Ciao rings out in S.L. for first Italian festival

After seeing the "Ciao, bella!" (Hello, gorgeous!) on the fliers for Utah's first ferragosto this Saturday, the question arises: What took so long?

Italians came to work in Utah's mines and railroad a hundred years ago, so why hasn't there been an Italian cultural festival before now?

"People just can't get together," said Tony Caputo, a native Salt Laker. "People always point to the Greeks (in Salt Lake City) and say, 'Look what they've done.' The thing is: They have one church, where they get together every week. Among the Italians, there's been no focal point."

In other words, Italian Utahns are all over the religious map. There are Roman Catholics, lapsed Catholics, Latter-day Saints and more. Result: no critical mass of Italians to put on a big party.

It took a pair from the outside, Ed and Jinger "Mama" LaGuardia from San Diego, Calif. They assembled about 30 other Italian Americans, dug into the Beehive State's Italianate history and over several months pulled together a grass-roots effort to celebrate. They plan on letting all that heritage, stored up over the years, into the Romanesque sunshine of downtown Salt Lake City. In Pioneer Park, on Caputo's deli doorstep, the ferragosto, the "feast that begins in August," will run from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., covering the park and the adjacent block of 300 South.

And this is only the beginning, says Jinger LaGuardia, who with her husband Ed decided an Italian cultural fair was long overdue here. They came from San Diego, where the Italian festival grew from one block to eight blocks, from 1,000 people to 100,000 revelers.

"You don't need to belong to the same church to celebrate the culture," said Ed LaGuardia.

And if you look at the LDS pioneers, Utah's American Indian tribes and Italian immigrants, they have key things in common: They love to cook and garden, they put family above everything else in life, and with their big families they had to be frugal to make ends meet. In the hot, dry toe of Italy's boot, Italians learned how to make a big meal out of some pasta and some hardy plants like basil and rosemary. "These were people who lived on tomatoes and dandelions," said Caputo.

Tony Zucca, a member of the seven-decade-old Italian American Civic League of Utah, said it's time for everybody to get together, whatever they are, for some friendly bocce. He's organized games for players of all levels during ferragosto, and has dreams of sending Salt Lakers to Olympic bocce competition — or at least putting bocce courts into city parks.