Robert Allegrini, president and CEO of the National Italian American Foundation, is the person we chose for the cover of the new special issue of New York. The Pocket Edition, a new format launched for the occasion, is dedicated to the 51st anniversary of the NIAF, which will be celebrated on Saturday 17 October at the Washington Hilton. The interview with Allegrini opens a path through the history of the foundation, programs for young people and relationships between Italy and the United States: activities that help to understand how a link is maintained with the country of origin when several generations have passed since emigration. On the pages of the special space are the gala of Washington, Lombardy as a region of honor of 2026 and the initiatives that allow American students and professionals to know Italy.
NIAF was born to give Italian Americans a national organization capable of gathering their needs and representing them in the federal capital. On 26 April 1975 nineteen people gathered under the guidance of Monsignor Geno Baroni, priest and social activist, to lay the foundations of the project. Among the themes to be addressed were education, political participation, economic opportunities and community representation in the media.
The first office opened in Washington in April 1976, with entrepreneur Jeno Paulucci driving the board. In September of the same year the foundation organized a dinner dedicated to the twenty-nine parliamentarians of Italian origin then present at the Congress. The name National Italian American Foundation was adopted in 1978.
Allegrini told us how that task has expanded. To defend Italian Americans from caricatures and stereotypes, there were opportunities to confront the economy, politics and culture of contemporary Italy. The foundation, he explains, also assumed a function of elaboration and discussion on relations between the two countries.
Training has been part of this work for decades. The first scholarships date back to 1981; in 1985 a division dedicated to young people was born and the following year a program of exchange with Italy was started. Institutional representation and educational activities have therefore grown together.
Today one of the most important programs is the Voyage of Discovery, which finances trips to Italy for university between 18 and 23 years, giving preference to those who have never visited it. For 2026 there were two sessions of twenty-four students, with stages in Rome and Lombardy, an excursion to Genoa and a day of service to the community. The programme covers international travel, accommodation, travel and activities, as well as meals.
For those who know Italy, especially through family stories, such an experience allows to compare that image with the present country. It is a point on which Allegrini insists particularly: maintaining a relationship with its origins also requires opportunities to know people, institutions and enterprises that do not belong to the history of emigration.
Then there is the DiLella Fellows Program, which is aimed at professionals between 25 and 40 years interested in Italian culture. He anticipates business visits, meetings with experts and representatives of the institutions and participation in the program of The European House–Ambrosetti in Cernobbio. The knowledge of Italy passes here from its political and economic system and can become the starting point for professional collaboration.
To this report is also dedicated the deepening of the special on Lombardy, chosen by the NIAF as a region of honor of 2026. The designation, also linked to the year of the Winter Games in Milan Cortina, accompanied the initiatives of the foundation in the United States. Allegrini emphasizes the desire to make known the industrial weight of the region, in addition to the international reputation of Milan in fashion: presenting Italy to an American public also means explaining what it produces and how it works.
On Saturday, October 17, NIAF will celebrate its anniversary at Washington Hilton, in the federal capital. The gala will award four people active in different sectors: comedian and actor Sebastian Maniscalco, president and managing director of Marriott International Anthony Capuano, Pamela Wright, former general president of the Daughters of the American Revolution, and managing director of Fincantieri Pierroberto Folgiero. Part of the proceeds will help finance the educational and cultural programs of the foundation.
A few days before the anniversary, on October 12, Allegrini signed with the Minister of Education and Merit Giuseppe Valditara a three-year protocol to promote in Italian schools the knowledge of emigration in the Americas. The agreement provides for didactic insights, meetings and other educational activities, followed by a Joint Committee. It is another of the themes addressed in the special: next to work to make Italy known to the descendants of migrants, there is that to tell Italian students what happened to those who left the country and built their lives in the United States.
L’articolo How the NIAF has changed, in 51 years it comes from IlNewyorkese.
