President Mattarella Praises Italians in New York

Excerpted from i-Italy.org

In his first visit to the US as Italy’s President, Sergio Mattarella met with President Obama, made an important appearance at the United Nations, visited the 9/11 memorial, the Columbia University, the City Hall of NYC and the Museum of Immigration in Ellis Island. And, above all, he embraced the Italian and Italian-American community at the Guggenheim Museum.

Mattarella’s first American trip started with a historic meeting with President Barack Obama in Washington. Obama and Mattarella also had some more relaxed exchanges, with a nod to their common experience of teachers of constitutional law. The American President praising his Italian colleague for his “long and extraordinary career as a jurist and a lawyer,” while Mattarella invited Obama to Italy.

After his time in Washington, Mattarella flew to the Big Apple. He warmly proclaimed, “I am also a New Yorker” in English, flanked by NYS Governor Andrew Cuomo, Italian Ambassador Claudio Bisogniero, and the Consul General in New York Natalia Quintavalle: “New York is the anthology of the world, and Italians have made and continue to make a significant contribution to the America’s progress”.

Mattarella offered his thoughts on the mass presence of Italians in the US, a community of about 18 million people of Italian descent of which 3 million are New Yorkers. “You all represent a bridge between the United States and Italy,” he said, “I look at your faces and see the story of courage and success.” He also recollected with pride the Italians who have given fame to New York: from Giovanni da Verrazzano to Renzo Piano who designed the new Whitney Museum.

In his speech Mattarella listed all the Italian-American associations that supported the event—the NIAF, the Conference of Presidents of Major Italian American Organizations, the Columbus Citizen Foundation, the Order of the Son’s if Italy, the American society of the Italian Legions of Merit, the Italy-America Chamber of Commerce, placing a special emphasis on NOIAW, the National Organization of Italian-American Women. He also made a reference to Italy’s “Giorno del Ricordo” (Memorial Day, February 10), addressing “a particular thought to the Istrian, Fiume and Dalmatian immigrants and their families that have found comfort in this country.”

The Italian President spent his last day in New York in a public conversation at Columbia University, talking with Columbia University president Lee C. Bollinger and Alessandra Casella, professor of economics. The meeting was entitled “Leadership in the Age of Change: Managing Current Developments in The Mediterranean and Throughout”.