SAPLING Sunday mornings, Mom attends mass at St. Ambrose Church while Dad takes me to High Park where I play in the garden of God’s splendour. The crisp air is salty with a cooling breeze from the lake. The earth beneath our feet emanates summer’s stored heat. I feed the geese and mallards at Grenadier Pond mouldy Italian bread, line up for my turn on the slide, and swing high to fly away like a sparrow – aiming for the moon that one time it hung in the fading turquoise…
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Dominion is a small town of approximately 2,000 people in Cape Breton Island. It overlooks the Atlantic Ocean and is only a fifteen-minute drive from Sydney. The first time I visited the town was in January 2009. It was a dark evening, and snow banks lined both sides of the road. From the car window, there wasn’t much to see. My friends John and Connie deRoche, who were studying at Cape Breton University at the time, invited me to attend their Wednesday night Italian class with them. When we arrived at…
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Italian Canadian “Enemy Aliens” – Coming to Terms with Canada’s Wartime Legacy
This past April, the House of Commons passed Bill C-302, the “Italian-Canadian Recognition and Restitution Act,” a private member’s bill tabled by Saint-Leonard/Saint-Michel Member of Parliament Massimo Pacetti, asking the Canadian government to apologize to the Italian Canadian community for its wartime arrest and internment of innocent Italian Canadian civilians. The bill, supported by all opposition parties but opposed by the Conservative government, awaits passage in the Senate before it can receive Royal Assent and become law. Should the bill pass the Senate, it would mark a milestone, and for many…
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Compiled after decades of research by Marino Toppan, Land of Triumph and Tragedy: Voices of the Italian Fallen Workers is…
Although it was a long time ago, the memories I have are still vivid – walking as a boy at…
Toronto, May 4, 2019 – The winners of the 2019 Accenti Writing and Photo contests were announced at the Accenti…
On hot summer afternoons I love to wander the winding cobblestone streets and narrow alleys of the medieval hilltop village…
“Since the house is on fire, let us warm ourselves.” (Italian proverb) Monday, 9 a.m. Not writing. Dim, dreary…
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