Standing before the Board of Directors of the National Italian American Bar Association (NIABA) Friday in Boston, Hon. Basil Russo, who presides over the Conference of Presidents of Major Italian American Organizations (COPOMIAO), delivered a keynote address that read less like a status update and more like a milestone marker. After years of fragmented efforts, the Italian American community is now moving as one: in city halls and courtrooms, in the next generation of leaders, through grass roots governmental advocacy and on to Vatican City — all the result of five years spent turning parallel efforts into a shared COPOMIAO movement.
Russo opened by praising NIABA for spotlighting the contributions of Italian American judges and lawyers and thanked the association for its continued support of COPOMIAO. That support recently deepened, with two NIABA affiliates joining the coalition as it continues to unify and amplify Italian American voices nationwide.
It didn’t take long for that unity to show results. In New York City, when Mayor Mamdani’s administration failed to include Manhattan’s Little Italy on the city’s official tourist map of ethnic enclaves, Italian Americans pushed back, together. The city reversed course and Mr. Mamdani pledged to add Little Italy to the list.
The momentum isn’t just local, it’s legal. Russo credited COPOMIAO National Counsel George Bochetto with a string of wins preserving Columbus Day and Columbus statues through sustained litigation, much of it pro bono work.
The board applauded the mention of a newly filed lawsuit to force the City of Columbus, Ohio, to return its Columbus statue to its place of honor in front of City Hall. Several board members said that NIABA, at the appropriate time, would recommend filing an amicus curiae brief in support of the federal suit.
“When this community moves as one, we affect change,” said Russo, who also leads the Italian Sons and Daughters of America (ISDA), a member organization of COPOMIAO. “Whether before a judge or in the court of public opinion, we advance cogent arguments that lead to potent advocacy.”
COPOMIAO’s Columbus campaign has reached the highest levels of government with the placement of the navigator’s statue on the White House campus in Washington, D.C. this past spring.
It’s generational, too. Russo pointed to the Italian American Future Leaders (IAFL) program as a clear sign this collective is built to last. He urged board members to send the younger attorneys in their networks to IAFL’s annual national convention held in South Florida in January. Their participation, he said, is how the momentum gets carried forward.
And once again, it’s global. This September, a COPOMIAO delegation will travel to Rome to meet with Italy’s top political leaders — part of a push to deepen the cultural bond between Italian Americans and their ancestral homeland. Russo announced the delegation had also secured an audience with Pope Leo XIV later this summer in Vatican City.
Each of these threads is its own story. Together, they’re something bigger: proof that Italian American organizations are moving in a shared direction COPOMIAO has spent years charting — a vision that has kept Russo in steady demand nationwide, addressing 17 major organizations in the past three years alone.
These aren’t isolated wins. They’re the product of collaboration across 77 member organizations.
In 1930, immigrant families banded together to create the Italian Sons and Daughters of America (ISDA), now one of the most prominent and financially successful Italian American organizations in the nation. In the last decade, we built a 730,000-strong social media community, grew our not-for-profit fraternal association, ISDA Financial Life, to nearly a half billion dollars in member assets, co-founded the Russo Brothers Italian American Filmmaker Forum (RBIAFF), and launched the fastest-growing Italian American publication (La Nostra Voce).
