had not yet become citizens were classified as “enemy aliens.” Some faced restrictions, suspicion, or even detention. The National WWII Museum notes that the U.S. government interned 418 Italians and held 1,881 in custody before release.

Yet at the same time, huge numbers of Italian Americans served in the U.S. military. Estimates vary, but historians and heritage organizations often cite hundreds of thousands to more than a million Americans of Italian descent serving during the war. History.com notes that between 750,000 and 1.5 million people of Italian descent are thought to have served in World War II, with 14 Italian Americans receiving the Medal of Honor for their service.

That contradiction is powerful. While some Italian families were being questioned at home, their sons were fighting overseas. Some fought in Europe, including in Italy itself, where they may have encountered the land of their ancestors not as tourists or returning relatives, but as American soldiers. Others fought in the Pacific, North Africa, and beyond. Their service became one of the clearest answers to anyone who doubted Italian American loyalty.

John Basilone and the Meaning of Sacrifice

One of the most famous Italian American military heroes is Gunnery Sergeant John Basilone, a U.S. Marine from an Italian American family. Basilone received the Medal of Honor for heroism at Guadalcanal during World War II. He later returned to combat and was killed in action on the first day of the Battle of Iwo Jima, February 19, 1945.

Basilone’s story still resonates because he did not have to return to the front. After becoming a national hero, he could have remained stateside helping the war effort through public appearances and bond drives. Instead, he chose to go back to his fellow Marines. His death at Iwo Jima made him not only a symbol of Italian American pride, but also a symbol of the highest meaning of Memorial Day: sacrifice without guarantee of return.

In towns like Raritan, New Jersey, and in Italian American communities across the country, Basilone is remembered not just as a Marine, but as one of our own—a son of immigrants whose courage became part of the American story.

Catholic Faith, Family, and Remembrance

For many Italian American families, Memorial Day is also tied to faith. In older generations, remembrance was often expressed through Masses for the dead, cemetery visits, flowers, candles, rosaries, and family gatherings after visiting graves.

This tradition fits naturally with Italian culture. Italians and Italian Americans have long maintained strong customs around honoring the dead. Family burial plots, saint medals, holy cards, funeral Masses, and annual remembrance days all reflect a belief that the dead remain part of the family story.

Memorial Day adds a national dimension to that family memory. A grave marked with an American flag is not only the resting place of a loved one—it is a reminder that one family’s loss became part of the country’s freedom.

Memorial Day Is Not Veterans Day

It is important to remember the difference between Memorial Day and Veterans Day. Veterans Day honors all who served. Armed Forces Day honors those currently serving. Memorial Day specifically honors those who died in military service. The Department of Veterans Affairs describes Memorial Day as the nation’s foremost annual day to mourn and honor deceased service members.

For Italian Americans, that distinction matters. Memorial Day is the day we say the names of those who did not come home. It is the day for the uncle whose photograph stayed on the mantel, the cousin buried overseas, the grandfather’s brother no one got to grow old with, the young man from the parish whose name is etched into a bronze plaque.

How Italian Americans Can Observe Memorial Day

Italian American families and communities can honor Memorial Day in meaningful ways:

Visit a local veterans cemetery or memorial and look for the Italian surnames among the fallen. Bring flowers, say a prayer, or simply stand in silence.

Attend Mass or light a candle for fallen service members, especially those from your own family or parish community.

Support Italian American veterans’ posts, local American Legion halls, VFW posts, and community organizations that preserve military history.

Share family stories. If someone in your family served and died, write their story down. Preserve the photographs, letters, medals, and memories before they are lost.

Teach younger generations that Italian American pride is not only about food, festivals, and heritage months. It is also about sacrifice, service, and citizenship.

A California Connection

Here in California, Italian American history is deeply tied to coastal communities, fishing families, agriculture, military service, and immigrant labor. From San Diego and San Pedro to San Francisco, Monterey, San Jose, Los Angeles, and the Central Valley, Italian families helped build communities that also sent men and women into uniform.

In places like San Pedro, the Los Angeles Harbor region, San Diego’s Little Italy, and the Bay Area, Italian Americans were part of working-class neighborhoods where patriotism was not always loud or political—it was lived. It appeared in service uniforms, shipyards, military bases, wartime labor, parish prayer lists, and gold stars in windows.

Memorial Day gives these communities a chance to remember that Italian American history in California is also military history.

Final Thought

Memorial Day is not only an American holiday. For Italian Americans, it is a family day, a heritage day, and a sacred day of remembrance. It reminds us that the journey from immigrant neighborhoods to full participation in American life was not only built through work, business, food, faith, and culture. It was also built through sacrifice.

The names may be carved in stone, but the memory is alive. Every flag placed at a grave, every prayer whispered in a cemetery, every story passed from one generation to the next keeps faith with those who gave everything.

This Memorial Day, we remember them—not as distant figures in history, but as sons, brothers, fathers, daughters, neighbors, parishioners, and fellow Americans.

May their memory be eternal. May their sacrifice never be forgotten.

 

Mother’s Day, Italian American Style: Love, Food, Family, and the Women Who Raised Us

Mother’s Day has a special feeling in Italian American families.

It is not only about flowers, cards, brunch reservations, or the official holiday on the calendar. It is about memory. It is about the women who fed us, worried about us, prayed for us, corrected us, protected us, and somehow always knew when we needed something before we said a word.

In Italian American culture, motherhood is not just a role. It is a force.

It lives in the kitchen.
It lives at the Sunday table.
It lives in the voice calling from another room, asking if you ate.
It lives in the warning to bring a jacket, even when the weather looks fine.
It lives in the sacred belief that no child, grandchild, cousin, neighbor, or guest should ever leave the house hungry.

For many Italian Americans, Mother’s Day naturally brings to mind the figure of the mother or grandmother as the emotional center of the family. She is the one who keeps track of birthdays, funerals, recipes, grudges, prayers, saints’ days, family stories, and who is not eating enough. She may be soft and nurturing one minute, then strong enough to hold the whole family together the next.

I personally did not grow up with an Italian American mother. My mother was not Italian by blood. But in many ways, she seemed Italian in spirit. She understood family, loyalty, sacrifice, warmth, emotion, and the importance of showing love through action. She may not have come from an Italian American background, but she carried many of the same values that Italian American families cherish most.

But I did have my Italian American grandmother.

We called her Grandma, not Nonna. That was just our family’s way. She was from Brooklyn, New York, and in so many ways she represented the classic Italian American grandmother — loving, protective, practical, and always concerned about whether I was eating enough.

She was the kind of grandmother who cared through food. The kind who asked, “Did you eat?” before almost anything else. The kind who would tell you to eat more, even if you had already eaten. The kind who believed a full plate was a sign of love, and that sending someone home with leftovers was almost a sacred duty.

And of course, she was the kind who would tell you to “put on a jacket.”

That phrase alone carries an entire world. It is more than advice about the weather. It is a grandmother’s way of saying: I love you. I worry about you. I want you safe. I am still watching over you.

Italian American grandmothers often had this gift. They could turn ordinary words into acts of devotion. A plate of pasta was not just dinner. It was care. A phone call was not just a check-in. It was protection. A warning about the cold was not just concern. It was love in its most familiar form.

In families shaped by immigration, struggle, and hard work, women often became the keepers of identity. They preserved the recipes, the stories, the neighborhood memories, the old sayings, the faith traditions, and the family connections. They remembered who came from where, who married whom, who lived in Brooklyn, who moved to California, who stayed close, and who drifted away.

They were historians without calling themselves historians.

They were cultural leaders without needing titles.

They were the heart of the family.

For Italian Americans, Mother’s Day is also a reminder that family is not always simple. Not every family looks the same. Not every Italian American grew up with the same traditions. Some called their grandmother Nonna. Some called her Grandma. Some grew up surrounded by Italian language, food, and customs. Others inherited only fragments — a last name, a recipe, a memory, a Brooklyn accent, a family story, or the feeling of being loved through food.

But even fragments matter.

Sometimes one grandmother is enough to carry an entire heritage forward.

My grandmother’s love was not abstract. It was direct, familiar, and wonderfully stereotypical in the best possible way. She cared. She fed. She worried. She reminded. She fussed. She loved in the language of food, family, and practical concern.

And that is why Mother’s Day, from an Italian American perspective, is bigger than one generation. It honors mothers, yes — but also grandmothers, great-grandmothers, aunts, godmothers, and all the women who helped raise us.

It honors the women who made holidays feel like holidays.

The women who kept the family connected.

The women who carried Brooklyn, Sicily, Naples, Calabria, Abruzzo, or wherever their people came from inside their hearts — even after the family moved across the country.

The women who reminded us that love is not always dramatic. Sometimes love is a second helping. Sometimes it is a bag of leftovers. Sometimes it is a hand on your cheek. Sometimes it is someone telling you, no matter how old you are, to put on a jacket.

So this Mother’s Day, I think of my own mother, who may not have been Italian American but carried so much of that Italian spirit of warmth, love, and family.

And I think of my Grandma from Brooklyn — not Nonna, but Grandma — who gave me a living connection to my Italian American roots.

I think of her asking if I ate.

I think of her telling me to eat more.

I think of her telling me to put on a jacket.

And I realize now that those little things were never little.

They were love.

They were heritage.

They were home.

Ideas On How To Celebrate An Italian American Christmas

 Ideas On How To Celebrate An Italian American Christmas

Christmas season 2024 is here and that means getting excited for familiar and comforting traditions, great food, gifts, parties, and getting together with family. For many it is their favorite holiday, not so much for the material or financial gifts they receive but for the gifts of family, friends and togetherness they celebrate. Much like the American Thanksgiving, but on a universal level, being shared by just about every peoples across the world. Here is a link to actual Christmas traditions in Italy, but for purposes of this article I want to focus on the American descendants of the great wave of Italian immigrants. You see, many of us have "Americanized" and integrated so well into American society that there is little that distinguishes us as "Italian," other than our last names, and for some even that has been changed. Christmas is no different. Many Italian American families today celebrate it the American way: Mass or church attendance on Christmas Eve and/or Christmas Day, Christmas light looking, a big dinner and family get together, the story of Santa Claus, the one popularized by American writers, cartoonists and corporate advertisers like for Coca Cola, (go here and/or here for more about the history of Santa Claus), and the unwrapping of presents, usually on Christmas Day but sometimes on Christmas Eve. These are all great, fun and wonderful traditions, but fort those who want to reclaim a bit of their Italian heritage, or for non-Italians who simply want to add something different to their holiday traditions or enjoy some cultural diversity, here are some ideas on how to make your Christmas more "Italian American."

1.) Buon Natale!

If you forgot or never knew it, try learning and speaking Italian, starting with saying "Merry Christmas" in Italian, "Buon Natale!" "Happy New Year" is "Felice Anno Nuovo!" You may already have the Italian colors of red, white and green around of course!

2.) Attend Traditional Masses:

You could attend The Mass of The Feast of the Immaculate Conception, which is a Holy Day of Obligation for Catholics anyways, and of course, and when the Christmas season in Italy gets "into high gear" according to The Proud Italian, and a Christmas Eve Midnight Mass. I suggest attending ones that are held in Italian. Even if you're not Catholic, many parishes will do something special for Christmas. My parish, Our Lady of the Rosary, an Italian National Parish in San Diego's Little Italy, for example holds a Christmas play involving young parishioners dressed up as the Holy Family reenacting the first Christmas, then would sing Christmas carols before the final Midnight Mass.

Christmas Carols at Our Lady of the Rosary:

Christmas Eve Midnight Mass at Our Lady of the Rosary:

3.) Presepi

For the Presepi, or for Americans the traditional Manger or Nativity Scene, according to The Proud Italian, "Italians take pride in the amount of love and detail they put into all things creative. When it comes to building their own unique versions of the Nativity Scene, this is no different. They combine the traditional scene and add their own personal twists into their creation by adding Ferrari’s, football players, and a variety of other 'Italian things.' Not only are these masterpieces called presepi all individual and very personal. They are also created by their makers using all sorts of materials, including pasta and nuts, to name a few." You may want to personalize your American Nativity Scene in some way to imitate an Italian Presepi.

4.) La Befana! Italians have the story of La Befana, the Christmas Witch. According to The Proud Italian, "Christmas gifts to the children in Italy are believed to be given by the ever searching, good-hearted witch called La Befana. The legend goes that she was asked by the shepherds to accompany them on their journey to visit the baby Jesus. Apparently, she declined due to having had too many house chores to complete. It is said that she later had a change of heart and followed suit. She is believed to still be searching for this child today, and leaves gifts for the kids, wherever she goes along in her journey. To find out more about this magnificent and mysterious woman, read our La Befana Article." In addition to Santa, try telling the story of La Befana as well, it just makes the holiday that more fun and culturally diverse.

5.) Music

Of course, your choice of music is subjective and either way you'll have some Christmas songs playing. But try listening to Frank Sinatra, Andrea Bocelli, and Dean Martin just to name a few old Italian American favorites, or to actual Italian Christmas music in Italian.

6.) Food

Next to Jesus Christ and family, food is the next important thing at Christmas time to Italians of course! Many Italian American families eat traditional American Christmas dishes, but, like in Thanksgiving, add something Italian to the table, usually a pasta dish like lasagna. Desserts of course include Italian cookies, cannoli, and such. Try adding something "Italian" to your Christmas dinner and dessert!

Panettone, an Italian type of sweet bread with a cupola shape, is also an Italian Christmas food tradition some families have. You can learn more about it here and here.

In addition, some families still celebrate The Feast of the Seven Fishes. Eataly.com says this about this "Italian tradition":

"Typically, the family gathers around a feast of seven different seafood dishes or one or two different types of fish prepared in seven different ways.

"Despite its popularity among Americans, many Italians do not even know about the tradition — or its origin. Surprised? The answer can be found in the biodiversity of Italy: the country boasts so many differences between the north and south.

"...The ancient tradition of eating fish on Christmas Eve dates from the Roman Catholic custom of abstinence from meat and dairy products on the eve of certain holidays, including Christmas. The number seven is rooted back in ancient times and it can be connected to multiple Catholic symbols: in fact, the seven seems repeated more than 700 times in the Bible. Also, according to the Roman Catholic Church, seven are the sacraments, the days of the Creation, as well as the deadly sins. Hence seven courses!

"Flash forward to the early 1900s, when the official "Feast of the Seven Fishes" first emerged. Italian-American families rekindled the Old Country's Christmas Eve tradition by preparing a seven-course seafood meal (hence the name of the newly found tradition) that both made them feel close to their homes, while celebrating the sea, a major connection in Italy. Today, it's considered one of the oldest Italian traditions — but we give America credit for that!"

If you have the time and energy and feel adventurous, why not have a meal of seven types of different seafood dishes and celebrate The Feast of the Seven Fishes for Christmas?

7.) Family togetherness....crowded and loud!

The most important part of Christmas is in fact celebrating the birth of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, but next to that is the gathering with family....or people we consider family. Why not make it a crowded one? Oh sure, because of covid now you might want to keep it smaller and have some social distancing, but that's not typically easy for Italians! Even if it has to be outdoors, I suggest having a big gathering of "family" and make sure, like any Italians, they talk loud and use their hands a lot! You non-Italians can watch and learn! lol

8.) Honorable Mention: Visit a Little Italy at Christmastime

Though not easy for everyone, I suggest visiting a Little Italy neighborhood at Christmastime. On the West Coast we have North Beach in San Francisco, Little Italy San Jose , Little Italy in San Diego, and now a "Little Italy" in LA (in San Pedro) and in Sacramento! Normally these neighborhoods, like any American neighborhood, would be decorated very festively for Christmas and other holidays and be bustling with holiday shopping and food, and sometimes even with events and activities like the Christmas Village and Tree Lighting in San Diego (Video of 2019) (2021 flyer).

Well, that's it, that's what I have found through some quick research and from family memories on ideas on how to make Christmas "Italian American." If there is anything I left out or if I made any mistakes, please let me know (respectfully) in the comments, and feel free to share how your own family and friends celebrate Christmas! Buon Natale e Felice Anno Nuovo!

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