First Lady remembers her Italian-American heritage and stresses to ISDA members the need to appreciate their common ancestors

July 15, 2024

Basil Russo, national president of the Italian Sons and Daughters of America, heard First Lady Jill Biden speak movingly about her Italian heritage at a White House reception in October. That speech prompted him to invite her to speak to his organization, and that’s exactly what she came to Pittsburgh to do on Saturday.

And let’s add one more important point: Biden is the first Italian-born First Lady in U.S. history, a fact Russo emphasized in his introduction before her brief speech.

Biden addressed the organization’s members at an annual leadership banquet that typically follows a board meeting, according to an ISDA leader, and about 400 had signed up to attend. Russo said she accepted his invitation to Pittsburgh, which came together in just 30 days. ISDA leadership decided to invite every member who could attend, as well as the board, to hear the same message he delivered in DC.

Biden’s great-grandparents, Gaetano and Concetta Giacoppo, left their village of Gesso, Sicily, with their two-year-old future grandfather, Domenico, in 1900 to start a new life in the United States. Immigration officials at Ellis Island anglicized the family name to Jacobs. They settled in New Jersey, where their grandfather worked as a delivery boy for a small furniture store, according to a July article in La Nostra Voce, the organization’s official publication.

She said she visited Ellis Island and saw the registry where her ancestors and other immigrants had signed on blank pages, some with elaborate signatures, others just marking their names with Xs because they had nothing else to do.

Their lives began anew, as empty as these pages, she said. “They had the courage to pursue the promise of this country,” Biden said, and they worked hard and with determination to find their way and improve their lives.

The First Lady noted that life was not always easy for Italian immigrants. She pointed to the job advertisements that said Italians were barred from applying. And she pointed to the mass execution of Italian immigrants by a bigoted mob in New Orleans in 1891, which blamed them for the death of a police chief.

Her father served in World War II and used the GI Bill to study and begin a career in banking, which enabled him to provide a middle-class life for his four daughters in Willow Grove, a suburb of Philadelphia.

Biden said she wants “a good marriage and a career,” just as her parents modeled for her. She said she found her calling in teaching English, first in high schools and later in colleges, even when her husband, Joe, was vice president and now president, all of which is detailed in her White House biography. And Biden and her husband, who have been married since 1977, have a similarly strong marriage, she said.

“In Joe, I found a husband who has always supported my career,” she said.

Biden, in turn, said she was proud of her husband and what he had accomplished in his political career. She briefly touched on the successful efforts he led to recovery from the pandemic and helped provide immigrants with the lifestyle they wanted when they arrived in the United States.

Now, she said, she often thinks of her Italian ancestors, “who practiced rituals that reflect the ISDA motto: freedom, unity and duty.”

It is important to ensure that these rituals continue in organizations like ISDA, Biden concluded. “We must ensure that their sacrifices and their values are never forgotten.”

Before speaking, Russo reminded those in attendance that the ISDA was formed in 1930 through a split from the Order of Sons of Italy, largely because that organization did not accept women as members. It began here in Pittsburgh, and Russo said that the organization’s inclusion of women was instrumental in its growth into one of the two largest Italian organizations in the United States.

He mentioned well-known Italian-American women – Frances Cabrini, Ella Grasso, Geraldine Ferraro and Nancy Pelosi – and their contributions to U.S. society. Russo also praised Biden for her work in supporting veterans and their families, the Moon Shot cancer project, women’s health research and educational opportunities for all.

It is important, he said, to invite young Italian-American women to listen to her speech on Saturday to inspire them and recognize the importance of the struggles Italian-American women have overcome to succeed and build new lives in this country.

After Biden’s brief speech, which ended at 5:15 p.m., attendees settled in for dinner. Later, word spread that likely Republican nominee and former President Donald Trump had been shot by an assailant at a rally in Butler County.

The Associated Press reported that he was shot in the ear at 6:15 p.m. and that Secret Service agents rushed him from the stage to a hospital.

The shooting is being investigated as an attempted murder. Secret Service agents killed the gunman, identified by the FBI on Sunday morning as Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, of Bethel Park. One person sitting in the stands was shot. National Public Radio reported that two other people were seriously injured and taken to a Pittsburgh hospital. A spokesman for Allegheny General Hospital confirmed this on Sunday, without releasing information on the condition of those affected. The Secret Service said the gunman fired at Trump “from an elevated position” outside the rally venue. The rifle was an AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle found near the body of a man law enforcement officials believed to be the shooter.

Trump later posted on Truth Social that he had been shot in the upper part of his right ear. He thanked agents and other law enforcement officials for their response to the shooting and offered condolences to the family of the person killed and the injured.