There are evenings when the word Italy stops being a concept and becomes an emotion.
In New York, during Republic Day, I experienced one of those evenings.
I looked into Italian and Italian-American eyes and saw something that no distance can erase: love for one’s roots.
I saw Italy in the faces of those who left years ago with a suitcase full of dreams, sacrifices, and nostalgia.
I’ve seen it in the children and grandchildren of those who may no longer speak our language perfectly, but when they hear the Italian anthem they are moved.
I have seen it in the entrepreneurs, professionals, young people, families who every day, in an extraordinary and very tough city like NYC, continue to carry the name of our country high.
Because Italy is not just a place on the map.
Italy is a voice you recognize even amidst the noise of Manhattan.
It’s a family memory.
It’s a set table.
It’s a word spoken by grandparents.
It is a son who rediscovers where he comes from.
It is a tricolor that, even thousands of kilometers from Rome, manages to make the heart beat.
Last night I felt all this with enormous force.
And I also felt, more than ever, the responsibility and honor of representing these Italians. Italians who often live far away, but who have never been far from Italy. Italians who don’t ask for rhetoric, but for presence. They don’t ask for medals, but respect. They do not ask to be remembered only in celebrations, but to be recognized every day as a living, essential and wonderful part of our Nation.
The Republic belongs to them too.
Indeed, it belongs deeply to them.
To those who have built a new life without forgetting the one they came from.
To those who have transformed nostalgia into energy.
To those who have made Italian identity not a memory of the past, but a promise for the future.
Thank you New York.
Thanks to our fellow countrymen.
Thanks to this extraordinary community that reminded me last night, once again, why serving Italy around the world is not just a political assignment.
It is a privilege of the soul.
Long live Italians in the world.
Long live Italy that does not forget its children.
