Italian American One Voice Coalition Achieves Another Success – Columbus Day Preserved in Rockaway Schools

IAOVC thanks the Rockaway School Board Members for doing the right thing!

NORTHVALE, NJ, UNITED STATES, February 13, 2025 /EINPresswire.com/ -- The Italian American One Voice Coalition (“IAOVC”), America’s largest independent Italian American anti-bias organization, was recently advised that the Rockaway, NJ School Board would AGAIN be considering eliminating the Columbus Day holiday on the 2025 – 2026 school calendar. It was just a short three years ago that this was under consideration by this Board. At that time IAOVC representatives, a number of local residents and members of other Italian American organizations successfully prevailed in preserving Columbus Day in Rockaway Schools for the last few years.

At last night’s School Board meeting, although there was the threat of an impending snow storm, a crowd of people were there to express their strong opposition to the elimination of Columbus Day. IAOVC representatives, members of the Rockaway UNICO Chapter, as well as local residents were in attendance. IAOVC President, Andre’ DiMino, along with a number of others addressed the Board during the public portion which was opened at the beginning of the meeting. The various speakers presented the importance of Columbus as an iconic symbol to Italian Americans and the false accusations about Columbus that have been debunked by scholars and authors from primary sources.

DiMino passionately urged the Board to not create division by pitting groups against each other. To that end, he explained that IAOVC has established a milestone alliance with the Native American Guardian's Association (“NAGA”) to foster unity among Native Americans and Italian Americans. In fact, he presented the Board with a letter from the president of NAGA stating that NAGA “...stands proudly with the Italian American Community choosing to honor their great visionary, Christopher Columbus...”

After the close of the public portion, and after a number of other items on the School Board agenda were discussed and voted on, the school calendar item was brought up. All in attendance were very pleased to see the Board vote to keep Columbus Day as a holiday on the school calendar.

“We are extremely pleased that the Rockaway Township Board of Education responded favorably to our plea to preserve Columbus Day,” commented DiMino. “We thank the board for doing the right thing by preserving the Columbus Day holiday. We sincerely hope that this is not brought up again. If it does, we will be back to defend this essential holiday for Italian Americans, and actually, all Americans.”

The Italian American One Voice Coalition is a nationwide coalition of Italian American organizations and individual members whose sole purpose is to defend Italian American heritage and culture. In its 32-year history IAOVC has fought back and defeated repeated attempts to cancel Columbus Day and/or remove Columbus statues around the nation. IAOVC is different from all other Italian American organizations in that its sole focus and objective is to foster education to fight bias, stereotyping and discrimination against Italian Americans. IAOVC is an IRS-Registered 501(c)3 non-profit.

To support IAOVC’s efforts at defending and educating about Columbus and Italian American civil rights visit iaovc.org/donate.

IAOVC membership is open to individuals and all Italian American organizations to join together as a coalition defending and celebrating Italian American heritage and culture. To join visit iaovc.org/membership.

IAOVC issues a regular free email newsletter, “The Alfano Digest,” to individuals and Italian American organizations nationwide. The Digest issues alerts on instances of bias, stereotyping, discrimination, and defamation and activates the IAOVC nationwide network of “Defenders” who respond through calls, emails, faxes, letters and demonstrations, where necessary. The Digest also contains informative Italian American cultural, educational and heritage information. To request the Digest at no charge, email your request to info@iaovc.org or fill out the form on iaovc.org.

Andre DiMino
Italian American ONE VOICE Coalition
andre@iaovc.org
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