NYC Mayor Skips Brooklyn Columbus Day Parade, Ghosts Queens Organizers; Italian American Community Disappointed
New York City is a city in Kings County, New York. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani skipped Brooklyn's annual Columbus Day Parade on Saturday, October 10, and ghosted organizers of a similar event in Astoria, Queens, drawing frustration from the city's Italian American community, the New York Post reported — the latest friction between Mamdani and Italian Americans.
Angie Markham, executive director of the Queens chapter of FAIO, which organizes the Astoria event, said the mayor's absence “isn't gonna make or break the event,” but added: “People wanna change history… The Spanish have a whole month. The blacks have a whole month. We have one day. Leave us alone!” Parade chairman Jerry Iannece, a criminal court judge, said the disdain for Columbus shown by Mamdani and other far-left politicians is “misguided.”
Carlo Scissura, vice chairman of FAIO of Brooklyn, declined to address the snub directly but said organizers are proud to host the annual parade, “a powerful celebration of Italian American heritage, pride and culture.” Many attendees at the Bensonhurst parade said they were disappointed but not shocked; one 72-year-old retired teacher said: “It's very disappointing because we elected him the mayor, and he is supposed to be representing everybody.”
Mamdani's friction with Italian Americans goes back years: in a June 2020 social media post he gave the middle finger to a Christopher Columbus statue in Queens and wrote “Take it down”; and in July his administration left Little Italy off a newly released city map of immigrant enclaves, prompting an outcry before the mayor insisted the list wasn't “exhaustive.” The Mayor's Office did not immediately return requests for comment.
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: Ad Meskens，CC BY-SA 3.0（Wikimedia Commons）
