Italian Enclaves Historical Society – October Newsletter Update
October 1st, 2024
Dear Valued Members and prospective members,
Welcome to October, which is designated as Italian Heritage Month.
We know it has been some time since you have heard from us. We are excited to share some incredible strides since the beginning of 2023 (almost 2 years) to fully inform you of our wide-reaching progress, much of which has been within the last few months.
Firstly, we want you to know that we are a volunteer organization. The Italian Enclaves Historical Society has relied upon the generosity of our student, individual and business membership revenue via subscriptions, to pay for our projects, general expenses, and necessary regulatory compliance, and tax filings. None of our board members are compensated so that means that our efforts are made outside of our normal business hours, on our spare time. We are grateful for your membership and support, and we ask that you please share our story and success with your friends and family so that we can sustain our work and continue to deliver our mission, which is to document every Italian enclave and Italian church in North America. Our hope is to be able to not only maintain this archive’s availability to the viewer public but also to ensure that it exists for private and public academic institutions to draw upon for years to come. We intend to continue to move the information that we have (and continue to accumulate) in our shared Google drive onto the website for public (non-commercial) use. This is no easy task, and we thank all of you who made this possible!
Our dedication to preserving and highlighting the Italian enclaves of North America continues, and with your support, here’s what we’ve been up to:
Exploring New Enclaves
In Michigan, board member, Dominic Brusca, has visited and photographed numerous enclaves across the Midwest, particularly on trips to Cleveland’s Murray Hill and the nearby Italian Cultural Garden, Detroit’s Eastern Market and its many Italian-American produce companies, as well as other trips to The Hill in St. Louis and Taylor Street in Chicago. His most recent visit was to the Bay View enclave in Milwaukee this past spring, photographing the remaining businesses in the neighborhood, which have served the residents since 1913.
Our President, Raymond Guarini, has added to his previous travels with a visit to Salt Lake City, Utah last summer to unveil the Italian American communities in Utah. Additionally, Ray has visited and documented several Italian enclaves in North-Eastern Pennsylvania as well as Philadelphia, in addition to central and northern New Jersey. Ray has also documented numerous Saint Processions and feasts including San Ubaldo in Jessup, PA , San Cesare in Netcong NJ, Saint Joseph in Lodi, NJ, SS Crucifisso in Brooklyn, San Pio in 2 Staten Island locations, San Gennaro NYC, San Rocco NYC, Santa Maria Addolorata in Bensonhurst Brooklyn, and more. Ray has continued conducting interviews of numerous Italian Americans running the gamut of business owners, society organizers, and priests. Ray continues to grow the social media presence for the historical society and has driven paid subscriber membership to over 100 members at our highest point since early 2023.
Board member, Steven Cerulli has been hard at work exploring lesser-known enclaves across the United States such as Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas, Nebraska, and Kansas, isolating and documenting more of these fascinating and sometimes ambiguous communities. Steve has discovered lesser-known Italian communities and their churches as well as Italian American cemeteries. Steve has also helped drive membership to the society and was responsible for enlisting a freelancer who dramatically helped develop our archive’s database with corresponding information pertaining to the enclaves that we have isolated.
General Development
We have expanded our internal (non-published database) and continue to matriculate that data onto our public database. Thanks to tireless efforts, our database now includes over 740 Italian enclaves in the U.S. and more than 100 enclaves in Canada. This growth is a testament to our commitment to showcasing the breadth of the Italian-American and Italian-Canadian presence throughout North America.
We hired a freelancer to assist in writing short information “blurbs” for over 250 enclaves in our database adding to about 250 which have already been completed; we will finish the remaining body of this work soon. This initiative will help enrich our database and provide valuable insights for each enclave.
Blog Posts
We will resume blog posting and have established an agreement with Italian America to cross publish our blog posts to their quarterly publication, which we have contributed to over the last two years.
Financial Picture
As any subscription-based entity, we have seen attrition. Nevertheless, we are still able to function on a positive cashflow basis. We are currently adding new information to our website, which is going to remain a short-term and long-term capital expenditure. In conjunction with the research freelancer, we also pay a web developer to update the page with the information in the respective databases (enclaves and churches).
We carry annual costs to operate as a nonprofit in addition to associated costs and expenses to keep our website and email domains active.
In the fourth quarter of 2024, we hope to use some of our funds for an aesthetic facelift to our website and rearrange access to our database, so everything is more intuitive and easier to navigate.
Churches Documented
We have reached a significant milestone in documenting Italian churches. Our records include over 500 Italian churches in the U.S. and more than 100 in Canada. These churches remain cornerstones of their communities, and we are thrilled to highlight their enduring cultural significance. We have information regarding many demolished and defrocked churches throughout the country, and that is increasingly rare and virtually non-existent elsewhere beyond our archival database.
Archival Publications Project
In our ongoing archival efforts, we have copied thousands of pages from over 50 publications, which are being transformed into .pdf documents. Ray’s son led the charge with volunteering hours of time over the last six months to complete the scanning of over 30 of these books with critical information about enclaves and their churches. These materials will soon be available. We have also incorporated the acquisition of rare publications and ephemera that are scanned and will soon be accessible as an online archival page within our website. These pieces have been usually donated to or acquired by the society, and in the future will be donated to places that can showcase them accordingly (museums, etc.)
Social Media
We have separated the Italian Enclaves social media pages from the Italian Enclaves Historical Society social media pages. This change allows all board members to easily contribute reels, posts, and other content, ensuring more dynamic and diverse engagement across our platforms.
In a major development, the @Italianenclaves social media pages on Instagram and Facebook have started generating revenue from Meta. Ray manages these pages and technically they are separate assets under his Italian Enclaves brand, but he nonetheless donates all proceeds from this monetization to flow directly into the Historical Society by linking the Meta payments into the Italian Enclaves Historical Society bank account to support our mission and ongoing projects.
Please follow:
@italianenclaves
@italianenclaveshistorical
Both accounts are on Instagram and Facebook.
More from our Board
In Denver, CO, Jenna worked to bring back the 130th Feast of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel to its former glory with Mass in Italian, a torsello, Italian feast music, and record attendance at the procession. She continues to manage “Little Italy of Denver” on social media, write for Colorado’s local Italian newspaper (Andiamo!), and leads Filitalia International’s Denver chapter.
Dominique, the Board Secretary, is the founder of Italo Archive. For “Italian American Heritage Month” in October, it will launch its “Cugini Connector” project. This is a database of submitted surnames, towns, and genealogical info. There will also be a series focusing on Italian and Italian Americans who helped shaped history.
Beyond founding Italo Archive, she founded the Italian American Disability Alliance. Throughout October, it will educate on influential Italian and Italian Americans with disabilities. She welcomes all disabled Italians to submit their contributions and celebrate the achievements of the Italian disability community during this month.
Thank you for your continued support in preserving and celebrating the history of Italian communities throughout North America. We look forward to sharing more exciting updates soon! Warm regards.
Raymond Guarini
President
The Italian Enclaves Historical Society
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