Editorial
THIS IS WHAT WE ARE GOING TO DO
by Stefano Vaccara
WHAT you are seeing here is an idea whose time has come! Your weekly review of America & Italia.
A&I Review is a work in progress. It’s a national news magazine that has a simple goal: to deliver four times each month insight into political, economic and cultural affairs to people with a special interest in those two nations.There are already good, well designed magazines about Italy circulating in America. A&IR is something else: A news magazine that, as soon as you have finished reading, will present you with the next issue. A&IR is not intended to be a slick coffee table magazine. It is intended to be in the hands of those in the United States and in Italy who have a special interest in the interconnections of the people of those two countries.
A&IR has ambitious goals. It strives to become an authoritative and credible Italian and Italian American voice in America independent of conservative or liberal labels. A&IR will have its opinions and will take positions, but they will be determined by the issues of the day.We are not going to give you “the latest news”; but news about America & Italia that national papers and TV won’t always report. We are going to explore your interests. Our interests!
The focus will be on Italy and Italian issues in America with an emphasis on politics and business. Our goal is to present an Italian and Italian American perspective on US affairs, especially when those are affecting Italy or Italians in America.
A&IR will look at Italy today. We will look at what Italy is and not what we remember it to be, nor what we wish it to be now. We are going to objectively praise or criticize a successful country that is in fact the sixth (unofficially 5th) economic power yet, for example, has the lowest birth rate in the world.
To understand Italy, you have to understand how the Italian public thinks. A&IR will provide readers with the Italian media’s opinion on major news events. We will have editorial and analytical articles directly translated from leading Italian newspapers and magazines. Each week we’ll present the Italian media’s contrasting points of view on an issue (i.e. pro-government, pro-opposition, conservative, progressive, leftist, catholic).
This magazine was born in New York, a City and State with a very large community of people within our target readership. But A&IR knows that its readership, as well as its subjects, are not local but national. A&IR will provide national coverage of major Italian cultural events in America. With a network of collaborators from the East to the West Coast,,from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, A&IR will be able to inform the readers about major Italian events and/or those that feature Italian or Italian American personalities.
A&IR will inform you about what’s going on in Italian culture in America. There are Italian State Cultural Institutes in New York as well as in other major US Cities. Some work very well, some less, but we will cover what deserves to be covered. The “Case Italiane”, Academies and Institutes of Italian and Italian American studies within all the major universities show Italian culture in action. We are going to be there to report on art exhibitions, film series, theatre, concerts, lectures, and book presentations. Of course we will also report on Italian cultural events being organized by major national museums and theatres. Italian culture in action is a way of life.
Beauty, style, food, and wine can come together to create in America “la dolce vita”. But what about Italy? We will also explore how this way of life is evolving in Italy today.
We hope you’ll participate weekly in A&IR with your opinions, your criticisms and, your advice. You can reach us on the Web (www.americaitaliareview.com). There you will find a form reproduced below. On the Internet or here, use this form to reach us and let us know what you think of A&IR and if you’d like to be part of it. We’ll be back with America Oggi very soon and we hope that the thousands of readers of that great paper, the only Italian language daily in the US, will pass on the word about A&IR to relatives, friends and colleagues who share their interest in Italy, but don’t read Italian. We are getting ready to satisfy them.

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