We're a little overwhelmed by the support and media coverage this little petition has garnered. We certainly ever expected anything like this. 

While we appreciate the positive response and feedback we have received from so many of you, we are also aware of the backlash that this petition has provoked, particularly among some in the Italian-American community. In a recent interview with Fox 8, Basil Russo, the organizer of the annual Columbus Day Parade in Cleveland argued that this petition is “insulting and degrading to the Italian-American community” and represents an attempt to “erase our history and our heritage by dictating to us who our heroes should be.”

We can appreciate why some people might think we created this petition in jest; however, while we injected some humor into it, this is a serious proposal in no way intended to be a joke or an insult to the Italian-American community. That so many people seem to believe Chef Boyardee is some fictional stereotype created to insult Italian-Americans, rather than a real person and immigrant success story, only serves to prove the value of erecting a statue to him.

There is one criticism that we can fully appreciate, and we wanted to take the chance to address it here. Mr. Russo alluded to it in his article, when he said that Columbus statues “were built and paid for by the immigrants and they stand in tribute to our community’s fight to overcome hatred and prejudice.” This is accurate.

The choice to celebrate and lionize Christopher Columbus was a conscious decision by Italian-Americans seeking to overcome serious prejudice and violence at the hands of nativist, xenophobic Americans. When Italians first began arriving in large numbers during the latter part of the 19th century, they were not seen as white, and they were the on the receiving end of widespread discrimination and abuse. Brent Staples from The New York Times did a masterful job outlining this history in an article last year. He described how President Benjamin Harrison declared Columbus Day a one-time national holiday in 1892 after a racist mob in New Orleans lynched 11 Italian immigrants falsely accused of killing the police chief. Latching onto the myth of Columbus as the nation’s supposed first immigrant “opened the door for Italian-Americans to write themselves into the American origin story.” This enabled Italian-Americans to assimilate into white culture, leaving behind their subordinate racial caste and gaining access to the benefits of white privilege in this country.

With that history in mind, we can understand why so many Italian-Americans would hold fast to that myth of the Great Christopher Columbus. But whatever utility that the Columbus myth may have had a century ago has long since expired. Too many racial and ethnic groups in this country have largely been excluded from accessing the benefits of whiteness. Indigenous Americans have made it clear for decades that the lionizing of Columbus and other colonizers who stole their lands and killed and enslaved their ancestors only serves to further cement their place on a lower rung of the racial hierarchy. If it was appropriate for Italian-Americans to create a cult of Columbus to counteract bigotry, it is equally appropriate for Indigenous Americans to demand the removal of Columbus statues and racist caricatures in their fight to counteract racism. To say otherwise is to call for pulling up the ladder.

Additionally, as we noted earlier, the fact that so many Italian-Americans seem to believe this petition was meant as an insult and that Chef Boiardi is a hateful stereotype is actually evidence of the value of erecting a statue to him. Typically, we build statues to mythologize real people, glossing over their flaws and complexities to construct the Great Man (and it’s almost always a man). Building a statue of Ettore Boiardi would do the opposite.

We have lost touch with the real person, replacing him with the caricature of the smiling old man in a white chef’s hat on a can of ravioli. By putting up a statue to this man in Cleveland, the city where he lived for decades and achieved the American dream, we can work to reclaim the real person behind that image: a man who arrived in this country as a teenager; may have faced some of this same discrimination; quickly rose through the ranks due to his obvious talent, catering the President’s wedding reception at age 17; started a number of successful restaurants in Cleveland, where he helped to mainstream Italian food and culture in this country; took the initiative to create a profitable food canning business; used that business to assist the Allies during World War II; sold his stake in that business to keep employees hired during the War on the payroll; and continued to lend his likeness and persona to a business that has fed millions of people since.

Mythologizing Columbus may have helped Italian-Americans assimilate into this country, but Ettore Boiardi played an important role too. He lived that assimilation process for seven decades and touched countless lives along the way. He enriched our community. Columbus never set foot here. Boiardi built up this city and helped establish its thriving Italian-American community; Columbus tore down villages and helped lay the groundwork for the system of white supremacy that would lash out at Italian immigrants. We feel it’s time to celebrate someone worth celebrating, and that man is Chef Ettore (Hector) Boiardi (Boyardee). No joke.