ROME, ITALY – 35,000 marchers. Over 100 groups, including bands, floats and contingents. Nearly one million spectators. The Columbus Day Parade is a fun filled Parade that gets bigger and better every year. Participants from all over the world march in our Parade with pride. The Columbus Day Parade has become a globally televised event with millions of viewers and over a half million spectators on the streets. We invite you to join us and experience this memorable day.
The Columbus Citizens Foundation is a non-profit organization in New York City committed to fostering an appreciation of Italian-American heritage and achievement. The Foundation, through a broad range of philanthropic and cultural activities, provides opportunities for advancement to deserving Italian-American students through various scholarship and grant programs. The Foundation organizes New York City’s annual Columbus Celebration and Columbus Day Parade, which has celebrated Italian-American heritage on New York’s Fifth Avenue since 1929.
The Columbus Day Parade is the world largest celebration of Italian-American culture in New York, but even in other American cities.
Jersey City (NJ) will hold its annual Columbus Day parade Sunday at 1 p.m., starting on Newark Avenue at Merseles Street and concluding on Grove Street in front of City Hall.
San Francisco’s 144th Annual Italian Heritage Parade on Sunday, October 7, 2012, as the City’s oldest civic event and the nation’s oldest Italian-American parade and community celebration winds its way from Fisherman’s Wharf to North Beach. A San Francisco institution since it was established in 1868, the 2012 Parade is promising to be bigger, better and more colorful than ever.
Highlights include dozens of handcrafted parade floats featuring Bay Area businesses, community groups, and Italian organizations; local high school Italian clubs and marching bands; special appearances by “Christopher Columbus” and Queen Isabella and Her Court; festive open-air dining and Italian wine and food specials at North Beach restaurants lining the Parade route; performances by a variety of traditional Italian musicians and performance artists; and special appearances by Bay Area and Italian-American celebrities.
Many countries in the New World and elsewhere celebrate the anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s arrival in the Americas, which occurred on October 12, 1492, as an official holiday. The event is celebrated as Columbus Day in the United States, as Día de la Raza in many countries in Latin America, as Discovery Day in the Bahamas, as Día de la Hispanidad, Fiesta Nacional in Spain, Día del Respeto a la Diversidad Cultural (Day of Respect for Cultural Diversity) in Argentina and as Día de las Américas (Day of the Americas) in Uruguay. These holidays have been celebrated unofficially since the late 18th century, and officially in various areas since the early 20th century.
Many Italian-Americans observe Columbus Day as a celebration of their heritage, the first occasion being in New York City on October 12, 1866. Columbus Day was first popularized as a holiday in the United States through the lobbying of Angelo Noce, a first generation Italian, in Denver. The first official, regular Columbus Day holiday was proclaimed by Colorado governor Jesse F. McDonald in 1905 and made a statutory holiday in 1907. In April 1934, as a result of lobbying by the Knights of Columbus, Congress and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt made October 12 a federal holiday under the name Columbus Day.
Since 1971, the holiday has been fixed to the second Monday in October; October 8, this year (2012).
Watch the special report by Maria Bartiromo on The Columbus Citizens Foundation
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