Stracciatella: A Sprinkling of This & That

A statue of explorer Christopher Columbus after its beheading by an unknown vandal. (Photo by Sarah Betancourt) This article was originally published by CommonWealth Magazine on June 25, 2020. The modern-day holiday has an inglorious history. by Patrick Breen AS STATUES OF Christopher Columbus are toppled (or beheaded), from St. Paul to Richmond to Boston, Americans are beginning to question the motive for raising certain historical actors to mythical status. Though almost every American will recognize Columbus’s name, the origins of the calendar-recognized October holiday remain insidiously unfamiliar to most people. While most arguments in favor of ending the tributes to Columbus focus on the history of the carnage he directed at indigenous people on the Caribbean islands...

Protest in memory of Mohamed Ben Ali in Naples. Photograph: Pasquale Senatore/Pacific Press/Rex/Shutterstock By Lorenzo Tondo and Marta Bellingreri This article was originally published by The Guardian on July 13, 2020. Earlier this summer, as millions of Italians were locked down inside their homes, fruit and vegetables were left to rot in the fields despite the cost to the country’s economy. Italy’s informal refugee and migrant workforce, who had previously worked long hours in wretched conditions for paltry wages to bring produce off the fields, were absent from the farms. ‘A beautiful thing’: the African migrants getting healthy food to Italians “Most of the migrants work without proper papers,’’ says Tonino Russo, regional secretary in Sicily of the Flai CGIL, I...

Stracciatella: A Sprinkling of This & That

The Fascist Roots of Columbus Day

Brutal Deaths of Exploited Migrants Shine a Spotlight on Italy’s Farms