Local San Pedrans got together to celebrate everything and everyone Italian at Festa Italiana this past Saturday on Oct. 2. The free, outdoor street fair provided space for local vendors selling Italian treats, beer and wine, as well as live performances.
Officially, the festival is celebrating the start of Italian-American Heritage and Culture Month, which was first celebrated in 1989. The heritage month is in October to coincide with Columbus Day, the American national holiday traditionally celebrated on October 12, now celebrated on the second Monday in October.
From the designation of Peppertree Plaza in San Pedro as Little Italy to Festa Italiana has been councilman Joe Buscaino’s passion project over his last term in office.
As in many major cities across the United States, Italian immigrants played an integral role in shaping Los Angeles. Italian immigrants started arriving in Los Angeles in the early 19th century, spreading their influence on neighborhoods in the form of restaurants, storefronts and the waterfront.
Los Angeles is home to the fifth-largest Italian American population. For more than a century, Los Angeles Little Italy was in downtown Los Angeles going back to when Los Angeles was still a Mexican pueblo. By the turn of the 20th century, L.A.’s Little Italy had expanded into present-day Chinatown, Lincoln Heights, Elysian Park and San Pedro. By the 1970s, the Little Italy neighborhood in downtown Los Angeles declined and Italian Angelenos aged and influxes of non-Mediterranean residents moved in.
This coastal community located on the southern end of the Palos Verdes Peninsula has one of the biggest Italian American communities in the country. At the beginning of the 20th century, about 10 percent of the region’s Italian population were attracted by Southern California’s fishing industry. Many immigrants came from Genoa and the islands of Sicily and Ischia. In 2006, the City of Los Angeles became sister cities with Ischia.