Omahans in Sicily, Italy build upon ‘sister city’ ties with Carlentini  

OMAHA — Omaha’s sister city of Carlentini, on the Sicilian island from which most local Italians descended, has further cemented a connection with its Nebraska partners. 

As dozens of Omahans visited Carlentini last weekend, officials in the town some 5,000 miles away put final touches on a sister city pact that started forming several years back.

The mayors of Carlentini and Omaha had already signed an official “twinning” agreement last year when Mayor Giuseppe Stefio was in Omaha. But Saturday’s ceremony marked Carlentini’s turn to celebrate on its turf, among its 17,000 residents.

The event coincided with Carlentini’s 404th Santa Lucia festival and another Omaha-related highlight: the dedication of a Carlentini amphitheater named in honor of the late Omaha City Councilman Sebastian “Subby” Anzaldo. 

‘Breathtaking’ setting

Anzaldo was born in Omaha in 1933 to Carlentini immigrants Antonio and Lucia (Vacirca) Anzaldo, who were among the earliest waves of Italians to settle in the city where Subby eventually rose to be an interim mayor. 

“The City Council chose to name the modern amphitheater after Subby Anzaldo, son of Carlentini,” Stefio said, noting the project site’s “breathtaking” scenic setting near Mount Etna and Lake Lentini. “The location of this structure offers the same view that the ancient Greeks, the city’s founders, saw from the Greek theater that once stood in the ancient city.”

A mayoral spokesman told the Nebraska Examiner that Carlentini in recent years has funded a series of urban redevelopment projects, including the revival of old buildings and parks. He said that many of those monuments have been named after Carlentini citizens “deserving of public recognition.”

Stefio wanted to name the new 500-seat amphitheater, which is under construction outside a newly renovated cultural center, after a “successful performer and entrepreneur” whose roots are in Carlentini. The mayoral spokesman said Anzaldo, who died in 2019 at age 86, “fits the bill.” 

Anzaldo was a musician and entertainment agent who brought star power to Omaha that included Count Basie, Duke Ellington and Dizzy Gillespie. Stefio said he has been impressed as well by Anzaldo’s lengthy public service and builder of housing for inner-city Omaha populations.

Among those participating in the amphitheater dedication — as well as a related concert featuring Subby Anzaldo Jr. and other Omaha performers — was an official Omaha Sister Cities Association delegation of about 30 people. Members of the Anzaldo family also were present, as were about 20 other guests from Nebraska.

OSCA president Steve Gerdes and City Council President Pete Festersen, who represented the City of Omaha, were part of the contingent that toured landmarks and were recognized at various events.

“It’s a great cultural exchange and friendship we have between these communities — the history is amazing,” said Festersen. Guests paid their own travel expenses, he said.

Salerno brothers

Gerdes during one presentation offered a brief history of the relationship between the two cities, which dates back to around 1900, when Carlentini’s Salerno brothers, Joseph and Sebastiano, started recruiting workers to make the trek across the Atlantic Ocean to America.

Many of the Italian immigrants took railroad and packing plant jobs, and many settled in a neighborhood around Sixth and Pierce Streets near today’s downtown Omaha.

“They moved into the area that Omaha knows as Little Italy — but perhaps really should be known as Little Sicily or Little Carlentini,” Gerdes said, drawing applause from the group.

Today about two-thirds of Italian Americans living in the Omaha area have ancestral ties to Carlentini, he said. 

Rosetta Nastasi of Carlentini Omaha Association USA emigrated herself in the 1960s to Omaha and stayed about 14 years before returning to Carlentini, where she now lives. She said her experience helped her professionally and culturally, and she gave a shoutout to immigrants past and present.

“With the spirit of sacrifice, (they) left their homeland and began a new life in the USA, a land that still gives great opportunities,” Nastasi said.

Gerdes described the Carlentini signing ceremony as a reaffirmation of the sister city pact signed in Omaha in summer of 2024. A “friendship agreement” was formed a few years earlier, in 2021, as a step toward what he calls the sister city “twinning.”

Carlentini was Omaha’s eighth sister city, following similar pairings with places such as Shizuoka, Japan (the first, in 1965), Naas, Ireland and Xalapa, Mexico. A ninth bond was formed this summer with Jamestown, Ghana, in Africa.

Such partnerships lead to business, education, civic and social exchanges. 

Small world

In Carlentini, the town has named a park after Omaha: Parco Omaha. The City of Omaha, in turn, installed a “Carlentini Plaza” at one of its parks near downtown in the Little Italy neighborhood.

Educational, real estate and other projects between the two cities are growing. More family relationships are being discovered; friendships between residents are deepening.

Common to both Carlentini and Omaha is the Santa Lucia Festival. Omaha just held its 101st annual festival honoring Saint Lucy, a tradition started by immigrant Grazia Bonafede Caniglia, who came to Omaha from Carlentini in 1900. She wanted to recreate her hometown’s Santa Lucia Festival as a way for her ethnic enclave to maintain ties with their heritage.

Omahans increasingly are making the pilgrimage to Sicily for the summer festival and to reconnect with distant relatives they’ve grown to know better through social media and other groups formed over the past few years.

“I say thank you to all the people and the new generations for keeping alive the Sicilian culture,” said Nastasi.

Omahans Sarita “Sarah” Ruma and Todd Procopio, pausing their trip to talk to a reporter, spoke fondly about small world connections they feel when visiting the towns of Carlentini and neighboring Lentini.

They had just stopped in a coffee shop and a young man asked where they were from. Their response lit up his face, Ruma said, as they all realized he had relatives in Omaha. 

“I mean we’re 5,200 miles away, having coffee and taking a picture with somebody we know’s nephew,” said Ruma. “It gave us all goosebumps.”

Ruma is a co-president of the Sons and Daughters of Italy and Procopio represents the Santa Lucia Festival Committee and the Sicula Italia Foundation. The three organizations are active in the Omaha area’s Italian American community and the sister city partnership.

They said the amphitheater tribute to Anzaldo is another link.

“It’s one more really cool thing to connect us with Carlentini,” said Ruma. “It’s  another family. Another reason. It’s just another connection to our traditions and heritage.”

Anzaldo arrival, 1913

The Anzaldo tie goes back to 1913, when Subby’s father, Antonio, migrated to Omaha and opened a shoe shop in South Omaha. Antonio at the time was married to Carlentini native Giavannina DeFilippo and the pair had two children.

Mother and daughter passed away, and Antonio, according to family history, returned to Carlentini and married Lucia Vacirca.

The family returned to Omaha and had three more children, including Subby, who attended St. Peter’s Catholic grade school and church. He’d take the streetcar after school to his dad’s shoe store, absorbing the entrepreneurial spirit.

Subby learned to play the clarinet and saxophone and became a member of several bands before joining the Eddy Haddad Orchestra. He also played in Omaha’s Santa Lucia marching band.

Marriage to Janice Kipp led to five children. Most now live in Omaha, a few having returned to be near their mom after launching entertainment-related careers on the West Coast. An extended family network also is in Omaha. 

Over the years, Subby returned a few times to Carlentini and donated to local churches. He went there once for his sister’s wedding, and another time for Christmas after meeting son Terry, who was in Rome related to his job with Madonna and the premier of her movie Evita.

As a theatrical booking agent, Subby Anzaldo signed artists to perform at county fairs and concerts. While serving as president of the Omaha Musicians Union, he hired the orchestra to play locally for acts including Elvis Presley, Diana Ross and Barry Manilow.

Anzaldo later served on city boards including Planning and Parks & Recreation and was a three-term councilman in the late 1980s and 1990s, stepping up for about four months of that time to be interim mayor when another mayor resigned. He also served as a liaison between the City Council and Mayor Hal Daub.

Three months before he passed, the City of Omaha renamed South Omaha’s Columbus Park Community Center in honor of him. 

Son Terry Anzaldo, who spoke at the Carlentini dedication, said his dad never missed an opportunity to talk about his roots and remained involved with numerous cultural groups including the Italian-American Heritage Society. He said his dad was a proud family man who loved public service. 

Of the dedication, he said, “This is, in fact, the honor of his life.”