Columbus; Statue of Liberty; Southern Italy and American assimilation from 1900–27.

They also also saluted Columbus at that time based in part to the popular Columbus World’s Fair exhibitions which marked their identity as Americans in a foreign land. The Statue of Liberty greeted these refugees in New York Harbor and at Ellis Island from their impoverished life in Southern Italy. Caruso and Verdi’s music still shine as legends in Italian culture and every opera house in the world.
The Newark Sunday Call published a striking photo of my Caruso Family in 1925. The Irish journalist referred to them as a “clan” which is an endearing Irish expression foreign to gli Italiani (the Italians). As an Irish-Italian and now a bridge between both cultures. When asked if I was“Irish” at LaScala, and later when directing Tom Murphy’s Irish play The Gigli Concert in Italian in Rome.
As an Irish-Italian I am a bridge between both cultures especially when asked if I was “Irish” at LaScala. Later in my European debut when I directed Tom Murphy’s Irish play The Gigli Concert in Italian in Rome.

As a child I remembered a few Italian expressions but nothing else.
Frustrated, after my Master’s Degree at The American University in Washington, DC, I started taking Italian language classes in Bloomfield and Belleville Adult Schools before my season at LaScala and began the rediscovery of my complicated Irish-Italian roots here and in Italy ever since.