At the time, I could not have imagined where this journey would take me. I simply knew that our family stories, traditions and values deserved a place to live. I wanted to write about the experiences that shaped me the food, language, music and celebrations, but also the sacrifice, resilience and determination behind the Italian American experience.
My identity has always been deeply connected to my father’s story. He left Calabria more than 55 years ago with faith in the American dream and a determination to build a better life for his family. Both my parents eventually emigrated to America. He worked hard, rarely complained and carried his heritage with quiet pride. His example taught me that being Italian American is about much more than where our families came from. It is about how we live, how we treat people, how we honor our responsibilities and how we preserve what previous generations worked so hard to give us.
When I launched Italian American Girl in 2008, blogging and social media looked very different. There were fewer digital spaces dedicated to thoughtful conversations about Italian American identity especially from the perspective of women and first-generation Americans. What began as a personal blog gradually became a community.
Over the years, I have had the privilege of interviewing remarkable Italian Americans, highlighting cultural organizations, sharing family traditions and connecting with people who saw their own experiences reflected in mine. Although our families may have come from different regions of Italy and settled in different parts of the United States, so many of our stories share the same themes: courage, sacrifice, faith, family, perseverance and pride.
Through this platform, I also began to understand that preserving our heritage requires more than remembering the past. We must actively tell our stories, document our experiences and ensure that future generations understand the contributions Italians and Italian Americans have made to our country.
That realization has shaped every part of my professional and personal journey.
Today, as Executive Director of the New Jersey Italian Heritage Commission, I have the opportunity to advance this work on a statewide level. The Commission’s mission is to preserve and promote an accurate, inclusive and non-stereotyped understanding of Italian and Italian American history, heritage and achievement.
At the heart of this work is education.
Through NJIHC’s comprehensive K–12 curriculum, professional-development programs for educators, annual educational congress and statewide partnerships, we are working to ensure that Italian and Italian American history is included in the broader American story.
Our curriculum explores subjects such as the Roman foundations of American government, Italians and the Holocaust, Italian and Italian American women, immigration, discrimination, World War II detention and the many Italian contributions to science, government, education, the arts and civic life.
These stories belong in our classrooms because Italian American history is American history.
For generations, many Italian American families concentrated on assimilating and building better lives. Our parents and grandparents often believed that success meant speaking English, working hard and becoming fully American. Their sacrifices created opportunities for us, but some traditions, dialects and personal histories were lost along the way.
We now have a responsibility to recover and preserve what remains.
This work has become especially meaningful to me as I have spent more time reconnecting with Calabria and the places connected to my family. Walking through the communities where our stories began reminds me that heritage is not an abstract idea. It lives in people, homes, photographs, recipes, landscapes and memories. It also lives in the values we carry forward, sometimes without even realizing where they originated.
At 18 years, Italian American Girl has grown up alongside me.
It began as a way to understand my own identity. It evolved into a platform for community and storytelling. Today, it is connected to a much larger mission involving education, advocacy, media and cultural preservation.
The next chapter will continue to honor our traditions, but it will also look toward the future. I want to create more opportunities for Italian Americans to tell their stories, explore the complexity of our identity and connect our heritage to the issues and experiences shaping our lives today.
I also want to encourage younger Italian Americans to ask questions while their parents and grandparents are still here to answer them.
Where did our family come from? Why did they leave? What did they experience when they arrived? What did they sacrifice? What traditions did they preserve? What parts of their story have never been written down?
Record the conversations. Label the photographs. Preserve the recipes. Visit the towns. Learn the language. Share the stories.
Our heritage cannot survive through nostalgia alone. It survives when we give it purpose and pass it forward.
As I celebrate the 18th anniversary of Italian American Girl, I feel tremendous gratitude for everyone who has read an article, shared a family memory, participated in an interview or supported this platform over the years. You helped transform a personal blog into a meaningful community and, ultimately, an important part of my life’s work.
Eighteen years later, I remain as proud as ever to be an Italian American girl.
But today, those words represent more than my identity. They represent a promise—to honor where we came from, to tell our stories with accuracy and dignity, and to ensure that our heritage continues to educate and inspire the generations that follow.
The story continues.
Your Forever Italian American Girl
~Margaret
