“Columbus wasn’t Italian”

My dad and I joke around during my birthday celebration, circa 1976.

I never had a strong attachment to Columbus Day as a holiday for and celebrated by Italian Americans because of my father, the person who gave me the Italian heritage.

Born in Chicago in February 1917 to Maria and Galileo, my dad grew up, speaking all Italian in his first four years, in an ethnically diverse neighborhood with Jewish, Slovakian, Welsh and other European immigrant families. His favorite toast was “Ala…