About: Who Can Benefit From this Website/Our Target Market

About: Who Can Benefit From this Website

• TheItalianCalifornian.com is a one-stop resource for everything Italian and Italian American in California with directories with useful links to Italian and Italian American social, cultural, charitable and professional organizations, to Italian neighborhoods and enclaves in California, to museums and cultural centers, to Italian businesses, and to sources about the history of Italians in the Golden State. As such, this website is useful for a number of different types of users, including:

• Academics, researchers and students of Italian and Italian American history and culture: you will find the listings and links here useful for your research,

• Travelers visiting California and looking for a bit of Italian and/or Italian American heritage here: you can find listings and links about Italian neighborhoods, festivals, museums, businesses, and more,

• Organizations of all kinds and businesses looking for some complimentary advertising and wanting to be exposed to yet another internet audience: you will find this site yet another way to get more free exposure,

• Italophiles and patrons of Italian and Italian American culture: you will find this site quite useful and can even see news and culture from modern Italy.

• People looking for consulate assistance: there are links to the Italian Consulates in California here.

Join our listings FREE! You can list your business, nonprofit, festival, museum, and more here for free! Why? CONTENT. "Content is king," so they say, with the proper type and amount of content, we can attract more visitors to our website. That not only translates into more potential customers or results for you, but with the right amount of website visitors we can make revenue through other types of advertising, including Google AdSense, sponsored content, and more! We are non-political and non-partisan, our goal is simply to give yet more exposure to the Italian American community of California, so rest assured you will never find yourself in a controversy by being associated with TheItalianCalifornian.com. For more information, please fill out the Contact sheet here or email us at theitaliancalifornian@gmx.com. Grazie!

-Christopher Forte,

Founder/Editor-in-Chief

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News From Italy

Headline News From Italy

Italy News Video

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Events/Festivals by month Summer/Fall 2022

 

Summer/Fall 2022

August

• Italian Family Festa in San Jose August 20th-21st,               San Jose

• Festa Coloniale Italiana in San Francisco August 27th,        San Francisco

September

• Julian Grape Stomp Festa, September 3rd, 2022,                 Julian

• 88th Festa Italia,               September 9-11, 2022                                     Monterey, CA 

October 

• The Los Angeles Italian Festival October 1st and 2nd, 2022, Los Angeles

• Little Italy San Jose Street Festival October 2nd, 2022,                   San Jose

• San Francisco Italian Heritage Festival & Parade, October 9th, 2022, San Francisco

• Festa Italiana October 15th and 16th, 2022,                          San Pedro, Los Angeles

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Little Italy San Jose July Newsletter

 
The July 2022 Newsletter from Little Italy San Jose:

Keep Connected - www.LittleItalySJ.com   July 2022 Newsletter Little Italy San Jose Renaissance!! Dear Little Italy San Jose Supporter,   2022 is a year of rebirth and milestones for Little Italy San Jose.  Covid-19 has certainly been a challenge as we lost a few businesses and were unable to hold our annual Italian Festival for the past two years.  At the same time, myself and Little Italy have been extremely busy over the past year and a half with the construction of the Little Italy Cultural Center & Museum and Famiglia Meduri’s Poor House Bistro project.  This “Extreme Makeover, Little Italy edition” project is certainly a challenge, but has also progressed along nicely.  Here are some highlights of tasks we have completed. New foundation and home raising Demo of smaller house and successful move of Poor House Bistro building All interior, front and back porch framing complete Installed new Heating and Air and duct work Completed install and passed inspections for Plumbing, Mechanical and Electrical New Roof, and rebuilt existing windows Stripping of lead paint and repaired existing siding Rebuilt Victorian front stairs and custom mill spindles and repair columns Poor House Bistro new foundation complete on Little Italy site  Read more.... Back to The Italian Californian Main Site

About The Italian Californian

Benvenuti! My name is Christopher Forte and I am The Italian Californian. My immediate family were very assimilated and far from their roots so when I had become interested in our Italian heritage at a young age when I was immersed in a culturally diverse setting in Southern California I went on a quest to learn more about it.  Once I discovered the richness, beauty and storied history that Italians have even right here in California, going as far back as when it was a Spanish colony, I dived into it headfirst, with a zeal to preserve that history and culture and share it with the world.

And that is where this web site comes in. With my esteemed colleagues, my sister Michelle L. Forte and her daughter, my niece, Marissa Forte, our quest, the goal of this publication is to preserve, celebrate, promote, and share the Italian American heritage of California with the world. We do not see this site in competition with any other Italian and Italian American publication, indeed the entire mission of this site to promote those publications and media and help them thrive. The more exposure the Italian American community gets, the better. We have the same goals, and we want to be an additional voice and advocate achieving those goals. "A rising tide lifts all boats," so the saying goes, and we just want to be a part of that tide.

To accomplish this, TheItalianCalifornian.com will be a gateway to everything Italian and Italian American in California. Here you will find directories with useful links to Italian and Italian American social, cultural, charitable and professional organizations, to Italian neighborhoods and enclaves in California, to museums and cultural centers, as well as to sources that can educate you on the history of Italians in the Golden State. Looking for an Italian restaurant? There will also be a link to sources that can help find one near you.

There will be a few original articles here as well, and while we'll be covering as much of California as I can, we will be focused mainly on my home of San Diego. This is not only because it is easier for us due to our limited staff and budget, but because despite the city's thriving Italian American community with so many organizations and events, the community lacks its own distinct publication and media outlet. So, we hope to fill that void. 

Christopher Forte, the President & CEO and Editor-in-Chief and author of this post, is the Facilities Coordinator for the Amici House, which is San Diego's Little Italy neighborhood event and heritage center which is run as part of the Heritage program of the Convivio Society. I also sit on the Convivio Society's Little Italy Heritage Commission, am a member of the House of Italy, the former 2nd Vice President of the Italian Catholic Federation ICF Branch #230-Our Lady of the Rosary, and am a volunteer for the Little Italy Association and am very active with my church, Our Lady of the Rosary Catholic Church, an Italian National Parish. I am a former board member of the Sons of Italy (now the Sons and Daughters of Italy San Diego Lodge #1627) (OSIA) and am a member of San Diego's Italian American Civic Association (IACA). I have over twenty years' experience in personnel and financial management and have a Certificate in Writing for Publication.  

The goal of my colleagues and I is to make The Italian Californian be the premiere promoter of all things Italian and Italian American in California and the most efficient gateway and directory for those who want to navigate the Italian American community in the Golden State.

-Christopher Forte,

President & CEO,

Editor-in-Chief

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Publications & Media

 

 National

NATIONAL ITALIAN AMERICAN FOUNDATION:

Ambassador magazine  
eNotizie newsletter 

ORDER SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF ITALY IN AMERICA:

Italian America magazine

UNICO National

ComUnico

We the Italians/California

The Italian Tribune

Primo

Fra Noi

Italian Catholic Federation:

News/Bollettino

Facebook pages

Facebook Groups

YouTube Channels

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 Italian Food/Restaurants in California

 Google Search Results

Bing Search Results

To read about the differences between "Italian food" known in America and authentic Italian food in/from Italy, click here. And to read about how those differences occurred and why "Italian AMERICAN" food is so popular in the United States today, click here.

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History of Italians in California

History of Italians in California

The Butte Store (California Historical Landmark No. 39) No photo description available. An Italian stone mason constructed the building in 1857 to serve settlers and miners as both their post office and general store. The Gnocchio family operated the store for 50 years, closing its doors in the early 1900s. The roofless building is the last structure still standing where 100 miner’s cabins once stood during the height of the Gold Rush era

Introduction: The History of Italians in California

by Christopher Forte

The story of Italians in California defies two stereotypical historical narratives. The first is about Italians: You probably know the common narrative as repeated by so many movies, especially Mob movies, and documentaries about the mass migration of Southern Italians and Sicilians to the US in the years 1880 to about 1920 or so, how most of them entered through the eastern ports like Boston and New York, and mainly settled at first in urban enclaves called "Little Italys" like the famous one in Manhattan. That most of them were poor, faced some prejudice, and worked hard to be accepted and successful. You might have heard how some made it West to make it big in agriculture and wine-making. But how many of you knew that Italians were in the West during the time of the Gold Rush? Becoming the largest immigrant group in the Mother Lode? That there were Italian ranchers in the Sierra Nevada foothills as early as 1852? Did you know about all the places named after Italians, including Italian Camp, Italian Diggings, Italian Bar and the Italian Bar Trail in Tuolumne County, the Italian Mine in Nevada City and Italian Bar on the American River in El Dorado County?

The second stereotypical historical story we all know that this article may change for you is the history of California itself: that it was colonized by the Spanish, then became Mexican, and finally American. In this story line you were probably taught about the Gold Rush and how many different nationalities from all over the world, but especially from Europe and eastern parts of the US, rushed to the gold fields being dubbed "49ers" for the year the first gold was found, 1849. But how many of you knew that there were Italians in Los Angeles, at El Pueblo, when it was still Mexican territory? That many of them married into the influential Californio families and owned some of the historic ranches or ranchos like Giovanni Battista Leandri who owned Rancho Los Coyotes in present-day Buena Park, and the neighboring Rancho Cañada de la Habra, and married Maria Francesca Uribe, the daughter of a prominent Californio family? (The Californios were Spanish-speaking people of Latin American ancestry who were born in California during the era of Mexican and Spanish rule. During this era, Italians and Mexicans intermarried more frequently than any other group, according to the Italian American Museum of Los Angeles at IAMLA.org and at their permanent online exhibit here.) Leandri changed his name to Juan Leandry to better fit in among the Californios.

These little-known facts and more are revealed by clicking on the following links. Indeed, in my research, I have found that next to the Spaniards themselves, no other immigrant group left such an indelible and enduring impact on the development and culture of the Golden State.

_____________________________________________________________________

Bancroft Collection/Italian  Americans in California

Italian Americans in California

Introduction

Italians were some of the first European explorers and settlers of California. Religious duties and the search for new fishing grounds were initial reasons for Italians to explore what later became the thirty-first state, but their reasons for staying expanded after arriving. Though we often associate Italians in California with San Francisco, the initial Italian settlers established themselves in such diverse communities as Monterey, Stockton, and San Diego during the years of Spanish Rule.

While the majority of Italians settled in the urban centers of the east, many, especially northern Italians came out west. As late as 1890, there were more Italian immigrants on the Pacific coast than in New England. Their reasons for leaving and for choosing California varied. Overpopulation and the French capture of the wine industry in the 1880s made leaving attractive to Ligurians. The fact that California's small immigrant community was 80% northern made it more attractive to these people.  More here: Bancroft Collection/Italian  Americans in California, Credit to the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley.

The Museo Italo Americano Presents: From Italy to California:

Foreword

The contributions of Italian immigrants to 

this country and particularly to the State of 

California cannot be overestimated. In large 

part, Italian-Americans defined California with 

their hard work, intelligence, creativity and spirit 

of enterprise. Italian immigrants arrived early 

to the Golden State and established wineries, 

farms, canneries, fishing enterprises, factories 

and banks. They enhanced the state’s culture 

by founding universities and creating the 

San Francisco Opera Company. This positive 

influence continues as the most recent Italian 

immigrants make significant contributions to 

California’s new frontiers, particularly in the 

fields of technology and research.

The Museo ItaloAmericano continues the celebration of 

its first thirty years of existence by presenting In Cerca 

di una Nuova Vita, a documentary exhibit on Italian 

immigration to California from 1850 to the present day. 

There have been many individuals and organizations 

that have contributed to this exhibit — too many to 

enumerate all here. We do wish to acknowledge the 

following special contributors: Alessandro Baccari, who 

has contributed much material from his private collection; 

Professor Paola Sensi-Isolani of St. Mary’s College, whose 

First Wave narrative provides the historical context for 

the exhibit; and Paolo Pontoniere, who has curated a 

contemporary mode of presenting the accomplishments 

of the most recent immigrants. More here: From Italy to California (pdf)

Italian American Museum of Los Angeles: History

Southern California’s Italian Roots

Italians and Italian Americans have played an instrumental role in the development of Los Angeles as one of the world’s greatest metropolises, yet the history of Italians in the region is largely unknown. Though Los Angeles is home to the nation’s fifth-largest Italian population today, and the Italian presence in the American West predates the nation’s founding, seldom is the city included in dialogs surrounding contemporary or historic Italian American communities. An examination of the region’s Italian roots reveals both the complexity of the Italian Diaspora and the exceptionally diverse fabric of Southern California’s history. More here: IAMLA.org/History

ITALIAN ARCHIVES OF SAN DIEGO

OUR STORIED PAST

RECOUNTING A HISTORICAL NARRATIVE

Beginning in Little Italy and extending to the broader Italian community, Convivio (through its auxiliary, the Italian Historical Society of San Diego), is preserving San Diego’s Italian American historical narrative and creating a lasting historical tableau through education, research, archival work, historical projects, exhibitions, and events.

With the Italian Archives of San Diego, we now have a digital repository to safeguard and share photographs, documents, manuscripts, and other historical material donated by community members to help tell the story of the Italians of San Diego.

At Amici House in Little Italy—the community’s heritage, event, and visitor center overseen by the Little Italy Heritage Commission (an advisory committee of the Italian Historical Society of San Diego)—guests can learn about local Italian history and participate in diverse programs and events offering something for everyone.

Contact us for more information on our heritage programs or to contribute materials to our archives. More here: Italian Archives of San Diego

More: Google Search Results

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Italian Neighborhoods & Enclaves in California

 Click here for links to Italian neighborhoods and enclaves in California.

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