In short: Italian American Heritage Month is celebrated every October. Congress and President George H. W. Bush first designated October 1989 as Italian-American Heritage and Culture Month. Celebrate by cooking your family’s regional dishes, tracing your family history, reading Italian-American classics, visiting the Italian American Museum and learning about the people who built the community.
Every October, Italian-Americans get a whole month to celebrate where we come from.
Not just the food, although there will be food.
The grandparents who crossed an ocean with almost nothing. The neighborhoods they built. The workers, teachers, artists and saints who made this country better.
Here’s what Italian American Heritage Month is, and how to make the most of it.
What Is Italian American Heritage Month?
Italian American Heritage Month is a celebration of the history, culture and contributions of Italian-Americans, held every October.
Congress and President George H. W. Bush first designated October 1989 as Italian-American Heritage and Culture Month, according to the National Italian American Foundation. Presidents proclaimed it again in 1990, 1994 and 2010. New York State has recognized October as Italian Heritage and Culture Month since 1976, and in 2025 a House resolution urged Americans to observe Italian and Italian American Heritage Month once again.
President Clinton’s 1994 proclamation put the story simply: between 1880 and 1914, “nearly four million people left the familiar comfort and sweep of Italy.”
Their descendants are everywhere now. According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2024 American Community Survey, about 16.3 million Americans report Italian ancestry.
Celebrate the People, Not Just the Pasta
The best way to honor the month is to know the stories.
Italian immigrants helped lead strikes for better pay and fought for safer workplaces. Italian-American women organized garment shops, ran for governor and ran for vice president. An Italian-born nun became the first U.S. citizen named a saint.
We wrote about them:
- Bread and Roses: The Italian-American Labor Activists Who Fought for Workers
- 12 Italian-American Trailblazers Everyone Should Know
Ways to Celebrate at Home
- Cook your family’s region. Not just “Italian food”: the dish from your town. Sicilian, Neapolitan, Calabrese, Abruzzese, Barese. Ask whoever makes it best to teach you.
- Write down nonna’s recipes. Better yet, record her telling the story behind them. The measurements are “quanto basta” anyway; the stories are what you can’t get back.
- Trace your family. Search arrival records through the Statue of Liberty–Ellis Island Foundation, then look for birth and marriage records in Italy on the Italian government’s Portale Antenati.
- Read an Italian-American classic. Pietro di Donato’s Christ in Concrete (1939), a novel inspired by his father’s death on a construction site, or Arturo Giovannitti’s poems Arrows in the Gale (1914), free to read online.
- Watch a Frank Capra film. The Sicilian-born director won three Oscars for Best Director. It Happened One Night is a perfect place to start.
Ways to Celebrate Out in the World
- Visit the Italian American Museum at 151 Mulberry Street in New York’s Little Italy.
- Spend a Saturday on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, or in the Italian neighborhood closest to you: bakery, pork store, café, repeat.
- Look up when you’re in Washington. Constantino Brumidi, an Italian-born artist, painted the fresco 180 feet above the Capitol Rotunda.
- Join something. Find an Order Sons and Daughters of Italy lodge near you, or NIAF’s Young Professionals Network if you’re 21 to 39.
- Learn a little Italian. Start with the words that matter most: our guide to Italian terms of endearment.
Ways to Celebrate on a Date
Heritage is better shared. Make fresh pasta together, take a passeggiata after dinner, or swap family stories over an aperitivo.
We put together 10 date ideas for Italian American Heritage Month that work all year long.
Closing Thought
The people who came before us carried their culture across an ocean so we wouldn’t lose it.
The least we can do is pass it on: at the table, in the stories, and to the people we love.
If you’re looking for someone to share it with, join the Mia waitlist. Mia, the dating app for Italians and Italian-Americans, launches on iPhone in winter 2026–27.
Good questions
When is Italian American Heritage Month?
Every October. Congress and President George H. W. Bush first designated October 1989 as Italian-American Heritage and Culture Month, and presidents proclaimed it again in 1990, 1994 and 2010. New York State has recognized October as Italian Heritage and Culture Month since 1976.
How do you celebrate Italian American Heritage Month?
Cook a dish from your family’s region, write down nonna’s recipes, trace your family through Ellis Island and Italian records, read Italian-American classics like Christ in Concrete, visit the Italian American Museum in New York, and learn about Italian-American labor activists and trailblazers.
How many Italian-Americans are there?
About 16.3 million people in the United States report Italian ancestry, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2024 American Community Survey.
Who are important Italian-Americans to learn about?
Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini, the first U.S. citizen canonized; labor organizers Arturo Giovannitti, Joseph Ettor and Angela Bambace; banker A.P. Giannini; physicist Enrico Fermi; Governor Ella Grasso; and Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman vice-presidential candidate on a major-party ticket.
