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# 70 •OCTOBER 19 , 2015
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SPECIAL:
A HISTORy of niaf
FORWARD
BY THE HONORABLE DOMINIC R.
MASSARO, NIAF HISTORIAN
When
thinking of the
enormity
of
the
Italian
contribution
to
America,
consider the
sum total of
discovery and exploration, the force of
ideas about republican government,
the basis for law, the early influence
on art, architecture and music, the later influence on food, fashion and film.
The sheer cumulative weight indicates
that our nation would not be what it is
today without the contribution of Italians.
of building as well as populating the
American central cities. Found throughout the length and breadth of the
land were textile and quarry workers
in New England, farmers in New Jersey, miners in Appalachia, sharecroppers in the South, railroad workers in
the West, fishermen and lumberjacks
on the Pacific coast, all transforming
the social fabric of the nation. To find
another ethnic group that has had as
wide an influence on the birth and development of the United States would
be hard-pressing indeed.
It is against this backdrop that at the
beginning of the last quarter of the
20th century, an accomplished group
of men and women from various
walks of life and of differing political
persuasions came together under the
gavel of the American entrepreneur
Jeno Paulucci (of Chun King and Jeno’s Pizza fast-food fame) to form The
National Italian American Foundation
Then there is the physical toil of bu- (NIAF).
ilding the American infrastructure in
the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Geographically, in contrast with other
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