If Toronto is the largest Friulian city in the world…

We are used to thinking about emigration from southern Italy and instead there have been (and still are) great migratory phenomena also from the north and in particular from Friuli, and I can testify to this with my family from Sacile.

I met Gabriella Colussi Arthur through my friend Caroline di Cocco (Town Ambassador of the beautiful Fontechiari) because I needed to nominate some northern Italian towns for a television program, and a world opened up to me.

Gabriella was born in Toronto to parents originally from Zoppola, in the province of Pordenone, and has lived her whole life in the world of Italian emigration to Canada. First as a child, she grew up in the Zoppola Club in Toronto and then as a scholar and teacher of the Italian language at York University (https://profiles.laps.yorku.ca/profiles/gcolussi/). Finally, Gabriella is one of the founders of the Italian-Canadian Archives Project (ICAP), (https://icap.ca), a Canadian non-profit organization whose aim is to involve and assist communities and people in research into their Italian-Canadian history.

Emigration from Friuli began shortly after the unification of Italy: some of them returned to the early twentieth century for a few years but left again with the second great wave of migration after the Second World War (my family, however, moved to Lazio with the reclamation of the Pontine marshes wanted by Mussolini).

Thus, although her great-grandfather Antonio Colussi had gone to Argentina at the end of the 19th century, where he was mysteriously killed at the age of 29, her parents arrived in Canada only in 1954-55 after getting married in Italy.

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There is a very particular episode that concerns the history of her father's emigration. Together with her brother Elmo, Gabriella's father went to Rome to the Canadian embassy to obtain an entry visa. Her father was a humble person and had only one dress which he decided to wear to go to the embassy together with a red tie (I know this aspect of Friulian dignity well and I see my grandmother in this choice).

At that time there was the 'hunt for communists' and the father was denied a visa because with his red tie he was mistaken for a communist. Then only his brother Elmo left and only after two years, thanks to the law on family reunification and thanks to the intercession of the church (where he sang in the choir) his father obtained a visa to arrive at the famous Pier 21 in Halifax.

Gabriella's relationship with Zoppola began in the club where at least three big parties were held every year: in February the celebration of love with Valentine's Day, a picnic in the summer, where everyone brought food from home but a great spaghetti dinner, and finally the feast of the patron saint San Martino in November.

Back then these celebrations were great: Toronto had welcomed almost half a million Italians who had brought their own traditions. Even today, Toronto is the largest Italian city outside of Italy and also the largest Friulian city outside of Friuli.

But the transition from love of Italian traditions to love for Zoppola occurred during her first trip when she was 7 years old. Seen through the eyes of children, the world is truly different from what we adults perceive and there are three things that open Gabriella's heart and create a very strong bond with Zoppola.

in ordine nella foto:

Federico Piccinin (figlio di mia Zia Flora Colussi  in Piccinin); Mario Biasutti (cugino di mio padre, Nino Colussi, nipote della Lucia Colussi, nata a Rosario); mia cugina Marilena Parro in Marconi (figlia di Bernardina —Odoarda Regina Colussi in Parro, sorella di mio padre); GCA, Javier Grossutti, Carlo Scagnol (cugino di Mario Biasutti e di mio padre); Arianna Zuliani (nipote di Anna Querin in Travani, di Arzene, PN); Stefano Iogna — Pratt (figlio di Piero Iogna-Pratt, farmacista a Travesio).
Il gruppo rappresenta chi, in qualche modo, fa parte del documentario BISNONNO.

The first emotion is the sound of the bells: his father's house of origin was located in Via Roma (formerly Via San Valentino), in front of the church of San Martino, and had the particularity of being in the center of the town but also have a yard with chickens and a vegetable garden in the back.

The second thing is her relationship with the rooster in the henhouse who didn't allow her to do anything, she considered him a rival to be pushed away by running after her.

Finally, Mrs. Palmira who taught her to ride a bicycle in via Roma in Zoppola. And we know that this is still one of the most important experiences in a child's life!

These three emotions created the indissoluble bond which then became increasingly cemented during the other visits and studies on Italian emigration.

“It may seem strange, but for many years I only knew Zoppola and not Friuli. I learned to know other places in Friuli and feel them as mine when I filmed the documentary about my grandfather 'Who killed my great-grandfather?' (https://www.chihauccisoilmiobisnonno.com) and I stayed in Italy for a long time.

I worked with Javier Grossutti, the leading expert on Friulian emigration, resident in Udine and professor at the University of Padua, and I did research in the country's archives, meeting the incredible Claudio Petris, who edits the Quaderni di Zoppola. Then we organized a screening of the documentary for the citizens and thanks to these activities I strengthened all the relationships not only with Zoppola but with Friuli".

The real challenge we have now is to keep these ties with the new generations so that all this heritage of love is not lost but is a seed for new shoots. Gabriella has two twin sons, Alexander and Thomas who, in addition to their work, play in a band (with their friend Daniele Morson, whose father is from Bannia) and are particularly good.

The band used to be called 'Total Runout' and now 'Hideout Legacy' and can be found on Spotify or Youtube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7PTuRFoB9A or https://www.youtube.com /watch?v=qNRgUGXoVWw).

And with this simple information you can have many ideas that can lead to opening many doors to the future.