Dreamers! In 1905 Doctor Vincenzo Sellaro said this: “Today I have a dream, and a hope that someday, even if it takes one hundred more years before we are fully accepted, our children and their children’s children, even if they carry a single drop of Italian blood, will be able and proud to continue to carry on our traditions, our culture and our language. It is up to us and what we do today.”

Dr. Vincenzo Selllaro (1868-1932) was the Founder of the Sons & Daughters of Italy in America. His mutual aid organization was based in the immigrant community of Historic Little Italy in Manhattan. Don’t believe what you may hear or see in the movies, Immigrant Italians were not predominantly, not at all, bandits, brutes, bimbos, bigots or buffoons.

A dreamer Dr. Sellaro was born in Polizzi Generosa, Sicily and received his medical degree in 1895 from the University of Naples. He emigrated to America in 1897 and became a