Omaha, Carlentini youth ‘crossed an ocean’ with art bolstering sister city bond

OMAHA — Jonathan Lopez stepped back to soak in the entirety of the binational, multifaceted mural he and other young students helped to paint across a gym wall at Pine Elementary in Omaha’s Little Italy neighborhood.

What stood out to the 8-year-old: On the left half of the canvas that stretched 26 feet wide and 4 feet high were familiar Omaha images such as the Henry Doorly Zoo, Durham Museum, Lauritzen Gardens, St. Frances Cabrini Church and his own schoolyard.

On the right half, Jonathan noted less recognizable but iconic scenes from Omaha’s Italian sister city, Carlentini, Sicily. They included houses built into a mountainside overlooking a waterway, emperor Carlo V on a horse and the baroque-style Chiesa Madre church.

In the center was a handshake depicting the partnership, and each country’s respective flag.

The in-progress mural — engineered and directed by local artist Lita De La Guardia, whose family roots are in Carlentini — represents an evolving and deepening tie between Omaha and the sister city from where many of Nebraska’s Italian families descended. 

Kids front and center

In this project, children are front and center. Vistas, buildings and cultural highlights depicted within the art were inspired by public school students from both Omaha and Carlentini. De La Guardia said Pine Elementary K-5 students helped paint in various child figures in the lower third of the mural. Volunteer artists from Omaha’s Little Italy Artist Guild helped paint and produce the multi-panel artwork she calls a monument because of its permanence, civic significance and “enduring historical weight” in linking the community to its heritage.

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“A mural decorates a wall, but a monument honors a legacy and anchors a movement,” she said, describing the painting with 3-D elements as “a physical testimony honoring the hard work and shared legacy of international student ambassadors.” 

Similar artwork will be installed in a pair of Carlentini public schools as part of the student exchange dubbed “Little Hearts, Big Roots.” The creative exchange is the first phase of a larger, multiyear effort called “United in Our Roots: A Tale of Two Cities in a Cultural Art Collaboration.”

“It makes me feel proud,” Jonathan said on a recent day he, schoolmates and volunteer adult artists met in the Pine Elementary gym.

“The houses are different,” he said, comparing Omaha and Carlentini. “The kids look the same.” 

Jonathan’s school south of downtown Omaha near 10th and Pine Streets became the setting for the mural due to its location in Omaha’s Little Italy, a neighborhood so named because it was the landing place for many Sicilian immigrants. Indeed, an emigration wave more than a century ago sent nearly half the population of Carlentini across the Atlantic Ocean to America to work, with the biggest share settling in Omaha.

The official sister city title came more recently. In 2024, fueled by younger generations’ thirst to better know their motherland, Omaha Italian-American groups succeeded in a push to name Omaha and Carlentini official sister cities, a bond solidified in agreements signed by mayors of both places. Such relationships are intended to build business, educational and cultural ties between countries.

Nebraska creative designation 

On Aug. 12, Omaha Mayor John Ewing Jr. is to be keynote speaker at a 5:30 p.m. event to celebrate students involved in the project and to mark the monument’s public reveal.

Omaha’s ‘Little Italy’ youth, via art, fortify bridge to Italian sister city Carlentini

Many youths from Pine Elementary and the Little Italy area share Sicilian roots, but not all have visited the country of their ancestors. Others are of different heritages that have their own distinct migration experience, but are growing up with influences of the Little Italy area.

“They have crossed the ocean with all their beautiful art work,” De La Guardia said. 

In addition to stirring student interest, she said, the monument is a “critical notch” in an effort by Omaha’s Little Italy Artist Guild to formally establish a recognized creative district in historic Little Italy. Such districts form with support of local government, community partners and official certification from the Nebraska Arts Council. Certification helps promote tourism, economic development and opens doors to special development grants through the council.

De La Guardia said public art projects are part of the creative district designation process. Other of the guild’s planned undertakings include painting Little Italy light poles and Dahlman Park benches with colorful  immigrant-centric scenes.

‘Language of its own’

This week, students and community volunteers are putting finishing touches on the monument painting at Pine Elementary. The installation followed De La Guardia’s return from Carlentini, where she had taken artwork created earlier this year by the Pine Elementary students. That artwork, which reflected their everyday Nebraska lives, also was the foundation for workshops De La Guardia held for elementary school students in two Carlentini schools. It all contributed to the making of the monument.

“To commemorate history and transform a space into a lasting community milestone,” said De La Guardia.

Ezra Salazar and Galilea Chavez Salazar were among younger artists who participated in the project and helped paint the clothes and faces of youths in the monument.

Ezra was fascinated by the horseman identified as Carlo V, saying he looked like a character from “a long long time ago.”

“I think it looks amazing,” Galilea said of the collage of images. 

Cirilla Jensen, 10, took on a more detailed task of painting foliage.

“I’m Bob Ross-ing it,” she kidded, referring to the famous painter and TV host.

De La Guardia plans to return to the island of Sicily in September to install the matching school murals as well as to dedicate a library space at one of the schools through the De La Guardia Foundation of Art & Literacy. In November, she said, the mayor of Carlentini is to hold a ribbon-cutting ceremony and will introduce the administrative entity that will oversee the next Carlentini-based phases of the broader United in Our Roots effort.

In those later phases, four American artists and four Sicilian artists are to be selected to help create future public murals, mosaics and sculptures across the sister cities.

De La Guardia, a therapeutic art practitioner, said she has invested her time for the love of art and to keep alive a bond between the Sicilian city where her mom was born before emigrating and later raising a family in Omaha.

“Art has a language of its own,” De La Guardia said. “It has pride. It gives us something to talk about. It brings communities together.”