Una Comunità che Accoglie! A community that welcomes!
I believe in the telling the stories of Italian and Italo-American history with accessibility, dignity, and authenticity. Through this work, you can follow along with interviews, genealogy work, and the stories of Italians and Italo-Americans. To learn more about the mission of Italo Archive, you can click visit the Mission section of the website.
Ciao! Mi chiamo Dominique!
Founder | Creator
I’m a disabled Italian American woman with a passion advocacy, Italian history, Southern Italian folk life, and accessible preservation— especially genealogy.
Archive and preservation work is storytelling to me. It is ancestral and cultural preservation. It is heritage folk work.
My heart’s passion is to help people. It’s also to lead with empathy and compassion.
That passion inspired me to start this project, too.
It frustrated and broke my heart to see the stories and offensive caricatures being portrayed about our culture and heritage.
Italoamericani and Italo people have a rich history. They were immigrants, starving children laborers, farm workers— and their stories deserved to be remembered.
So many Italoamericani were brilliant genii and changed life for us — in America and Italy. Many Jewish-Italo people served in concentration camps. These are just examples of the “forgotten history” of Italo people.
Italian history is diverse. Italo people were and still are diverse. Italian Americans are diverse — and we continue to be.
I wanted to tell these stories that we were never told or our textbooks forgot because these are our ancestors; this is our culture.
I love sharing the lives here through photos and words.
You can connect further with me by clicking my personal social media links below or connecting me with via email.
I believe that a new friend is only a hello away! I love making new friends!
Un abbraccio,
Dominique
What else do I do for the Italian community?
Italian American Disability Alliance
I formed the Italian American Disability Alliance. All Italian Americans, Italians, and Italians of the diaspora are welcome to partake and participate
How to connect with me further:
Email me! Check out my personal website where I focus on advocacy for the disability community.
Please feel free to check out my social media links below:
Description of image at top left: Logo of Italo Archive. Top at the text reads: Italo American. Top at the bottom reads: Italo Archive. In the center is an image of peasants farmers working; men, women. They are being watched over in the background. The people in the back (we assume the landowner or employed) watch over without empathy. The image is bordered with vines, vegetables.
Italo Archive 