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# 70 • OCTOBER 19 , 2015
Italian American organizations formed at an earlier period, this founding group, eschewing membership,
immediately spanned the nation.
These were individuals of means, leaders in all of their respective fields—
business, labor, education, politics—enjoying resources, possessing
access, and honing a broad range of
talents.
To establish and sustain a uniquely
free-standing national entity, to engage programmatic outreach from
the nation’s capital with the goal of
creating and coordinating a unified
and effective voice for our people
on the national scene, this, then, is
NIAF’s story.
national office of Italian Americans
located in Washington, D.C.—a centralized location for research and for
the development of a national agenda of issues and goals formed by
Americans of Italian ancestry.” From
this inauspicious meeting was born
the nucleus of what would grow to
become our National Italian American Foundation.
Months after this original session,
Monsignor Baroni laid out, in a five-page draft, a proposal for a national office of Italian Americans. The
document called for the organization of an “issues oriented office for
Italian Americans located in Washington.” The early leadership behind
the initiative envisioned a national
forum that would bring together Italian Americans for workshops and
discussions around topics such as
education, politics, government,
defamation, business, community
affairs, media, religion, culture, social services. The organization they
proposed was to be born during a
BY ALICE BERNARDI AND JOHN M. period of great inflection for the naVIOLA tion’s nearly 20 million Americans of
Italian ancestry.
1975–1985: A National Agenda
In the mid-1970s, the Italian AmeriOn the afternoon of Saturday, April, can community had seen something
26, 1975, 19 Italian Americans under of a stall in its growth and progress
the guidance of Monsignor Geno towards the American dream. To theBaroni, a Catholic Priest and renow- se thoughtful civic leaders, the idea
ned social activist, sat together at of creating something different and
the office of the National Center for distinct from the groups that had
Urban Ethnic Affairs and dedicated come before it was seen as the best
themselves to the task of forming “a route to future success and integra-
A History
of NIAF
26 | WE THE ITALIANS
www.wetheitalians.com