It was a sunny afternoon in downtown Los Angeles, and my mother, sister, niece, husband, and I stumbled on a building called the Italian Hall. There, we saw a sign for the Italian American Museum of Los Angeles (IAMLA). As we are all Italian Americans, we found this fortuitous. So, we popped in and toured the museum's collection, an eclectic mix of fun facts and fascinating exhibits connected to Italian heritage.
As a Los Angeles transplant from Milwaukee, I don't often encounter such connections. Sure, there are some fabulous Italian restaurants, and Venice has canals. But I rarely have the opportunity to celebrate my Italian roots in the City of Angels.
Thanks to places like the IAMLA, I now know that Los Angeles is home to the fifth-largest Italian American population in the United States.
Awareness of such lesser-known facts and her interest in her own Italian-American identity led the IAMLA Executive Director and historian Marianna Gatto to co-found the museum, which opened its doors in 2016.
"When I started working on this project twenty years ago, people would say things like, 'There are Italians in Los Angeles? Los Angeles had a Little Italy?'" Marianna says. "Now, I hear people saying, 'Italians helped shape Los Angeles.'"
Marianna, author of the recently published The Italian Americans of Los Angeles: A History, shared with me what inspired the founding of the IAMLA, her approach to curation and research, challenges she's faced, where she sees the museum headed, and advice for those who wish to pursue a museum career.
What is your connection to Sicily?
My Sicilian family came to the United States in 1897. They were from Lucca Sicula in the Province of Agrigento. Like many Sicilians, they came following Italy's unification as the economic situation in the Mezzogiorno (Italy's south) worsened. Following the American Civil War, there was a labor shortage in the southern United States, and Sicilians were recruited to work in the fields and fisheries. My great-grandfather, his son, and scores of others from Lucca Sicula were among them.
What inspired you to co-found the IAMLA?
There were two key events that served as a catalyst for my work with the museum. My earliest inspiration can be traced to my childhood. From a very young age, I was aware that I was Italian American, but growing up in an exceptionally diverse part of Los Angeles where Italian Americans were a small minority, I had to search far and wide for a mirror. The opportunities to explore my italianità were few. I began to question, what is my place in Los Angeles and what is my place among Italian Americans? Do I have one?
To answer that question, I began devouring any book I could find on Italian American history. There were none about Italians in Los Angeles. I remember going through the indexes of volumes on Italian American history in search of 'Los Angeles' and in books about Los Angeles in search of 'Italians.' I sought answers from my father, but the information he shared often left me with more questions. Unlike most of the Italian Americans I read about, our family did not enter the U.S. through Ellis Island. My Sicilian side came through New Orleans and worked as agricultural laborers before continuing west to Colorado. At my grandmother's urging, they moved to Los Angeles, which was then still a suburban Eden, in 1948. I was thoroughly confused. What kind of Italians were we?
When I was an undergraduate in college I learned about the Italian Hall, a building on the edge of downtown Los Angeles that had been constructed in 1908 and had served as a gathering place for Italian Americans during the first half of the twentieth century. I was floored. Italian Hall demonstrated that Los Angeles did indeed have an Italian American history with roots that stretched deep into its soil. A group known as the Historic Italian Hall Foundation was raising funds to rehabilitate the building, portions of which had languished after being vacant for decades, with the goal of resurrecting it as an Italian American community center. When I visited the building for the first time, my heart skipped a beat. I said aloud to the building's ghosts, to the pigeons nesting in the rafters, "This needs to be a museum, and I want to be the director." Well, years would pass before that dream materialized, but it did.
So, you could say that my second inspiration was the building itself, Italian Hall, and the history it speaks to, that of the two-hundred-year history of Italian Americans in Southern California. The building was my muse, the impetus for my research. After visiting it that day, I set out to discover and document the Italian Americans of Los Angeles, a group whose influence and contributions are felt throughout the region yet, until recently, received little recognition. The idea that a community so integral to the Los Angeles metropolis could be forgotten absolutely baffled me.
What are some highlights from your involvement with the museum?
Next year marks my twentieth working on the museum project, and there have been many high points, low points, and in-between points. Opening our doors was a huge milestone. Witnessing how our work has brought people together and enriched so many lives has been really rewarding, as has meeting some truly special people. Last year, the IAMLA won a prestigious award for Woven Lives, one of the temporary exhibitions I wrote and curated that explores the experiences of Italian American women told through needlework. This exhibition is slated to travel to the East Coast.
The IAMLA has also dramatically expanded its free public programming, and seeing how the arts and educational experiences we offer enrich resource-starved communities is also incredibly rewarding. Many of our youth visitors have never been to a museum or attended a live theatrical performance before. There have been other times when we have rejoiced after receiving an important grant or donation.
How do you approach curating exhibitions representing the Italian American experience in Los Angeles and the West?
Our visitors are incredibly diverse; over 80 percent are not of Italian extraction. Our goal is to make history engaging, relatable, and relevant to all who step through our doors or access content online. We are cognizant of how we present information in order to appeal to different learning styles, educational levels, and age groups, and heavily utilize technology, interactive experiences, and storytelling. On any given day, you will see K-12 field trips, families, and senior and special needs groups visiting, and we want all of them to walk away having learned something. We emphasize universal themes, attempt to make connections with current events, and encourage visitors to draw upon their personal experiences.
We follow the same approach with our temporary exhibitions. The IAMLA presents two new and original temporary exhibitions each year. They cover a variety of topics, from Italian American inventors to Pinocchio as a cultural icon. Each exhibition is accompanied by a variety of free educational programming, and it's through these events that we create a dynamic space that keeps people coming back.
You recently published The Italian Americans of Los Angeles: A History. Tell us about the research that went into that book.
The research for the book brought me to archives and to cemeteries, to people's homes and businesses; I poured over volumes of documents, scrutinized endnotes, and hunted down unpublished manuscripts. The book is a survey of Italian Americans in Greater Los Angeles from the time of the first Italian settler's arrival in 1827, before there was an Italy and before California was a state.
This is the first comprehensive auto-history of Italian Americans in the City of Angels. It looks at subjects ranging from Italian pioneers and foodways to faith, entertainment history, anti-Italianism, and the arts. It includes many rare images, and like the museum's exhibitions, it is designed to be accessible and relatable, whether or not you are of Italian extraction or hail from Southern California.
What challenges have you faced in preserving and promoting Italian American history, and how have you overcome them?
In the early days of the museum project, there was a crisis in awareness. Italian American history is often conceived as primarily an East Coast phenomenon, and numerically speaking, the majority of Italians did indeed settle in New York and Northeastern and Midwestern urban areas, but there are a number of other Italian American communities that are also worth studying and understanding. Los Angeles has an Italian American history that dates back nearly two centuries, but it has seldom been examined by Los Angeles historians or Italian American historians.
Many Italian Americans were struggling to achieve upward mobility during a time when the emphasis in America was on consensus and assimilation. The decades during which laws passed to prohibit Italians from coming to the United States and when Italians were portrayed as radicals and anarchists were followed by World War II years when the United States was at war with Italy. Italian Americans—Italo Angelenos—stopped speaking Italian and deemphasized their Italian-ness. The older generation was often reluctant to speak about their experiences, and if history and culture are not transmitted, what happens? It is often lost. My work as a historian has centered around unearthing this history.
There have been a number of challenges over the past two decades, but we have kept going. Perseverance has been an essential part of overcoming.
How do you see the museum evolving, and what projects or exhibitions are you most excited about?
In the years that follow, I see the IAMLA continuing to expand in our physical location and our reach. Long before the pandemic, before virtual offerings became more commonplace, we presented considerable content online. We are also collaborating with other institutions to bring exhibitions and programs to various parts of the country. I see the IAMLA expanding its direct services to the public. Many of the people who visit the IAMLA come from resource-starved communities. Admission to the museum is free, and the overwhelming majority of museum programs—concerts, workshops, and other events—are also free. Serving as a resource for communities that often lack access to arts and cultural experiences gives me tremendous pride. The IAMLA is a museum and it is also a vehicle for bringing together communities and helping narrow the opportunity gap.
On the heels of the IAMLA's very successful exhibition about Italian American jazzman Louis Prima, we will be opening a new and original exhibition on Italian American inventors and innovators that I'm particularly excited about. The exhibition examines the work of nearly one hundred inventors, from Enrico Fermi's work on the nuclear reactor and Robert Gallo, who discovered HIV as the cause of AIDS, to Teressa Bellissimo, who created the Buffalo chicken wing and Bernard Castro, who devised the convertible sofa. We will be presenting some great programming in conjunction with the exhibition.
What advice would you give someone pursuing a career like yours?
Prepare yourself for a lot of ups and downs, and try not to get discouraged during the downs. It's all part of the process. Strive to be a lifelong learner. The world changes more quickly than ever, it seems, and adaptability is key.
What do you hope people will take away from a visit to the museum?
In recent years, some of our leaders have determined that history—as well as the arts and other subjects—are "non-essential." The results are frightening. I hope people will take with them a greater understanding of the many people that make up the American mosaic and that these little blocks of knowledge will foster the development of a more informed and compassionate nation.
If you enjoyed this article, consider subscribing to my newsletter for more content and updates!
