The long-awaited book Images of America: Italian Oakland, by
now-retired award-winning Oakland Tribune reporter and columnist
Rick Malaspina, portrays East Bay Italians through some 200
vintage photographs, interviews and commentary. Rick emailed me
that his book, with the assistance of actual family remembrances
and photographs, was his parting gift to the Italian community
before relocating to South Carolina. I researched the history of
the East Bay Italian community, asked a lot of questions and
interviewed some Colombo Club members who enlightened me how
their social club fits into the cultural paradigm of Oakland,
specifically those who hailed from Italy’s north-western region.
Immigrant Italians, mostly from Piedmonte and Liguria, who had
settled in San Francisco’s Little Italy in the 19th century,
became dislocated when the 1906 earthquake toppled The City from
its foundations and entire neighborhoods were consumed by fires.
They picked up their possessions and relocated across the bay to
Oakland where