Italian American Heritage Month runs from October 1 through October 31 in the United States. This October, begin with something close to home: a photograph, a recipe card, a letter, or a story you have always meant to ask someone about.

Explore our Italian American Heritage Month guide for the month’s history, family activities, classroom resources, and ways to find community events. The guide will help you plan; one conversation can help you get started.

October is set aside annually in provisions such as Rhode Island’s Heritage Month law. A personal way to take part is to give an everyday memory a lasting home.

Save one story this October

The photograph above offers a glimpse of everyday community life. Marjory Collins photographed Italian Americans relaxing on Thompson Street in New York in 1942. Adults and children gather beside a baby carriage outside storefronts. A picture like this can prompt questions about the places where people met, worked, shopped, and grew up.

Choose a photograph or object of your own, then try these four steps:

  1. 1.Invite a conversation. Ask a relative, friend, or community member what they remember about it. An open question such as “What was happening here?” gives them room to tell the story in their own words.
  2. 2.Ask before recording. Explain why you want to preserve the memory and who might hear or read it. Take notes if that feels more comfortable, and let the person skip a question or stop.
  3. 3.Add the details. Write down the speaker’s name, the date of your conversation, and the people and places mentioned. If a date is uncertain, keep that uncertainty with the story.
  4. 4.Save it together. Keep the photograph and notes or recording in a labeled folder, make a backup, and agree on what can be shared.

The Smithsonian’s oral-history guidance offers more help with respectful interviewing and preserving a recording. A story kept privately within a family is a worthwhile result.

If you do not have family records, begin with the archival photograph or a willing neighbor’s memory. Find your next activity in the Heritage Month guide and make room for one story this October.