Showing posts with label Italian American Girl. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Italian American Girl. Show all posts

Saturday, September 2, 2023

Happy Anniversary 15 years of Italian American Girl!


Another year its now 15 years from when I started the Italian American Girl web site.   Facebook was just starting, Twitter just launched and no Instagram then, my site took off so quickly just because of our tight knit Italian American community.  The support I received from my fellow Italian American friends from all over the country and in different parts of the world was amazing.  Till this day, we still have the same connections, its pretty amazing.  Being Italian American is definitely a very unique experience, I had the best of both worlds, growing up Italian American in the USA.   I think in today's climate of heavy immigration discussions, we are experiencing a new wave of immigrants who may or may not come into the country through the proper channels, but its also a severe economic and dangerous climate in the world.  When my father came over from Italy he was the oldest of his family expected to support the family after his father died in World War II, my father's uncle worked to get him to the USA to help him, everyone in Italy was poor, he knew if my father stayed there he would not make it to support an entire family.   My father is in the USA now close to 60 years, came over on a ship the whole nine...  true immigrant experience, yes my father is now almost 90 years old.   

Living in the USA and living the American dream is a challenge, the economic climate for most people is difficult, and if you don't speak the language even harder and you are treated badly, in my opinion.   America is about a dream, its about working hard.  If my father didn't come here and work as hard as he did, I would not have or do any of the things I've experienced or are able to have and enjoy.  I thank my father for everything he's done for me and my entire family.  Thank you for continuing to support my blog, my brand, my experiences; without you and our community we can't thrive.  Grazie a tutti.  xoxo 

~Margaret 

Sunday, August 13, 2023

Summer Italian tomato salad


 First tomato salad from the garden. 🍅 🌿 🍅 I added a chopped zucchini, tomatoes, red onion, basil, olive oil and a pinch of salt. Delicious and healthy.

Thursday, August 10, 2023

A Trip Down Memory Lane - The Italian American Girl Story


A little trip down memory lane and retelling the story of why @italianamericangirl is a brand. I started the Italian American Girl blog back in 2008 when social media just came out and blogging was the trend then along with the new sites Twitter and Youtube. I was searching for a way to stay connected to my first generation Italian American friends and acquaintances so we could share stories of upbringing, family and culture. 

Here we are over 14 years later and now the Italian American community has grown online so much due to platforms like Instagram and Facebook. Also, no one was calling us influencers, myself and few others on here who I am still very close with know who we are and were just being authentic and enjoying the connections. The moral of the story is: it wasn’t about numbers, or influence but about connecting and bringing awareness to our culture, upbringing and values. Leave a ♥️ if you agree.  What's your Italian American story? 

Ciao. Xoxo ~Margaret

Wednesday, August 19, 2020

Interview with On Air Expert & Entrepreneur Dawn Del Russo

NEW! Margaret Fontana Media presents: Interview with Dawn Del Russo; On Air Expert and Entrepreneur



Dawn Del Russo is an author and on-air TV style expert seen on Access Hollywood Live, Meredith Vieira, Extra TV, E News!, Glamour Mag Show Dress To Kill and in print Vogue Italia, InStyle, Cosmo, Real Simple, Life & Style and US Weekly. She is NY’s 95.5 PLJ resident “What to Wear Weather” girl in the mornings.
Dawn is a social media sweetheart and can be found chatting about fashion, beauty, food and lifestyle her Youtube channel,Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook.


Friday, November 1, 2019

Italian Curly Hair - The Process



Many of you sent comments and emails about being of a diverse background and having curly hair, and how to deal with it, so I said I would start sharing more of my insight on this topic.  Managing and styling curly hair is very unique and does require some patience.  I grew up feeling very sad a times because I didn't identify with other girls when I was the only one with curly hair and couldn't really relate to how they blew out their hair straight or wore it a certain cute ways.  Girls can make you feel bad at times.  Looking back as kids we were (are) so fragile and now I think back and say wow, my hair is actually powerful now, so this also something that may be beneficial to children who maybe don't always look like someone or may have different characteristics.  Education and empowerment are key.

 Funny how the world works. So, in order to find myself and get to a point of being happy about my hair I had to learn how to do my hair.  Now, I was lucky because my sister grew up and ended up owning her own salon and becoming one of the best stylists out there.  So, as she got great, she used my hair as her experimental space.  By the time I got to college, I had grown out my hair, I was definitely coloring it and learned that cutting it shorter only made it swell.  The way you see my hair above is basically how I've worn it the last 25 years.  I will share more on how to style and maintain curly hair, I've been talking about doing a video.  Stay tuned. 

Simple Broccoli 🥦 Rabe - Italian American Recipes



  • Sauteed Broccoli Rabe - Olive Oil, Pinch of Salt over pasta.  

Sunday, September 2, 2018

Anniversary Post Part 1- Celebrating Most Popular Italian American Girl Blogs

So, the Italian American Girl blog is coming up on 10 years!! How can that be possible? I remember when everyone was just starting their online presence and the Italian American Girl blog served as my real world example of becoming digital and yet sharing more about myself and my upbringing.   I truly learned how to become the digital media expert through becoming what they now called an influencer.   I'm very proud of the partnerships, content and events I've promoted, or published over the years.  I've met incredible people from our Italian American world and honestly we are all proud Americans celebrating our cultural heritage.  We all have history as immigrants, as our parents and grandparents.  This country was built on the hard work of immigrants from all over the world, that's what makes America great.

To celebrate some of the throwbacks of the Italian American Blog, I'm highlighting the top blog posts of all time.. it's interesting what topics resonate with so many.  Thank you everyone for the support and love over the years.    We'll be posting an anniversary special feature... perhaps even some LIVE guest posts on Instagram, and Facebook.  Stay tuned.

If you have a product, press or content you would like considered to be featured on my site, please send me a pitch at margaret@italianamericangirl.com

Here are the TOP posts of all time on the Italian American Girl site- Enjoy and thank you!

I'm Italian and Yes, I Have Curly Hair.




Italian American Girl Recipe - Eggplant Polpettone - Meatless Version


Monday, June 16, 2014

Guest Speaking at Rider University on Digital Media and the Italian American Girl Site

Monday, September 23, 2013

Italian American Girl Presentation at Rider University - Writing For the Media, Blogging

Sunday, October 21, 2012

Italian American Girl Goes To Rider University - All about Media & Writing


It's been almost 4 years since I launched the Italian American Girl site and since then amazing things have come from this labor of love.  I've been asked to participate in national commercials, been invited to celebrity events, asked to guest write for other amazing influential websites and most importantly guest speak at my Alma mater, Rider University.  Of all the events, this is one of my most favorite things to do.  To share what I know about something I love so much, which is producing, writing, social media and mainstream media.  Not to mention, I love my college and any opportunity to go back and actually teach, a serious dream come true.  I connected with Professor Kathy Magrino (a fellow Italian American Girl ) on social media one day when she posted an interactive question on Twitter for her class at Rider; it caught my attention and I wrote her back saying 'whatever I learned at Rider, has been applied to my real life career in so many ways..tell your students to pay attention..it will all matter once you get  a job in the work force...."  She immediately responded back and so we began an interactive engaged conversation on Twitter where then Kathy invited me to come speak about the Italian American Girl site and my experiences with my career.   The main focus of my talking points are to discuss the real elements that go into producing this site.  Writing is extremely important and you really have to be in the mood to write from experience and make it compelling enough so your readers don't get turned off.   What I think the students were most surprised about is that SPELLING AND GRAMMAR count.  When I went to college ( oh God I sound old) we were just getting savvy with Spell Check, now if you publish something with a mistake, it's really your own fault.. of which I have made plenty of those, but reading your work out loud will always help and re-reading is also important.
At Rider University
The biggest take away to writing is actually writing about what interests you, your passion.  My site, Italian American Girl is my passion, my goals are combined in the production of the entire site - video, writing, photos, social media these are the elements that help create the success of my site. 

Sometimes when you are caught up in your career, the daily grind, and deadlines you sometimes forget the joys of what make you tick and for me it's the success of this site- the media elements.  Being a guest speaker with such bright students who have such huge dreams recharges me and inspires me to want to do more with my own site and including my career. 


An amazing experience, and I always look forward to sharing my knowledge with such wonderful students and a great professor! Thank you Rider University!