We are finally in October, the month of apple picking and pumpkins, of spooks and Halloween. For Italian-Americans, however, it is especially the month dedicated to our heritage and to the contributions the community made to the US throughout its history. Between 1820 and 2000, more than 5 million Italians immigrated to the US, and today, in the 2020s, there are about 17 million Americans of Italian descent, which equals 5.1% of the country’s total population.

17 million, that’s as much as Piedmont, Liguria, Tuscany, Lazio and Umbria put together: if you look at a map, you’ll realize how big this area is for a country the size of Italy. 17 million is over 1/3 of the Belpaese’s total population of 60 million: again, contextualizing numbers helps grasp their full magnitude.