LIVING MEMORY
A connection can begin again from a photograph
A family photograph, a recipe, a last name, or a word in dialect can lead back to a village, a home, a street, a community.
Here the story begins with Schiavi di Abruzzo and Paraguay, but it remains open to other Abruzzese memories around the world.
WHERE TO BEGIN
Four ways into the stories
Photo exhibition
Images, places, and testimonies that give a face to the memory between Schiavi di Abruzzo and Paraguay.
Recipes and families
Cuisine, gestures, and flavors that still speak of homes, seasons, and belonging.
Global roots
Abruzzese stories that traveled far, across Argentina, the United States, sports, work, and community.
Returns
Contemporary stories where the bond with Abruzzo becomes presence, care, and relationship.
DIGITAL EXHIBITION
Schiavi and Paraguay: images to rediscover an origin
From Schiavi di Abruzzo to Paraguay runs a thread made of departures, photographs, recipes, homes, landscapes, and villages named from afar.
The exhibition gathers fragments of family and community memory: not to close them inside an archive, but to let other people recognize them and carry them forward.
FRAGMENTS
Three ways to enter the exhibition
The remembered village
Villages, homes, streets, and landscapes that give a face to the places named in family stories.
Family memory
Photographs, words, documents, recipes, and small objects that tell stories of departures and continuity.
The community around the world
Faces, encounters, and shared traces from people who still feel Abruzzo within their story.
FROM THE COMMUNITY
More stories that return
Photographs and memories shared around the world create new connections across places, skills, and generations.
SCHIAVI AND THE UNITED STATES
From Schiavi to Reading: a family built through work
From Pennsylvania’s coal mines to a family business, from cooking to sewing: photographs and memories tell how three generations of the Tucci family built a new life in America while keeping their connection with Abruzzo alive.
Story and photographic archive shared by Polly Corvaia and the Tucci family.
RECIPES AND FAMILIES
Cuisine as memory
A recipe can cross the ocean, change ingredients, and still speak of home, family, seasons, and territory.
For many descendants, it is one of the first languages of origin: a flavor that leads back to a village, even when that village has never been visited.
RECIPES AS STORIES
Three paths to open
Pasta alla Mugnaia
Why tell it. It is a recipe made of gestures: flour, water, hands, rhythm, and sharing. More than a dish, it tells of families, shared tables, celebrations, and visible know-how.
What to collect. Family photos, memories of preparation, sauce variations, stories of celebrations or demonstrations, even outside Abruzzo.
Pizza e foje
Why tell it. Vegetables, herbs, corn pizza, fire, and seasons: an essential cuisine that turns simplicity into family identity.
What to collect. Dialect names for herbs, memories of gathering, photographs, family variations, and adaptations created by emigrant families.
Pallotte cac’ e ove
Why tell them. Cheese, eggs, and sauce become a simple, recognizable family recipe: a dish that changes from home to home.
What to collect. Family variations, the kind of cheese used, memories of Sunday lunches, photographs, and versions created abroad.
GLOBAL ROOTS
When a local story travels far
Some Abruzzese stories have entered sports, work, and the imagination of emigrant communities. Recognizing a local origin can become a simple threshold for looking at Abruzzo again.
FANGIO
From Abruzzo to Argentina: the roots of a legend
Juan Manuel Fangio was born in Balcarce, Argentina, into a family of Italian origin. Family memory also points to inland Abruzzo: Castiglione Messer Marino on the Fangio side and Tornareccio on the Déramo side.
For Abruzzese communities in South America, a story like this can become more than a famous name: it is a way to see how a local origin can enter the global imagination.
TOLLO AND BASEBALL
From Tollo to the Dodgers: sports, family, and memory
Tommy Lasorda was born in Pennsylvania into a family of Abruzzese origin. His father, Sabatino Lasorda, had emigrated from Tollo, in the province of Chieti.
His path in American baseball makes it possible to read a diaspora story through an Abruzzese village, an emigrant family, sport, and a memory that still speaks of origin.
BONDS THAT BECOME PRESENCE
When the bond becomes presence
Sometimes a root, a family memory, or an affinity built over time becomes return, attention, hospitality, care for the territory, and new relationships.
This section gathers contemporary stories in which a connection with Abruzzo generates concrete actions.
Mario Daniele – San Pio delle Camere
A contemporary story of emigration, enterprise, and giving back to the territory.
Connected to Castelnuovo di San Pio delle Camere, Mario Daniele represents a concrete form of return: not only memory, but attention, initiatives, care, and new relationships with the village of origin.
This profile can grow with photographs, testimonies, and family materials connected to Abruzzese villages.
A CONNECTION IN ACTION
Bolognano
↕
United States
Territory
Wine and local know-how
International relationships
BOLOGNANO AND THE UNITED STATES
From a personal connection to promoting the territory
A story of affinity, productive culture, and international relationships.
Anthony and Claire Laveglia chose Bolognano as their “home of the heart” and, through sustained promotional work in the United States, helped introduce the area’s wine excellence to a wider audience.
In September 2025, the Municipality granted them honorary citizenship, recognizing the value of a connection capable of creating concrete relationships between Abruzzo, its products, and an international audience.
Their story shows how a connection with Abruzzo can grow from family roots, but also from affinity and a relationship built over time.
Source: Municipality of Bolognano, ceremony held on September 25, 2025.
CONTINUE THE JOURNEY
From stories to places
From a memory, you can reach a village, an experience, a product, or a new relationship with Abruzzo.
FROM MEMORY TO STORY
Do you have a photo, a recipe, or a memory connected to Abruzzo?
A family story can help other people recognize a place, find a name again, or imagine a return.
Contacts
Contribute, suggest, learn more.
You can write to us to share a story, send materials or photographs, suggest a recipe, point out a local organization or business, or explore possible community and institutional connections.
Memories
Family stories and photographs.
Traditions
Recipes, words, and know-how.
Connections
Communities, territories, and networks.
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ABRUZZO CONNECTIONS
From Roots to Relationships
A digital space to connect Abruzzo, Abruzzese communities around the world, stories, territories, experiences, and local know-how.
QUICK LINKS
THE PROJECT
Abruzzo Connections was created as part of the “Radici che Uniscono” project, promoted by the Association of Abruzzese People in Paraguay and carried out with the support of CRAM – Regional Council of Abruzzese Communities Abroad / Abruzzo Region. CUP: C74H25000280009.
Photo credits: Marco Cirulli, Daniele Mauro, Angelo Ninni, Onayer Rosa Garrido, and Giampaolo Di Biase
© 2026 Associazione degli Abruzzesi in Paraguay — Abruzzo Connections.
All rights reserved, except for materials credited to their respective authors and rights holders.
All rights reserved, except for materials credited to their respective authors and rights holders.