🇮🇹🇺🇸 The Italians of San Diego

A Convivio Docuseries

🎞 Produced by Convivio
🎥 Directed and Edited by John B. Mangiapane Jr.
📝 Written by Tom Cesarini

For walk where we will, we tread upon some story. —Cicero

EPISODE I
The Pillars of Creation: Our Lady of the Rosary Parish

HELP FUND OUR SUBSEQUENT EPISODES!

EPISODE II
Seiners and Saints: Italians in the Fishing Industry

EPISODE III
Terra Firma: Women's Influence on Community

EPISODE IV: A New Hope 😊
The Culture of Commerce: Merchants and Retailers

EPISODE V
Little Italy: From Colony to Neighborhood to Urban Center

The Objective
We are seeking funding to secure the production phase of our new docuseries recounting the definitive history of the Italian presence in San Diego. Thank you for your patronage, encouragement, guidance, and overall support!

With your contributions, your names will appear on our credits.

About Our Project
San Diego’s Little Italy has fast become a neighborhood bathed in an urban chic sensibility and one with its own mythos. But before the contemporary convergence of myriad restaurants and retailers, the neighborhood had modest beginnings with its history going back hundreds of years. It is a collective tale of immigration and assimilation–and an overarching theme focused on the individuals and families that helped to shape a neighborhood, a waterfront, and a city.

This innovative, Convivio-produced docuseries documents the history of the Italians in San Diego. Together, we will explore the Italian community's auspicious beginnings in the burgeoning fishing industry at the dawn of the 20th century, trace the development of the Italian enclave and its heyday at century's midpoint, and examine Little Italy's renaissance in the early 90s and through its (r)evolution in the 21st century.

Ultimately, our series will take you on a fascinating and engaging journey through the decades as we highlight family and belonging, grit and toil, traditions and values—and the search for finding and maintaining identity through changing times.

The Italians of San Diego

By Convivio

The Italians of San Diego

A docuseries in five episodes recounting the historical narrative of San Diego's Italian community.