Unione Italiana: A Family

Unione Italiana (Italian Club), is one of Fredonia’s many cultural groups on campus. The executive board members of this club include: Jeremy Wilner (President), Victoria McMahon (Vice President), Anthony Carusone (Treasurer), and Chloe Cohen (Secretary). The goal of this club is to expand students’ views on Italian culture through meetings and events. In meetings, Unione Italiana presents culture such as language, the mafia and stereotypes through an engaging and fun manner that is accessible to anyone. The club believes that by presenting information in this way, people will have a more intimate experience with the culture and will be learning in an open and family-like setting instead of being lectured like one is in a classroom setting.

St. Joseph's Day Dinner

In addition to the meetings, Unione Italiana has campus-wide events with the goal of engaging the entire campus community and raising cultural awareness. Unione Italiana achieves this through it’s two formal Italian dinners a year and it’s campus-wide known soccer tournament. The first Italian dinner of the year is held in October during Italian Heritage Month, which is the celebration and recognition of Italian heritage in the United States. In the Spring, there is also the St. Joseph’s Day dinner which a traditionally Italian holiday celebrated in March each year.

After speaking with Jeremy Wilner, President of Unione Italiana, I learned more about the club and its impact at Fredonia. Jeremy first became involved in the club by signing up for it his first year at Fredonia. He had been in an Italian club in high school but had not been as involved in the club as he would like to be. When he joined the club his first year, he found that Unione Italiana was more than a club; it was a family. The environment of the club was calm, inviting and open. He felt like he was truly in an Italian family. When Jeremy joined Unione Italiana executive board, he strove to continue this feeling of openness and family so that others on campus would have an outlet to spend time at. They could meet other students and faculty and have engaging conversations in an informal environment. Unione Italiana still strives to achieve this goal so that the campus community has more options to participate in clubs and activities. 

Soccer Tournament, 2013

One major example of this is Unione Italiana’s soccer tournament. As Jeremy has been involved in the club, he has witnessed the growth of the soccer tournament. A tournament that once started with just a few teams has grown to having over 170 participants at its last tournament. This soccer tournament has been a great way for people across campus to get involved and experience other cultures without excluding anyone. Even professors have brought their children to watch the games with them. Bringing the campus community together through events such as the soccer tournament makes Unione Italiana proud and they hope to continue to connect others through their events and meetings.

Unione Italiana serves as an accessible and family-like cultural group on campus. So join them at meetings, spend an evening at one of the lovely dinners or meet them on the field to compete in their soccer tournament.

Unione Italiana meets Sundays at 6pm in the Williams Center. 

Follow them on Twitter at: @Unione_Italiana.