Bostoniano.info Boston's Italian American Voice

After his lifetime partner officially retired, North End barber Gino Colafella talks of his shop and the neighborhood that, over 40 years, has passed in front his eyes and reflected itself in his mirrors. “In a few months I lost both the mayor of Boston and the mayor of Hanover street,” says Gino Colafella, holding a black and white picture from twenty years ago of him and former business partner Johnny (“Shoes” – a nickname earned for being a shoemaker’s son) Cammarata giving a newly elected Thomas Menino his first haircut as a mayor of Boston. He laughs, but for ...

Signorelli is CEO of one of the leading companies in battery development.

In school, it is virtually impossible to capture his undivided attention for more than five minutes. If he isn’t substituting for one of the teachers, he is preparing a musical program, updating a curriculum or offering brief answers to family members or teachers who are lined up outside the little office he carved for himself at the Pirandello Language Center in the St. John School building. It has been like this every Saturday for the last four decades, during which time Tino Valdesolo has directed — hands-on and delegation-free — the longest running private institution for the teaching of Italian ...

“I was fired for love,” recalls musician and teacher Sergio Bellotti from behind the counter of his brand new drum store in Winchester, Mass. It happened in the middle of the ocean, aboard the cruise ship he was playing on, at the hands of the bandleader he was playing for. A native of Bari, the capital of the Apulia region, he was a professional drummer from Italy who had never set foot on American soil. “A telex had come with a message for me, and at a time of no cell phones, when international communication was super expensive, when a ...

Angelo Cattaneo seems to have made all the right choices early in life — or a least the ones he sticks to. His wife of 55 years, Rosita, to start with; his neighborhood, the North End of Boston, where he has been living no-stop since 1962; even the choir he sings in, the one at St. Leonard Church (formerly Sacred Heart, then forced to move after the parishes consolidation in the early 2000s) he joined a couple of months after moving here. “I was walking down Hanover Street [the neighborhood's main thoroughfare] when I heard singing voices coming out of ...

Italians and Americans of Italian heritage changed this country and we keep changing it — mostly — for the better. However, the past and the present for us do not always mix.

Stefano Salimbeni reports from the Boston Wine Expo 2012.

In 2002, Italian American kicker Adam Vinatieri delivered on the final play that would send the New England Patriots into history.

St. John School in the North End celebrated this past Christmas with mass in Italian, followed by a party based on panettone and other typical Italian foods.

Italian researcher Leonardo Bonanni has come up with SourceMap, a mapping system that can track production sources and the total carbon footprint of any product.

A report for RAI International's "Italia Chiama Italia" highlighting the arrival in Boston of a delegation from the southern Italian region of Sicily.

Lute makers from Cremona visit Boston, where violinmaker Marco Coppiardi has been living and working for the past 20 years.