In this episode we are joined by the creator of ‘Heapost’ Diego Filippozzi. Born in Belgium to Italian immigrants, he is proud of both his Italian and Belgian heritage. Diego told us about the experience of Italians who migrated to Belgium post world war 2 and of his own experience as a backpacker arriving in Australia in 2018. As a backpacker Diego learned about the challenges for backpackers in receiving mail, at times which may include vital documents. This inspired him to develop his unique service ‘Heapost’ which solves this problem completely for his customers. Listen to the chat to find out more. http://www.heapost.com.au/ http://www.instagram.com/heapostdigital http://www.youtube.com/@heapostdigital

Do you know why names are often repeated in Italian families? And do you know what Lukas’ name ‘should’ have been? We have a few fun facts for you! In this episode we discuss the Italian Australian experience of names including naming traditions from Italy and how they have both continued and evolved in the diaspora. We also talk about how names are abbreviated and/or translated. We also discuss the importance of names and the influence they may have on an individual.

In this episode you will hear about our experience at the Perth Italian Festival which we attended on the weekend. It won’t surprise our listeners to hear that we had an amazing time! Listen to this episode to hear about how the idea for the festival became a reality and an achievement for Frank Miranda AKA Mr Accordion Man, the Perth Italian Festival Incorporated, the City of Perth and everyone in involved. We are so grateful to have been given a base at the information booth where we based ourselves for the day and met some lovely people. The day was full of fun and entertainment with MC James Liotta bringing his energy and professionalism. The entertainment included Perth’s own Etta D’Elia and comedian Giuseppe the MC all the way from Canada. And of course we will tell you all about the food! For those who attend the festival we hope you had as much fun as we did and for those who couldn’t attend we have included a couple of clips recorded on the day, we hope you enjoy listening to this episode.

A few weeks ago we made it to ‘Woglife’ Nick Giannopoulos’ farewell tour at the Regal Theatre in Subiaco and it was an absolutely amazing performance. We have been fans of Nick and his work since we were children. As a Greek Australian performer, Nick has done so much in the entertainment business with a strong ethnic theme including Wogs out of Work, Acropolis Now and the Wog Boy films, here at the Italian Australian Podcast we consider him to have OG status. In this episode we give tribute to Nick and his hard work and his passion for his culture. We discuss ‘what is a Wog’, we have many laughs recounting some of Nick’s work and we discuss similarities of the experience of immigration for people coming to Australia.

We are officially in Holy Week and for this episode we were joined by our good friend and unofficial co-host Daniel Italiano for a fun chat about our Easter traditions. You will hear a lot of laughs and it won’t be surprising for our listeners to hear that food was a big topic for discussion along with celebrating with family and observing traditions throughout the period of lent.

We are thrilled to have finally gotten our beloved Nonna Maria on the Italian Australian Podcast. We have grown up extremely close with her and she has heavily impacted our lives and identity as Italian Australians. Born in Rome in 1936 she immigrated to Australia in 1960 with our Nonno and mum Rosalba. Like so many others, her experience of immigration was a struggle, however in some ways her experience was quite unique, being from Rome she found it hard to identify not only with Australian people but also the majority of other Italian immigrants who were predominantly from further south. This is a particularly special episode for us and we hope everyone enjoys it.

Our South Australian correspondent is back, invigorated after his recent trip back to Italy to attend the amazing Sanremo music festival. In his role as Station Manager at Radio Italiana 531, Marco and his team were proud to bring the energy and joy of Sanremo to Australia via the station and social media. If you haven’t already checked out the station’s updated app- follow the link below. https://linktr.ee/productionradioitaliana?utm_source=linktree_profile_share

We feel very fortunate to be involved with the upcoming Perth Italian Festival and for this episode two of the organisers joined us for a chat. Frank Miranda, AKA Mr Accordion Man and Sandro Barzotto, president of the Laguna Club are some of the passionate and hardworking people who are putting this event together. There have been Italian events in Perth in the past but this is the Inaugural Perth Italian Festival, sponsored by the city of Perth and presented by Perth Italian Festival Inc, a non for profit organisation. It will be held at Langley Park and runs day and night, entry is free and there will be something for everyone, all ages, including food, music, entertainment plus fireworks at 8:45pm. You don’t have to be Italian to enjoy this event, but on the day everyone will #beitalian! https://www.instagram.com/perthitalianfestival?igsh=bm45YXJqZXM0ZW5w

Our NSW correspondent is back, many of you will remember Joseph Sgambelluri from episode 14. We had a great time getting together again for this week’s episode and we loved having a chat about Joseph and his wife’s exciting times recently with the creation of their unique instagram page ‘The Italian Aussie Cook’ https://www.instagram.com/theitalianaussiecook?igsh=MXNuNm5rN2p4anVjeA== We enjoyed a discussion about how food is vital in connecting people to their culture. As always we got pretty excited talking about food so stay tuned for details about the meatball competition! Joseph also told us about some great Italian Australian places to visit in Sydney and of some exciting upcoming events.

For this episode we were joined by Canadian comedian Giuseppe Meleca AKA Giuseppe the MC. This incredibly funny and creative man is known around the globe and famous for his hilarious videos and skits which are all the more hilarious by the way he includes his Italian language, Calabrese. In this episode Giuseppe described his family’s story of immigration and his personal story of how he found his calling as a comedian. Listen in to hear about all of this plus the exciting details of Giuseppe’s upcoming performances in Australia. giuseppethemc.com fizlink.com/giuseppethemc