William Giovinazzo

Contributing writer

Bambi’s Sicilian Mother

May 2022
“Mother? Where are you, mother?” If you have seen Disney’s “Bambi,” you know this scene. In the interests of those who haven’t, I won’t go into more detail. That scene, as well as the others between Bambi and his mother, depict a very American,...


Easter Traditions

April 2022
I do not mean to be irreverent, but Easter Morning strikes me as kind of an epilogue, the final concluding bit in a movie. You know, like in a movie where the villain seems to have won, to have defeated the hero. Then, the good guy comes out of...


Bella Ciao

February 2022
It is easy to make me cry. I know it is not considered manly to cry. Men must be stoic, steely-eyed, bulwarks against all that life has to throw at them, but I am a crier. Music really does it to me. If the right song catches me in the right way,...


Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

December 2021
One of my favorite Christmas carols is “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” The line where they sing, “through the years, we all will be together, if the Fates allow,” appeals to me. Amid all the rocking around the clock and jingle bell...


Where are the Italian Superheroes?

November 2021
Do you remember Dondi? Most people do not. Dondi was a comic strip that ran from September 1955 to June 1986. It was about an Italian orphan befriended by American soldiers who found him in a village destroyed by the war. When the soldiers were...


100 Days of Dante

September 2021
This September 14 will be the 700th anniversary of the death of the greatest poet of western literature, Dante Alighieri.  The claim of Dante's position in literature is more than the assertions of an Italophile. Eric Auerbach, the author of...


The Italian Immigrant

June 2021
What images come to mind when someone mentions Italian immigrants to the United States? If you are like most people, myself included, you imagine steamships and the early 1900s. Typically, what I envision is the iconic scene in “The Godfather, Part...


Fettuccini Alfredo is NOT Italian

April 2021
It is amazing to me, a guy who grew up in an Italian American community in upstate New York, how much I learned about being Italian when I left that community to live among the medighans of Los Angeles. I didn’t realize that real Italians went...


Not Everyone is Irish On St. Patrick’s Day

March 2021
Let me start by saying that I have no animosity towards the Irish. Even though my first wife was Irish, I hold no grudge against all of those from the Emerald Isle. I even think that Lucky Charms are magically delicious. However, I am not Irish...


An Italian American Christmas

December 2020
Several years back, an evangelical Christian co-worker was complaining about the secularization of Christmas. “Jesus is the reason for the season,” he declared, literally raising his arm, pointing to the heavens above. “What does Christmas mean to...


Page 3 of 5