Editor’s note: This article contains strong language that may not be suitable for younger or more sensitive readers.
By Nathan Worcester
Italian, American, and Italian-American pride were on full display at Arrigo Park on July 25. Exactly one year after the City removed a statue of Christopher Columbus from that park, and exactly two weeks after Italy’s victory over England in the Eurocup Soccer Championship, the Joint Civic Committee of Italian Americans (JCCIA) organized an Italian Unity Day that attracted hundreds of supporters, many bussed in from Chicago’s western suburbs. On the outskirts of the rally, protesters and counter-protesters lobbed insults across a shifting line of Chicago Police Department officers.
The rally came just days after the JCCIA announced it is filing a complaint in the Chancery Division of the Circuit Court of Cook County against the Chicago Park District in an effort to restore the Columbus statue to its place in Arrigo Park.
The group also is opposed to the City having removed Columbus statues from Grant Park and from the South Chicago neighborhood.
On stage, JCCIA President Ron Onesti opened the event with a prayer. He pointed out that his community’s ancestors immigrated to Chicago from all over the Italian peninsula.
“They were spat on, and yet they endured,” Onesti said.
Nearby, at the JCCIA’s booth, a man who would not provide his name spoke to the feelings of betrayal among attendees.
‘Disappointment and insult’
“We really wanted to help consolidate the feelings of disappointment and even insult” about the removal of the Columbus statues, he said. Those statues, he said, “came to represent our grandparents’ and great-grandparents’ blood, sweat, and tears.”
He went on to say that the statues were removed without any due process. “We want our heritage to be ours, not what other people want it to be,” he added.
Near the JCCIA’s booth, stands sold Italian ice and Italian-themed merchandise.
As the event continued, other voices echoed from the main stage. In a message sent across the Atlantic, Carlo Fidanza, a member of the European Parliament from North-West Italy, testified to the need for unity between Italians and Italian Americans.
“For us, it is not a mere question of rhetoric,” he said.
John Catanzara Jr., president of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge #7, accepted a commendation from the JCCIA on behalf of 51 CPD officers who had defended the Columbus statue in Grant Park. He said that if a crowd as large as the one at Italian Unity Day had turned out to defend the statues last year, they would never have been taken down.
“Let that be a lesson for all of us: when these kinds of things happen, we need to drop everything you’re doing, stand up for what you believe in, and be heard, not like the knuckleheads outside this park,” he said.
“Thank a cop when you see him,” said Catanzara. “It sounds trivial, but it goes a long way—just a simple ‘thank you.’”
“We’re talking about those statues came down for public safety concerns,” he continued. “I can tell you the men and women of the Chicago Police Department will defend that statue every day, as many days as it would take when it goes back up, because we are not going to be subjected to this cancel culture one more damn day.”
He suggested Chicago might learn a lesson from “another upside-down major city,” New York City, which is on track to elect a retired police officer, Eric Adams, as mayor. “Maybe that’s what it’s going to take in 2023,” said Catanzara. to cheers from the crowd. At least one attendee of the rally was wearing a “Catanzara for Mayor” t-shirt.
Other slogans on flags, t-shirts, and signs included “Police Lives Matter” and “Cancel Columbus, You Cancel Our Heritage.” One man wore an Israeli flag over his back while holding up a “Blue Lives Matter” flag.
Peter Wickman stood quietly by himself on the fringes of the crowd. He said he was there to show respect—“And support the police,” he added. He explained that he is a member of the Knights of Columbus within his church.
“History is history,” said Wickman. “You can’t rewrite our past. You have to tell it the way it happened.”
As Wickman spoke, a confrontation heated up on the southern edge of Arrigo Park. A group of protesters, including at least one man with a “Proud Boys” tattoo, had massed near the wrought-iron fence on the edge of the park. On the other side of the fence, occupying the middle of South Ada Street, a dozen or so protesters were yelling and holding up signs reading, “Bella Ciao Means Fascists Out!” A group of police officers stood between the two groups.
On the Arrigo Park side, a man in a “1776” shirt bellowed across the fence: “F*cking nerds!”
Protesters soon struck up a chant: “F*ck Antifa! F*ck Antifa!”
None of the protesters would speak to Gazette Chicago. They soon marched off, moving south along Ada towards Taylor Street.
A man named Collin who would not provide his last name, who had joined the chant of “F*ck Antifa” from a few feet away, described his own perspective as an Italian American who owns a house near Arrigo Park
“My family has lived here for over a hundred years,” he said. Columbus, he said, is “a symbol for Italian people.”
Back on stage, Onesti concluded the event by announcing plans to hold a Columbus Day parade on Columbus Drive. He finished a remark with a chant about the disputed statues: “Bring them back! Bring them back! Bring them back!”
On the sidewalk along South Loomis Street, across from the former site of the Columbus statue, a confrontation between protesters and counter-protesters had reignited. Behind a wall of police, the dozen or so protesters shouted anti-police slogans. They also ethnically baited the Italian-American attendees (“Eh, oh, I’m defending a colonizer!”) Nearby, a group of counter-protesters shouted their own insults and slogans.
Balancing a plate of fried dough in one hand while waving Italian and American flags with the other, an older woman voiced her opinion of the protesters: “Up yours, that’s what I say to you!”
Onesti said the rumor that the JCCIA contacted the Proud Boys to serve as security is “absolutely false,” noting that the JCCIA relied on SOS Security, a licensed private security contractor, and also held an “extensive amount of meetings with the Chicago Police,” who also were on hand. He noted that a verbal clash among attendees far from the stage “just seemed like a bunch of agitators.”
On Twitter, Gabriel Piemonte noted, “As the founder of the Italian American Heritage Society of Chicago, I have an acute allergy to racist Italians. When we learned that the right-wing West Suburban MAGA-talians were going to descend on Arrigo Park again…I wanted to respond.”
Onesti countered by calling Piemonte “a failed aldermanic candidate who is just trying to stir things up” and that the JCCIA is much older, and represents more of the Italian-American community in Chicagoland, than the Heritage Society.
For more on the JCCIA, log on to www.jccia.com or call (708) 450-9050.