Enemy Aliens: Italian-American Internment During WWII
After fifty-four years, the misspelling of Italian explorer, Giovanni da Verrazzano’s name will be corrected on the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge spanning Staten Island and Brooklyn through legislation signed by Governor Andrew Cuomo.
Following Christopher Columbus’s discovery of the new world and the return of the Magellan expedition after circumnavigating the globe, Verrazzano was commissioned by the French to find a sea route to the Pacific and the Indies. In 1524, Verrazzano became the first European to explore the eastern coast of North America and the first to land in New York.
Verrazzano’s exploits were downgraded following the 1609 voyage of Henry Hudson who was incorrectly credited with the discovery of New York harbor. In 1909, during the three-hundred year anniversary of Hudson’s sail, Italian-Americans revived Verrazzano’s legacy by commissioning Ettore Ximenes to create a bronze statue of the explorer that sits in Manhattan’s Battery Park. The Dillingham Commission consisting of U.S. senators and House of Representative members concluded that the huge wave of Italian immigrants entering the United States threatened America’s way of life. Statues like Verrazzano, Columbus, and others were erected to remind Americans of the Italian contribution to world history and culture.
I had the privilege of writing the “Talking Statues” dialogue you can hear if you visit the Verrazzano sculpture. Here’s a passage that was edited out by the Parks Department.
“I was further esteemed by the naming of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge that spans the New York boroughs of Brooklyn and Staten Island. Only one problem, they misspelled my name. Verrazzano, has two Zs. Tell them, please? Misspelling a name is serious. After all, what if Italians called the first American President, George Washingtoe?”
Over the next years, as signs at the bridge are replaced, Verrazzano’s name will be corrected.
On his third voyage, Verrazzano was murdered and eaten by Carib cannibals. Can we please not hear calls to rename the span the Indigenous People’s Bridge?
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